wkward. He stood up because his training had told him that when
a woman stands a man also rises.

"The name speaks for the courage," he said, "because it is my father's."

She watched him almost anxiously.

"You do not even know!" she breathed--and it was an exclamation and not
a question.

"I know what I have been told to do," he answered. "I do not ask
anything else."

"Who is that?" she asked, pointing to The Rat.

"He is the friend my father sent with me," said Marco smiling. "He
called him my aide-de-camp. It was a sort of joke because we had
played soldiers together."

It seemed as if she were obliged to collect her thoughts. She stood
with her hand at her mouth, looking down at the earth floor.

"God guard you!" she said at last. "You are very--very young!"

"But all his years," The Rat broke in, "he has been in training for
just this thing. He did not know it was training, but it was. A
soldier who had been trained for thirteen years would know his work."

He was so eager that he forgot she could not understand English. Marco
translated what he said into German and added: "What he says is true."

She nodded her head, still with questioning and anxious eyes.

"Yes. Yes," she muttered. "But you are very young." Then she asked
in a hesitating way:

"Will you not sit down until I do?"

"No," answered Marco. "I would not sit while my mother or grandmother
stood."

"Then I must sit--and forget," she said.

She passed her hand over her face as though she were sweeping away the
sudden puzzled trouble in her expression. Then she sat down, as if she
had obliged herself to become again the old peasant she had been when
they entered.

"All the way up the mountain you wondered why an old woman should be
given the Sign," she said. "You asked each other how she could be of
use."

Neither Marco nor The Rat said anything.

"When I was young and fresh," she went on. "I went to a castle over
the frontier to be foster-mother to a child who was born a great
noble--one who was near the throne. He loved me and I loved him. He
was a strong child and he grew up a great hunter and climber. When he
was not ten years old, my man taught him to climb. He always loved
these mountains better than his own. He comes to see me as if he were
only a young mountaineer. He sleeps in the room there," with a gesture
over her shoulder into the darkness. "He has great power and, if he
chooses to do a thing,