During the next week, which they spent in journeying towards Vienna, they gave the Sign to three different persons at places which were on the way. In a village across the frontier in Bavaria they found a giant of an old man sitting on a bench under a tree before his mountain “Gasthaus'' or inn; and when the four words were uttered, he stood up and bared his head as the guide had done. When Marco gave the Sign in some quiet place to a man who was alone, he noticed that they all did this and said their “God be thanked'' devoutly, as if it were part of some religious ceremony. In a small town a few miles away he had to search some hours before he found a stalwart young shoemaker with bright red hair and a horseshoe-shaped scar on his forehead. He was not in his workshop when the boys first passed it, because, as they found out later, he had been climbing a mountain the day before, and had been detained in the descent because his companion had hurt himself.
When Marco went in and asked him to measure him for a pair of shoes, he was quite friendly and told them all about it.
“There are some good fellows who should not climb,'' he said.
“When they find themselves standing on a bit of rock jutting out over emptiness, their heads begin to whirl round--and then, if they don't turn head over heels a few thousand feet, it is because some comrade is near enough to drag them back. There can be no ceremony then and they sometimes get hurt--as my friend did yesterday.''
“Did you never get hurt yourself?'' The Rat asked.
“When I was eight years old I did that,'' said the young shoemaker, touching the scar on his forehead. “But it was not much. My father was a guide and took me with him. He wanted me to begin early. There is nothing like it--climbing. I shall be at it again. This won't do for me. I tried shoemaking because Iwas in love with a girl who wanted me to stay at home. She married another man. I am glad of it. Once a guide, always a guide.'' He knelt down to measure Marco's foot, and Marco bent a little forward.
“The Lamp is lighted,'' he said.
There was no one in the shop, but the door was open and people were passing in the narrow street; so the shoemaker did not lift his red head. He went on measuring.
“God be thanked!'' he said, in a low voice. “Do you want these shoes really, or did you only want me to take your measure?''
“I cannot wait until they are made,'' Marco answered. “I must go on.''
“Yes, you must go on,'' answered the shoemaker. “But I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll make them and keep them. Some great day might come when I shall show them to people and swagger about them.'' He glanced round cautiously, and then ended, still bending over his measuring. “They will be called the shoes of the Bearer of the Sign. And I shall say, `He was only a lad.
This was the size of his foot.' '' Then he stood up with a great smile.
“There'll be climbing enough to be done now,'' he said, “and Ilook to see you again somewhere.''
When the boys went away, they talked it over.
“The hair-dresser didn't want to be a hair-dresser, and the shoemaker didn't want to make shoes,'' said The Rat. “They both wanted to be mountain-climbers. There are mountains in Samavia and mountains on the way to it. You showed them to me on the map.
“Yes; and secret messengers who can climb anywhere, and cross dangerous places, and reconnoiter from points no one else can reach, can find out things and give signals other men cannot,'' said Marco.
“That's what I thought out,'' The Rat answered. “That was what he meant when he said, `There will be climbing enough to be done now.' ''
Strange were the places they went to and curiously unlike each other were the people to whom they carried their message. The most singular of all was an old woman who lived in so remote a place that the road which wound round and round the mountain, wound round it for miles and miles. It was not a bad road and it was an amazing one to travel, dragged in a small cart by a mule, when one could be dragged, and clambering slowly with rests between when one could not: the tree-covered precipices one looked down, the tossing whiteness of waterfalls, or the green foaming of rushing streams, and the immensity of farm- and village- scattered plains spreading themselves to the feet of other mountains shutting them in were breath-taking beauties to look down on, as the road mounted and wound round and round and higher and higher.
“How can any one live higher than this?'' said The Rat as they sat on the thick moss by the wayside after the mule and cart had left them. “Look at the bare crags looming up above there. Let us look at her again. Her picture looked as if she were a hundred years old.''
Marco took out his hidden sketch. It seemed surely one of the strangest things in the world that a creature as old as this one seemed could reach such a place, or, having reached it, could ever descend to the world again to give aid to any person or thing.
Her old face was crossed and recrossed with a thousand wrinkles.
Her profile was splendid yet and she had been a beauty in her day. Her eyes were like an eagle's--and not an old eagle's. And she had a long neck which held her old head high.
“How could she get here?'' exclaimed The Rat.
“Those who sent us know, though we don't,'' said Marco. “Will you sit here and rest while I go on further?''
“No!'' The Rat answered stubbornly. “I didn't train myself to stay behind. But we shall come to bare-rock climbing soon and then I shall be obliged to stop,'' and he said the last bitterly.
He knew that, if Marco had come alone, he would have ridden in no cart but would have trudged upward and onward sturdily to the end of his journey.
