There was something in the curious serenity of him which calmed even his aide-de-camp. The Rat lay still and looked--and looked--and thought. And what he thought of was the desire of his heart. The soundlessness enwrapped him and there was no world left. That there was a spark of light in the mountain-climbers' rest-hut was a thing forgotten.
They were only two boys, and they had begun their journey on the earliest train and had been walking about all day and thinking of great and anxious things.
“It is so still,'' The Rat whispered again at last.
“It is so still,'' whispered Marco.
And the mountains rising behind each other and beside each other and beyond each other in the night, and also the myriads of stars which had so multiplied themselves, looking down knew that they were asleep--as sleep the human things which do not watch forever.
“Some one is smoking,'' Marco found himself saying in a dream.
After which he awakened and found that the smoke was not part of a dream at all. It came from the pipe of a young man who had an alpenstock and who looked as if he had climbed to see the sun rise. He wore the clothes of a climber and a green hat with a tuft at the back. He looked down at the two boys, surprised.
“Good day,'' he said. “Did you sleep here so that you could see the sun get up?''
“Yes,'' answered Marco.
“Were you cold?''
“We slept too soundly to know. And we brought our thick coats.''
“I slept half-way down the mountains,'' said the smoker. “I am a guide in these days, but I have not been one long enough to miss a sunrise it is no work to reach. My father and brother think I am mad about such things. They would rather stay in their beds. Oh! he is awake, is he?'' turning toward The Rat, who had risen on one elbow and was staring at him. “What is the matter? You look as if you were afraid of me.''
Marco did not wait for The Rat to recover his breath and speak.
“I know why he looks at you so,'' he answered for him. “He is startled. Yesterday we went to a hair-dresser's shop down below there, and we saw a man who was almost exactly like you--only --'' he added, looking up, “his eyes were gray and yours are brown.''
“He was my twin brother,'' said the guide, puffing at his pipe cheerfully. “My father thought he could make hair-dressers of us both, and I tried it for four years. But I always wanted to be climbing the mountains and there were not holidays enough. So I cut my hair, and washed the pomade out of it, and broke away.
I don't look like a hair-dresser now, do I?''
He did not. Not at all. But Marco knew him. He was the man.
There was no one on the mountain-top but themselves, and the sun was just showing a rim of gold above the farthest and highest giant's shoulders. One need not be afraid to do anything, since there was no one to see or hear. Marco slipped the sketch out of the slit in his sleeve. He looked at it and he looked at the guide, and then he showed it to him.
“That is not your brother. It is you!'' he said.
The man's face changed a little--more than any other face had changed when its owner had been spoken to. On a mountain-top as the sun rises one is not afraid.
“The Lamp is lighted,'' said Marco. “The Lamp is lighted.''
“God be thanked!'' burst forth the man. And he took off his hat and bared his head. Then the rim behind the mountain's shoulder leaped forth into a golden torrent of splendor.
And The Rat stood up, resting his weight on his crutches in utter silence, and stared and stared.
“That is three!'' said Marco.
