Fathers and sons -- Fiction; People with disabilities -- Fiction; Princes -- Fiction; Refugees -- Fiction
"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.
XXIII
THE SILVER HORN
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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