"The Lamp is lighted," he said, in his low but strong and clear young voice. She dropped her knitting upon her knees and gazed at him a moment in silence. She knew German it was clear, for it was in German she answered him. "God be thanked!" she said. "Come in, young Bearer of the Sign, and bring your friend in with you. I live alone and not a soul is within hearing." She was a wonderful old woman. Neither Marco nor The Rat would live long enough to forget the hours they spent in her strange dark house. She kept them and made them spend the night with her. "It is quite safe," she said. "I live alone since my man fell into the crevasse and was killed because his rope broke when he was trying to save his comrade. So I have two rooms to spare and sometimes climbers are glad to sleep in them. Mine is a good warm house and I am well known in the village. You are very young," she added shaking her head. "You are very young. You must have good blood in your veins to be trusted with this." "I have my father's blood," answered Marco. "You are like some one I once saw," the old woman said, and her eagle eyes set themselves hard upon him. "Tell me your name." There was no reason why he should not tell it to her. "It is Marco Loristan," he said. "What! It is that!" she cried out, not loud but low. To Marco's amazement she got up from her chair and stood before him, showing what a tall old woman she really was. There was a startled, even an agitated, look in her face. And suddenly she actually made a sort of curtsey to him--bending her knee as peasants do when they pass a shrine. "It is that!" she said again. "And yet they dare let you go on a journey like this! That speaks for your courage and for theirs." But Marco did not know what she meant. Her strange obeisance made him feel awkward. 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.