At the end of the cavern a block of stone had been cut out to look like an altar.  It was covered with white, and against the wall above it hung a large picture veiled by a curtain.  From the roof there swung before it an ancient lamp of metal suspended by chains.  In front of the altar was a sort of stone dais.  There the priest asked Marco to stand, with his aide-de-camp on the lower level in attendance.  A knot of the biggest herdsmen went out and returned.  Each carried a huge sword which had perhaps been of the earliest made in the dark days gone by.  The bearers formed themselves into a line on either side of Marco.  They raised their swords and formed a pointed arch above his head and a passage twelve men long.  When the points first clashed together The Rat struck himself hard upon his breast.  His exultation was too keen to endure.  He gazed at Marco standing still—­in that curiously splendid way in which both he and his father could stand still—­and wondered how he could do it.  He looked as if he were prepared for any strange thing which could happen to him—­because he was “under orders.”  The Rat knew that he was doing whatsoever he did merely for his father’s sake.  It was as if he felt that he was representing his father, though he was a mere boy; and that because of this, boy as he was, he must bear himself nobly and remain outwardly undisturbed.

At the end of the arch of swords, the old priest stood and gave a sign to one man after another.  When the sign was given to a man he walked under the arch to the dais, and there knelt and, lifting Marco’s hand to his lips, kissed it with passionate fervor.  Then he returned to the place he had left.  One after another passed up the aisle of swords, one after another knelt, one after the other kissed the brown young hand, rose and went away.  Sometimes The Rat heard a few words which sounded almost like a murmured prayer, sometimes he heard a sob as a shaggy head bent, again and again he saw eyes wet with tears.  Once or twice Marco spoke a few Samavian words, and the face of the man spoken to flamed with joy.  The Rat had time to see, as Marco had seen, that many of the faces were not those of peasants.  Some of them were clear cut and subtle and of the type of scholars or nobles.  It took a long time for them all to kneel and kiss the lad’s hand, but no man omitted the ceremony; and when at last it was at an end, a strange silence filled the cavern.  They stood and gazed at each other with burning eyes.

The priest moved to Marco’s side, and stood near the altar.  He leaned forward and took in his hand a cord which hung from the veiled picture—­he drew it and the curtain fell apart.  There seemed to stand gazing at them from between its folds a tall kingly youth with deep eyes in which the stars of God were stilly shining, and with a smile wonderful to behold.  Around the heavy locks of his black hair the long dead painter of missals had set a faint glow of light like a halo.