"I cannot. Each man follows his own destiny."
"And yours--?"
"To sit and study the heavens until I find myself worthy of lowering my
eyes."
"A strange destiny."
"All destinies are strange."
"I am selfish enough to ask your help."
"I have none to give."
"No advice?"
"One inconsequential bit perhaps. To the east is a settlement called
Almora. Trading caravans leave from there for the higher country--and
across."
"Thank you."
"The goat is ready to be milked. Refresh yourself before you go...."
* * * * *
Now Almora was far behind. And far behind was the trading caravan and
the men who took his money and left him to die many days later in the
cold foothills. But he had not died.
And far behind were the more kindly natives of the colder, windier
places who clothed and fed him, treating him as a mad child rather than
a man. He left them and they shrugged and let him go. As though perhaps
they had seen other mad ones go before him.
And he had gone on--higher and higher--driven by an ever-increasing
fever in an ever thinner and more emaciated body. Until, it seemed, he
could go no further. He lay for days in a small cave with the icy winds
snarling at the entrance while he wrestled with two fevers--one in his
spirit and one flaming through his flesh and his bones.
He called in his agony to the man with the golden eyes, but there was
no response. An age passed; an age of semiconsciousness; another; then
he slept.
When he awoke the physical fever was gone and the spiritual fever had
changed to something else; something he had never before known. He lay
for a long time, studying it, analyzing it.
_Then he knew._
He knew and he smiled and got up and walked out of the cave, a pale
wraith of a wasted man; little more than an apparition that appeared
hardly able to stand. Yet he felt stronger and happier than ever
before in his life. His happiness came from the knowledge that his new
strength and understanding had not been given him; that he had earned
it; that he had paid bit by bit with his suffering.
He told himself, _I was not helped. Only guided. I could have died. No
one protected me._
_And now I understand._
He left the cave and climbed, sure-footed, to a higher plateau. Here
there was no snow. Only wind-swept rock and meager soil. He walked
until he came to his destination.
It was another hut; this one of sod and rock to stand against the wind
and the cold. A man sat in the doorway, swathed in furs. His skin was
dark from the weather, but it was impossible to call him either old or
young.
Lee did not even dwell on these points. He only knew--from his
new perception, from the new mysticism he had earned with his
suffering--that the hut and the man would be there; that no chance had
brought him; that all had been arranged as surely as sunrise.