But not Rodman, and not, I
think, Giovanni. There's the attitude that we can't understand
in a genius - did you ever know a man with an inventive mind who
doubted a miracle? A thing like that did not seem unreasonable
to Rodman.
The two men spent the remainder of the night looking at the
present that the creature brought Rodman in his prayer-carpet.
They wanted to know where the Oriental got it, and that's how his
story came out.
He was something - searcher, seems our nearest English word to it
- in the great Shan Monastery on the southeastern plateau of the
Gobi. He was looking for Rodman because he had the light - here
was another word that the two men could find no term in any
modern language to translate; a little flame, was the literal
meaning.
The present was from the treasure-room of the monastery; the very
carpet around it, Giovanni said, was worth twenty thousand lire.
There was another thing that came out in the talk that Giovanni
afterward recalled. Rodman was to accept the present and the man
who brought it to him. The Oriental would protect him, in every
way, in every direction, from things visible and invisible.
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