eir attic had only one
window, the sun shone in through it as they ate their breakfast. After
it, they leaned on the window's ledge and talked about the Prince's
garden. They talked about it because it was a place open to the public
and they had walked round it more than once. The palace, which was not
a large one, stood in the midst of it. The Prince was good-natured
enough to allow quiet and well-behaved people to saunter through. It
was not a fashionable promenade but a pleasant retreat for people who
sometimes took their work or books and sat on the seats placed here and
there among the shrubs and flowers.

"When we were there the first time, I noticed two things," Marco said.
"There is a stone balcony which juts out from the side of the palace
which looks on the Fountain Garden. That day there were chairs on it
as if the Prince and his visitors sometimes sat there. Near it, there
was a very large evergreen shrub and I saw that there was a hollow
place inside it. If some one wanted to stay in the gardens all night
to watch the windows when they were lighted and see if any one came out
alone upon the balcony, he could hide himself in the hollow place and
stay there until the morning."

"Is there room for two inside the shrub?" The Rat asked.

"No. I must go alone," said Marco.

XXV

A VOICE IN THE NIGHT

Late that afternoon there wandered about the gardens two quiet,
inconspicuous, rather poorly dressed boys. They looked at the palace,
the shrubs, and the flower-beds, as strangers usually did, and they sat
on the seats and talked as people were accustomed to seeing boys talk
together. It was a sunny day and exceptionally warm, and there were
more saunterers and sitters than usual, which was perhaps the reason
why the portier at the entrance gates gave such slight notice to the
pair that he did not observe that, though two boys came in, only one
went out. He did not, in fact, remember, when he saw The Rat swing by
on his crutches at closing-time, that he had entered in company with a
dark-haired lad who walked without any aid. It happened that, when
The Rat passed out, the portier at the entrance was much interested in
the aspect of the sky, which was curiously threatening. There had been
heavy clouds hanging about all day and now and then blotting out the
sunshine entirely, but the sun had refused to retire altogether. Just
now, however, the clouds had piled themselves in thunderous, purplish