e and
stand under it."

Marco did as he was told. The shaft of moonlight fell upon his
uplifted face and showed its young strength and darkness, quite
splendid for the moment in a triumphant glow of joy in obstacles
overcome. Raindrops hung on his hair, but he did not look draggled,
only very wet and picturesque. He had reached his man. He had given
the Sign.

The Prince looked him over with interested curiosity.

"Yes," he said in his cool, rather dragging voice. "You are the son of
Stefan Loristan. Also you must be taken care of. You must come with
me. I have trained my household to remain in its own quarters until I
require its service. I have attached to my own apartments a good safe
little room where I sometimes keep people. You can dry your clothes
and sleep there. When the gardens are opened again, the rest will be
easy."

But though he stepped out from under the trees and began to move
towards the palace in the shadow, Marco noticed that he moved
hesitatingly, as if he had not quite decided what he should do. He
stopped rather suddenly and turned again to Marco, who was following
him.

"There is some one in the room I just now left," he said, "an old
man--whom it might interest to see you. It might also be a good thing
for him to feel interest in you. I choose that he shall see you--as
you are."

"I am at your command, Highness," Marco answered. He knew his
companion was smiling again.

"You have been in training for more centuries than you know," he said;
"and your father has prepared you to encounter the unexpected without
surprise."

They passed under the balcony and paused at a low stone doorway hidden
behind shrubs. The door was a beautiful one, Marco saw when it was
opened, and the corridor disclosed was beautiful also, though it had an
air of quiet and aloofness which was not so much secret as private. A
perfect though narrow staircase mounted from it to the next floor.
After ascending it, the Prince led the way through a short corridor and
stopped at the door at the end of it. "We are going in here," he said.

It was a wonderful room--the one which opened on to the balcony. Each
piece of furniture in it, the hangings, the tapestries, and pictures on
the wall were all such as might well have found themselves adorning a
museum. Marco remembered the common report of his escort's favorite
amusement of collecting wonders and furnishing his house with the
things others exhibited