the fact that the
handsome royal lad had strolled into the morning sunshine singing made
them more savage. Their language was extremely bad at this point.

But if it was bad here, it became worse when the old shepherd found the
young huntsman's half-dead body in the forest. He HAD "bin 'done for'
IN THE BACK! 'E'd bin give' no charnst. G-r-r-r!" they groaned in
chorus. "Wisht THEY'D bin there when 'e'd bin 'it! They'd 'ave done
fur somebody" themselves. It was a story which had a queer effect on
them. It made them think they saw things; it fired their blood; it set
them wanting to fight for ideals they knew nothing about--adventurous
things, for instance, and high and noble young princes who were full of
the possibility of great and good deeds. Sitting upon the broken
flagstones of the bit of ground behind the deserted graveyard, they
were suddenly dragged into the world of romance, and noble young
princes and great and good deeds became as real as the sunken
gravestones, and far more interesting.

And then the smuggling across the frontier of the unconscious prince in
the bullock cart loaded with sheepskins! They held their breaths.
Would the old shepherd get him past the line! Marco, who was lost in
the recital himself, told it as if he had been present. He felt as if
he had, and as this was the first time he had ever told it to thrilled
listeners, his imagination got him in its grip, and his heart jumped in
his breast as he was sure the old man's must have done when the guard
stopped his cart and asked him what he was carrying out of the country.
He knew he must have had to call up all his strength to force his voice
into steadiness.

And then the good monks! He had to stop to explain what a monk was,
and when he described the solitude of the ancient monastery, and its
walled gardens full of flowers and old simples to be used for healing,
and the wise monks walking in the silence and the sun, the boys stared
a little helplessly, but still as if they were vaguely pleased by the
picture.

And then there was no more to tell--no more. There it broke off, and
something like a low howl of dismay broke from the semicircle.

"Aw!" they protested, "it 'adn't ought to stop there! Ain't there no
more? Is that all there is?"

"It's all that was ever known really. And that last part might only be
a sort of story made up by somebody. But I believe it myself."

The Rat had listened with burning eyes. He had