The day was a brilliant one, and, though their 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 mountains, and the sun had been forced to set behind them.

“It’s been a sort of battle since morning,” the portier said.  “There will be some crashes and cataracts to-night.”  That was what The Rat had thought when they had sat in the Fountain Garden on a seat which gave them a good view of the balcony and the big evergreen shrub, which they knew had the hollow in the middle, though its circumference was so imposing.  “If there should be a big storm, the evergreen will not save you much, though it may keep off the worst,” The Rat said.  “I wish there was room for two.”