He said it many times and kept his eyes fixed upon the window which opened on to the balcony.  Once he saw a man’s figure cross the room, but he could not be sure who it was.  The last distant rumblings of thunder had died away and the clouds were breaking.  It was not long before the dark mountainous billows broke apart, and a brilliant full moon showed herself sailing in the rift, suddenly flooding everything with light.  Parts of the garden were silver white, and the tree shadows were like black velvet.  A silvery lance pierced even into the hollow of Marco’s evergreen and struck across his face.

Perhaps it was this sudden change which attracted the attention of those inside the balconied room.  A man’s figure appeared at the long windows.  Marco saw now that it was the Prince.  He opened the windows and stepped out on to the balcony.

“It is all over,” he said quietly.  And he stood with his face lifted, looking at the great white sailing moon.

He stood very still and seemed for the moment to forget the world and himself.  It was a wonderful, triumphant queen of a moon.  But something brought him back to earth.  A low, but strong and clear, boy-voice came up to him from the garden path below.

“The Lamp is lighted.  The Lamp is lighted,” it said, and the words sounded almost as if some one were uttering a prayer.  They seemed to call to him, to arrest him, to draw him.

He stood still a few seconds in dead silence.  Then he bent over the balustrade.  The moonlight had not broken the darkness below.

“That is a boy’s voice,” he said in a low tone, “but I cannot see who is speaking.”

“Yes, it is a boy’s voice,” it answered, in a way which somehow moved him, because it was so ardent.  “It is the son of Stefan Loristan.  The Lamp is lighted.”

[Illustration:  “It is the son of Stefan Loristan.  The Lamp is lighted!”]

“Wait.  I am coming down to you,” the Prince said.

In a few minutes Marco heard a door open gently not far from where he stood.  Then the man he had been following so many days appeared at his side.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Before the gates closed.  I hid myself in the hollow of the big shrub there, Highness,” Marco answered.

“Then you were out in the storm?”

“Yes, Highness.”

The Prince put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.  “I cannot see you—­but it is best to stand in the shadow.  You are drenched to the skin.”

“I have been able to give your Highness—­the Sign,” Marco whispered.  “A storm is nothing.”

There was a silence.  Marco knew that his companion was pausing to turn something over in his mind.

“So-o?” he said slowly, at length.  “The Lamp is lighted.  And you are sent to bear the Sign.”  Something in his voice made Marco feel that he was smiling.

“What a race you are!  What a race—­you Samavian Loristans!”