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 sat biting his finger-nails, as was a trick of his when he was excited or angry. "Tell you what!" he exclaimed suddenly. "This was what happened. It was some of the Maranovitch fellows that tried to kill him. They meant to kill his father and make their own man king, and they knew the people wouldn't stand it if young Ivor was alive. They just stabbed him in the back, the fiends! I dare say they heard the old shepherd coming, and left him for dead and ran." "Right, oh! That was it!" the lads agreed. "Yer right there, Rat!"