he must leave the palace at once and be far away in some safe hiding-place by nightfall.
"I am going with you!" declared Moonshine.
"Nay," said Sunshine, though he looked grateful. "I know not what dangers and privations I may have to meet. You must not think of it!"
"Indeed, yes!" cried the other. "What will home be without you, dear brother? Your life shall be my life, whatever and wherever it is!"
There was no dissuading him, so in a very short time the two lads had slipped quietly and secretly forth from the palace and were out in the wide world.
All that day they walked, and the next, and the next, sleeping at night wherever they could find shelter. On the third day they came into a barren, desolate country, with no sign of human life to be seen anywhere, and nothing which could yield them water or food. They struggled man-
