“My love, your life is more precious to me than that of many sons! You shall have the heart’s blood of Sunshine this very [[167]]night without fail. Meanwhile, try to sleep.”
He turned toward the door and met Moonshine coming in. One look at the lad’s face told him that his last terrible words had been overheard. “I must explain my plan to him,” he thought, but at that moment a messenger came to him bearing important news, and he straightway forgot all about the boy.
Moonshine, however, was as one struck dumb with surprise and fear. He had indeed heard part of the conversation between the Khan and his queen, for the two had been talking loudly as he approached their door, and he thought, of course, that his brother was in deadly peril. As soon as he had recovered a little from the shock of his discovery, he ran to find Sunshine and poured the whole story into his ears.
Sunshine was more grieved at the apparent lack of love shown by his father than he was fearful for his own life, but there was no time to weep and lament, for [[168]]he must leave the palace at once and be far away in some safe hiding-place by night-fall.
“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 manfully [[169]]on, but at last Moonshine stumbled and fell to the earth.
“Alas, dear brother,” he said, “I can go no farther. Bid me farewell and go your way; there is no need for two of us to die! As for me, I am so weary that the thought of death seems pleasant to my mind.”