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Rh a prophecy concerning them. It was foretold that he should one day lose his throne and crown to some lad from a strange land. And so he had made a law that every youth who came into his kingdom from another country should be seized at once by his soldiers and cast into a cave where lived three fierce demon-bears.

For a long time no one had heard of the coming of Sunshine and Moonshine, for very rarely did any stray traveler or caravan pass the solitary red door in the cliff. But at length, in some mysterious way, the Khan learned of the two lads living with the hermit and sent his soldiers in angry haste to fetch them.

The old man spied the men coming across the desert and at once guessed their purpose, so, while they were still far off, he ran quickly to the two boys and bade them hide themselves away. Sunshine climbed into a barrel of mangos, crouching down until they covered him, and Moonshine hid in a sack of grain. When