to one another, pale and trembling,
and ready to sink into the earth. In a minute rude hands seized them;
they heard rough voices round them; and they could see that they were in
the midst of the enemies of the Lord of the castle. In another minute
they were torn asunder, they were snatched up on horseback, and were
galloping off towards the sad abode in which the evil men of the desert
dwelt. In vain the boys cried, and begged to be taken home; away
galloped the horses; whilst no one thought of heeding their cries and
prayers. They had gone on long in this way, and the dark-frowning towers
of the desert castle were in sight. The little boys looked sadly at one
another; for here there was no flowering garden, there were no sheltering
trees, but all looked bare, and dry, and wretched; and they could see
little narrow windows covered with iron bars, which seemed to be dungeon-
rooms, where they thought they should be barred in, and never more play
together amongst the flowers and in the sunlight.

Just at this moment the little Zart felt that, by some means or other,
the strap which bound him to the horse had grown loose, and in another
moment he had slipped down its side, and fallen upon his head on the
ground. No one noticed his fall; and there he lay upon the sand for a
while stunned and insensible. When he woke up, the trampling of horses
had died away in the distance; the light sand of the desert, which their
feet had stirred, had settled down again like the heavy night-dew, so
that he could see no trace of their footmarks. The frowning castle-walls
were out of sight; look which way he would, he could see nothing but the
hot flat sand below, and the hot bright sun in the clear sky above him.
He called for his brother, but no voice answered him; he started up, and
began to run he knew not where: but the sun beat on his head, the hot
sand scorched his weary feet; his parched tongue began to cleave to his
mouth; and he sunk down upon the desert again to die.

As he lay there he thought upon the castle-garden and its kind Lord; upon
the sorrowful face with which Glaube was used to look on them, when he
and Kuhn drew near to the forbidden border; and his tears broke out
afresh when he thought of his brother in the enemies' dungeon, and
himself dying in the desolate wilderness. Then he called upon the Lord
of the castle, for he remembered to have heard how He had pitied
wandering children, and heard their cry from