It was a dried-up, speckled, unwholesome-looking
land. And people upon it there were none that we could see. The large
fortified farms had ceased altogether. A certain frightful monotony
reigned everywhere. Ravines, like cracks which the sun makes in mud, but
a thousand times greater, began to split the hills perpendicularly to
their very roots. The path wound perilously this way and that among them.
And presently Jorian and Boris rode past me to take the lead, for
Ysolinde and Helene were inclined to mistake the way as often as they
came to the crossing and interweaving of the intricate paths.

And as these two jolly jackasses rode past at my right side I could see
the thumb of long Boris curving towards the ribs of his companion, and
the shoulders of both shaking as they chuckled.

"A rare simpleton's question, i' faith, yes. Ho! ho! Good!" they
chorussed. "'The Prince hath a Princess'--the cock hath a hen, and she--
Ha! ha! Good!"

At that moment I could with pleasure have slain Jorian and Boris for
open-mouthed, unshaven, slab-sided Wendish pigs, as indeed they were.

Yet, had I done so, we had fared but ill without them. For had they been
a thousand times jackasses and rotten pudding-heads (as they were), at
least they knew the way and something of the unchristian people among
whom we were going.

And so in a little while, as we wound our way along the face of these
perilons rifts in the baked clay, with the mottled, inefficient river
feeling its way gingerly at the bottom of the buff--colored ravine, what
was my astonishment to see Jorian and Boris turn sharply at right angles
and ride single file up one of the dry lateral cracks which opened, as it
were, directly into the hill-side!

They did this without ever looking at the landmarks, like men who are
anyways uncertain of their road. But, on the contrary, they wheeled
confidently and rode jauntily on, and we three meekly followed, having
by this time lost the Lubber Fiend, the devil doubtless knew where.
For we must have followed Boris and Jorian unquestioningly had they
led us into the bowels of the earth, as indeed, at first sight, they
seemed to be doing.

CHAPTER XX

THE EARTH-DWELLERS OF NO MAN'S LAND

Then presently we came to a strange place, the like of which I have never
seen, save here on the borders of the Mark and the northern Wendish
lands. An amalgam of lime, or binding stuff of some sort, had glued the
clay of the ravines toget