Fairy Tales from the German Forests Part 3

He saw that it was the mouth of the tunnel, and glancing up he saw the giant fir-tree under which he had been sleeping with outstretched arms above him in the light of the moon.

"Well--I never! what a dunderhead I am!" he said to himself--"fancy sleeping like that, why such a thing has never happened to me before! I had meant to go to have supper and stay the night at the new hotel in Elm. I have heard the landlord's daughter is an uncommonly pretty girl!"

"Heigho!" he went on, stretching himself, "there's nothing for it, but to walk home. I might wait a long time before a motor-car came to pick me up here!"

Then he remembered with a sudden start that there was only one possible way back to Elm, and that was through the tunnel. It was not a very pleasant idea to walk back alone through the dark, oppressive tunnel at midnight; luckily he had his lantern with him.

"How could I have been such an idiot!" he muttered to himself again. He found some bread and cheese in his pocket, which he ate with a good appet.i.te. His headache had gone, and he felt much refreshed after his sleep. Then he put on his cloak, lighted the lantern, and set out cheerfully to walk through the tunnel.

He had not gone far into the black darkness, when he thought he heard voices whispering and talking not far away from him; then he distinctly felt something or somebody brush past him.

"Hullo, who's there?" he called out. Complete silence. He was not easily frightened; but his heart began to beat quicker than usual. "Well, if it's robbers or tramps, they won't find much to rob on me," he thought; for he had only a few shillings in his pocket for his night's lodging.

It was probably a bat that had strayed in at the opening, he decided.

Suddenly he came to a standstill. Right across the way was a ma.s.s of freshly fallen earth and rock that quite obstructed his further progress. "Well this is a pretty fix to be in. How aggravating!" he said to himself, and leant for a moment against the wall of the tunnel, to consider what would be best to do. The wall instantly gave way, he stumbled, bruised his arm against a sharp corner of the rock, and his lantern went out. At the same time he heard a sound resembling the slamming of a door. "Donnerwetter!" he exclaimed--a mild German swear which means literally "thunder-weather!"--"whatever shall I do now?" He had a box of matches in his pocket and soon succeeded in relighting the lantern.

"There is nothing for it, but to go back again to where I started from, and wait for daybreak," he thought.

By this time he had become confused, and had lost the sense of direction; but there _could_ be only one way back. So he tramped along a long winding pa.s.sage that he took to be the excavated tunnel. "How curious, I could have been certain that the tunnel was much wider, and more direct than this. Can I be still dreaming?" he thought.

Suddenly he was startled and astonished to come on a flight of steps leading downwards. There had certainly been no stairs in the tunnel! He saw too that the walls were painted in a decorative way like some of the Catacombs in Rome; only these were far more elaborate. "I'm in for an adventure, I must be lost in the heart of the mountain," he thought.

"Perhaps I shall come upon a robber's cave, or gipsies may be hiding in these rocks; it is a good thing that I have this pretty little fellow with me," and he touched the revolver in his breast pocket. He then observed in front of him a faint light, other than that of his lantern and whistled softly with astonishment, as he saw that the way opened out into a cave or vault. A few steps more, and he found himself in an exquisite, though tiny hall, with an arched ceiling supported by pillars of red granite. The walls and ceiling were beautifully inlaid with mosaic work in gold and coloured stones, like the interior of St Mark's, Venice, and seemed to be of great antiquity, though of this he could not be certain.

The light was so dim that what might have been the brilliant effect of the whole, was lost, and the young engineer thought to himself involuntarily: "This ought to be lit up by electric light--it would look quite different then!" As he was deliberating how electric light might be laid on, a door in the wall opened, and a number of little dwarf men trooped in. They did not see him at first; for he was standing behind a pillar. They settled themselves down on benches that were arranged in a semicircle, and one of them with an important air mounted a raised dais facing them. He was just beginning to speak with the words: "Gentlemen of the Committee," when they caught sight of the stranger standing in the centre of the hall, lantern in hand. They gave a cry of alarm, and were just going to scuttle away like frightened rabbits, when Karl called out, "Hi--Ho there--Gentlemen of the Committee--good Sirs--don't run away. I won't harm you--_Christmas Tree_."

Now Christmas Tree is the most solemn oath among the dwarfs--it is equivalent to swearing on the Bible with us. How Karl knew this, he did not know; it came to him on the inspiration of the minute. Perhaps his grandmother had told him stories in his childhood about the dwarf men, in which it occurred.

It had an instantaneous effect on the dwarfs who stood still at once.

"But you are one of the bad men who are building the tunnel," they cried out. "Aha--we can spoil your little game, my good fellow, we can smash you and your snorting old dragon who is coming here to devour us, into pieces. We can throw rocks on the line--Aha!"

"We have often watched you--though you were not aware of our presence,"

said the chairman. "We had just called a committee meeting to decide what is to be done about this matter of the tunnel."

"Now you know it is all nonsense about the dragon," said Karl persuasively, as if he were talking to children. "You have heard of trains, haven't you? You are not so behind the times as all that!"

"_Some_ of us have seen the dragon and even ridden in him," said Mr Chairman. "There is a famous story about that; but the majority still look upon the railway with suspicion and even distrust. We only ask to be let alone, and not be interfered with by meddling mortals," he said in a gruff voice. "What do we need with you? Our civilization and our history are more ancient even than that of India or Egypt, and from us the human race is descended."

"I tell you what," said Karl, "I could put you up to a thing or two for all that. We live in Modern Europe, you know, and not in ancient Egypt.

Now, for instance, why is this beautiful hall, a perfect work of art in its way, so badly illuminated!"

"Badly illuminated! Why, what do you mean?" cried the little men indignantly. "Do you not see our glow-worms hanging in festoons on the walls?"

"O, I say, _glow-worms_! in the twentieth century, that's rather strong, you know! what you want, is electric light."

"What's that?" said the dwarfs curiously.

"You have only to press a little b.u.t.ton on the wall, like this," he pressed his thumb on the wall--"and the whole place is lit up almost as if it were day."

"We don't believe it--we don't believe it," said the little men.

"But it's true, I a.s.sure you, _Christmas Tree_," said Karl.

"Wouldn't it make our eyes blink?" said one thin little fellow.

Karl noticed that the dwarfs' eyes were small and their faces pale. Most of them had quite white beards and hair.

"That comes of living so long underground, it is a loss of pigment,"

thought Karl. "Like a geranium that has been kept in the cellar! Now I could fix it up for you," said the young engineer, always keenly on the look-out for a job. "We are going to have it laid on in the tunnel."

"How much would it cost?" inquired the dwarfs.

"O, a thousand pounds or so!" said Karl carelessly. He had heard that dwarfs were very rich, and he was a good man of business, and had his eyes open to his interests.

"That's a great deal of money, a great deal of money!" said the little men in chorus.

"O, as for that I am sure we could come to an agreement," said Karl. "By the way," he went on--"do you happen to have a telephone here? I should like to 'phone to a friend of mine and tell him where I am. It would be such a joke."

"What's a telephone?" asked the dwarfs.

"You don't know what a telephone is! Himmel! you _are_ old-fashioned down here--you are only half civilised!"

"Half civilised, half civilised!" repeated the dwarfs angrily, "let us repeat our civilisation----"

"I'll tell you what a telephone is," said Karl, interrupting this burst of eloquence. "It is a little tube connected with a wire, you put one part of it to your ear, and then you put your mouth to the tube and say: 'No. 1280,' and then listen, and your friend will speak to you from miles and miles away, and you can answer him."

"We don't believe it, we don't believe it!" said the unbelieving dwarfs.

"It's true for all that, _Christmas Tree_," said Karl. "I could fix that up for you too, if you have any connection with the outer air. You must have," he continued, sniffing, "for the air is nice and fresh here, quite different to that in the tunnel. Have you a ventilating shaft?"

"O yes," said the little men, "we can show you that!" And they led him out of the hall. In the pa.s.sage outside was a great cleft or crevice in the rocks such as we call in England a chine. Above it the moon shone full and bright. A waterfall rushed down on one side; he saw ferns and dear little plants leaning over the water, growing between the cracks of the rocks. There were also glow-worms cunningly arranged in groups that looked like fairy stars. On the other side, he observed to his joy rough steps leading upwards cut in the solid rock. He sighed a sigh of relief, here at least was the way out.

He regarded the pretty sight with the eye of the professional engineer, rather than that of the artist. "That must be a stiff climb for you little men up there," he said. "Now if you had a lift!"

"What's that?" asked the dwarfs eagerly.

"It's a little room that goes up and down when you pull a wire rope."

"We don't believe it, we don't believe it," said the sceptical gnomes again.

"It's true nevertheless; now wouldn't it be fun to have a ride in it? I could fix that up too, you know, if you gave me time and helped a bit yourselves," said Karl.

"Really you poor things," he went on, "You do not seem to have heard much of modern technical progress down here in this rabbit-burrow. I beg your pardon I'm sure"--as they looked displeased again--"Now I am really curious to know--have you heard of Zeppelin?"

"Zeppelin, no!--is he the King of Germany?" said the dwarf who had been in the chair.

"Ha! ha!--King of Germany--well he _is_ nearly, in some people's eyes,"

said Karl. "He has built an airship; it is the most wonderful of all new inventions, it floats in the air like a boat does in the water."

"Close by it pa.s.ses, by soft breezes fanned, Like a great steamboat straight from fairyland."