It appears that, long after the death of Burkhart von Tollenstein, three very learned gentlemen, having heard of that story, arrived from some far-off country--presumably from the dark continent. Being of a very sceptical turn of mind, they did not believe in gnomes, and had undertaken their journey for the purpose of disproving the existence of the spirits of Nature. They belonged to a scientific Society, whose object was the abolition of the supernatural, and to sober up mankind by drawing away their attention from all sorts of ideals, and bring them back to the dry and hard facts of material life. That Society had already accomplished a great deal of important work. They had by a certain system of logic disproved the existence of God, spirit and soul, and shown that all that is called life or consciousness is nothing else but the result of friction brought on by the mechanical motion of molecules of dead matter accidentally coming into contact with each other. The three gentlemen with whom we shall directly become acquainted were appointed by the Society for the Abolition of the Supernatural as a committee, for the purpose of giving the last death-blow to the superstitious belief in spirits and gnomes, and arrived for that purpose. They were firmly determined that the belief in anything that could not be seen by means of corporeal eyes, or grasped with fingers of flesh, should be relegated into the garret, where antiquated superstitions are stowed away. After due consultation, these gentlemen resolved to make a scientific expedition to one of the caves of the Untersberg, reported to be haunted; and Mr Schneider, being then a young and vigorous man, well acquainted with the topography of the mountain, was invited to accompany them. The excursion took place on the day preceding St John’s, it being the 23rd of June; but the date of the year escaped my memory. The adventures which Mr Schneider experienced are told by him in the following pages. [Illustration: THE CAVE] II. IN THE DRAGON’S DEN. About a thousand feet below the summit of the Untersberg, and not very far from the top of one of its spurs, that reaches out into the valley through which runs the limpid stream coming from the renowned lake called the “Koenigsee,” there is a spacious cave, within an almost perpendicular slope of rocks, several hundred feet in height. This cave or hole, called the “Dragon’s Den,” is large enough for affording shelter to a whole herd of cattle, and high enough so that a good-sized church, steeple and all, might be put therein. Its roof is formed by an overhanging rock (as is shown in our picture), and the hole extends like a tunnel from one side of the hill to the other; so that if seen from below it appears like an archway through which the sky and the stars on the other side may be seen. [Illustration: THE DRAGON’S DEN.]