'Come on; show us the way,' said Pluizer. The worm slowly dragged his jointed body up to the black wall and felt it inquisitively. Johannes could see that it was of wood. Here and there it had fallen into brownish powder. The worm bored his way into one such place and the long, wriggling body vanished with three pushes and pauses. 'Now for you,' said Pluizer, pushing Johannes into the little round opening. For a moment he thought he should be suffocated in the soft damp stuff, but he soon felt his head free, and with some trouble worked his way completely through. A large room seemed to lie open before him; the floor was hard and moist, the air thick and intolerably oppressive. Johannes could scarcely breathe, and stood waiting in mortal terror. He heard Pluizer's voice, which sounded hollow, as in some vast cellar. 'Here, Johannes, follow me.' He felt the ground before him rise to a hill--and he climbed it, clutching Pluizer's hand in the darkness. He trod, as it were, on a carpet which yielded under his foot. He trampled over hollows and ridges, following Pluizer who led him on to a level spot where he held on by some long stems which bent in his hand like reed-grass. 'Here we can stand very comfortably. Bring a light,' said Pluizer. The dim light came on from a distance, up and down with its bearer. The nearer it approached, and the more its pale gleam spread in the place they were in, the more terrible became Johannes's anguish of mind. The eminence on which he stood was long and white; the support he clung to was brown, and lay about in glistening waves and curls. He recognised the features of a human being, and the icy level on which he stood was the forehead. Before him lay the sunken eyes, two deep, dark hollows, and the blue gleam fell on the pinched nose and ashy lips which were parted in the hideous, rigid smile of death. Pluizer laughed sharply, but the sound seemed smothered by the damp, wooden walls. 'Is not this a surprise, Johannes?' The worm crept up along the plaits of the shroud: he glided over the chin and the stiffened lips and into the mouth. 'This was the beauty of the ball, whom you thought lovelier even than an elf. Then her hair and dress shed sweet fragrance; then her eyes sparkled and her lips smiled. Now,--look at her!' With all his horror there was doubt in Johannes's eyes. So soon? The splendour was but now--and already----? 'Do you not believe me?' grinned Pluizer. 'Half a century lies between now and then. Time and the hour are no more. What has been shall always be, and what shall be has ever been. You could not conceive of it, but you must believe it. Everything here is the truth. All I tell you is true! True!--and Windekind could not say that.'