"Now we give light—all of us. And we can make it shine or can extinguish it. Light is the best gift of Nature, and to make light is the highest achievement of any living being. Ought any one then to contest our precedence? Moreover, we little fellows have wings, and can fly for miles."
"I cannot do that, either," humbly admitted the rabbit.
"Through the divine gift of light which we have," continued the glow-worm, "other creatures stand in awe of us, and no bird will attack us. Only one animal—the human being—the basest of all, chases us, and carries us off. He is the most detestable monster in creation!"
At this sally Johannes looked at Windekind as though he did not understand. But Windekind smiled, and motioned to him to be silent.
"Once, I flew gaily around among the shrubs, like a bright will-o'-the-wisp. In a moist, lonely meadow on the bank of a ditch there lived one whose existence was inseparably linked with my own happiness. She sparkled beautifully in her light emerald-green as she crept about in the grass, and my young heart was enraptured. I circled about her, and did my best, by making my light play, to attract her attention. Gratefully, I saw that she had perceived me, and demurely extinguished her own light. Trembling with emotion, I was on the point of folding my wings and sinking down in rapture beside my radiant loved one, when the air was filled with an awful noise. Dark figures approached. They were human beings. In terror, I took flight. They chased me, and struck at me with big black things. But my wings went faster than their clumsy legs."
"When I returned—"
Here the narrator's voice failed him. After an instant of deep emotion, during which the three listeners maintained a respectful silence, he continued:
"You may already have surmised it. My tender bride—the brightest, most glowing of all—she had disappeared; kidnapped by cruel human beings. The still, dewy grass-plot was trampled, and her favorite place by the ditch was dark and deserted. I was alone in the world."
Here the impressionable rabbit once again pulled down an ear, and wiped a tear from his eye.
"Since that time I have been a different creature. I have an aversion for all idle pleasures. I think only of her whom I have lost, and of the time when I shall see her again."