"Poor bird!" said Windekind. "He was once a bird-of-paradise. That you can still see by his strange, yellow feathers; but he was given another covering and expelled from Paradise. There is a word which can bring back again his former glorious covering, and restore him to Paradise, but he has forgotten it. Day after day he tries to find that word. He sings something like it, but it is not the right word."
Countless flies were glistening like floating crystals in the sunbeams that fell through the dark foliage. Listening acutely, one could hear their buzzing like a great, monotonous concert, filling the entire forest. It was as if the sunbeams sang.
Thick, dark-green moss covered the ground, and Johannes had become so small again that it appeared to him like a new-grown woods at the bottom of the great forest. What elegant little stems and how closely they grew! It was difficult to pass between them, and the moss-woods seemed dreadfully large.
Then they came upon an ant-path. Hundreds of ants ran busily to and fro, some carrying bits of wood, little leaves, or blades of grass in their jaws. There was such a tumult that it almost made Johannes dizzy. They were all so busy it was a long time before one of the ants would stop to speak with them. At last they found an old ant who had been stationed to keep watch over the small plant-lice from which the ants draw their honey-dew. Since his small herd was quiet he could devote a little time to the strangers, and show them the great nest. It was situated at the foot of an old tree-trunk, was very large, and had hundreds of entrances and little chambers. The plant-louse herder gave explanations, and led the visitors around everywhere, till they came to the cells of the young, where the larvæ crept out of their white cocoons. Johannes was amazed and delighted.
The old ant said that they were living under great stress on account of the military campaign which was about to be executed. They were going, with a huge force, to attack another ant colony not far away; to destroy the nest, and to steal or kill the larvæ. To accomplish this, they would need all the help possible, and thus they must first settle the most urgent affairs.
"What is the reason for this military expedition?" asked Johannes. "It does not seem nice."
"Indeed," said the herder, "it is a very fine and praiseworthy enterprise! You must know that it is the Fighting-Ants we are going to attack. We are going to extirpate their species, and that is a very good deed."
"Are not you Fighting-Ants, then?"
"Certainly not! What makes you think so? We are Peace-Ants."
"Then what does that mean?"