"Here, Johannes, follow me."
He felt the ground rise up before him to a mountain. With the aid of Pluizer's hand he climbed this, in deepest darkness. He seemed to be walking over a garment that gave way under his tread. He stumbled over hollows and hillocks, following Pluizer, who led him to a level spot where he clung in place by some long stems that bent in his hands like reeds.
"Here is a good place to stop. A light!" cried Pluizer.
The dim light showed in the distance, rising and falling with its bearer. The nearer it came and the more its faint glow filled the space, the more terrible was Johannes' distress.
The mountain he had traveled over was long and white. The reeds to which he was clinging were brown, and fell below in lustrous rings and waves.
He recognized the straight form of a human being; and the cold level on which he stood was the forehead.
Before him, like two deep dark caverns, lay the insunken eyes, and the blue light shone over the thin nose, and the ashen lips opened in a rigid, dismal death-grin.
Pluizer gave a shrill laugh, that was immediately stifled by the damp, wooden walls.
"Is not this a surprise, Johannes?"
The long worm came creeping on between the folds of the shroud; it pushed itself cautiously up over the chin, and slipped through the rigid lips into the black mouth-hole.