"How could I have been such an idiot!" he muttered to himself again. He found some bread and cheese in his pocket, which he ate with a good appetite. His headache had gone, and he felt much refreshed after his sleep. Then he put on his cloak, lighted the lantern, and set out cheerfully to walk through the tunnel.
He had not gone far into the black darkness, when he thought he heard voices whispering and talking not far away from him; then he distinctly felt something or somebody brush past him.
"Hullo, who's there?" he called out. Complete silence. He was not easily frightened; but his heart began to beat quicker than usual. "Well, if it's robbers or tramps, they won't find much to rob on me," he thought; for he had only a few shillings in his pocket for his night's lodging.
It was probably a bat that had strayed in at the opening, he decided. Suddenly he came to a standstill. Right across the way was a mass of freshly fallen earth and rock that quite obstructed his further progress. "Well this is a pretty fix to be in. How aggravating!" he said to himself, and leant for a moment against the wall of the tunnel, to consider what would be best to do. The wall instantly gave way, he stumbled, bruised his arm against a sharp corner of the rock, and his lantern went out. At the same time he heard a sound resembling the slamming of a door. "Donnerwetter!" he exclaimed—a mild German swear which means literally "thunder-weather!"—"whatever shall I do now?" He had a box of matches in his pocket and soon succeeded in relighting the lantern.
"There is nothing for it, but to go back again to where I started from, and wait for daybreak," he thought.
By this time he had become confused, and had lost the sense of direction; but there could be only one way back. So he tramped along a long winding passage that he took to be the excavated tunnel. "How curious, I could have been certain that the tunnel was much wider, and more direct than this. Can I be still dreaming?" he thought.
Suddenly he was startled and astonished to come on a flight of steps leading downwards. There had certainly been no stairs in the tunnel! He saw too that the walls were painted in a decorative way like some of the Catacombs in Rome; only these were far more elaborate. "I'm in for an adventure, I must be lost in the heart of the mountain," he thought. "Perhaps I shall come upon a robber's cave, or gipsies may be hiding in these rocks; it is a good thing that I have this pretty little fellow with me," and he touched the revolver in his breast pocket. He then observed in front of him a faint light, other than that of his lantern and whistled softly with astonishment, as he saw that the way opened out into a cave or vault. A few steps more, and he found himself in an exquisite, though tiny hall, with an arched ceiling supported by pillars of red granite. The walls and ceiling were beautifully inlaid with mosaic work in gold and coloured stones, like the interior of St Mark's, Venice, and seemed to be of great antiquity, though of this he could not be certain.
The light was so dim that what might have been the brilliant effect of the whole, was lost, and the young engineer thought to himself involuntarily: "This ought to be lit up by electric light—it would look quite different then!" As he was deliberating how electric light might be laid on, a door in the wall opened, and a number of little dwarf men trooped in. They did not see him at first; for he was standing behind a pillar. They settled themselves down on benches that were arranged in a semicircle, and one of them with an important air mounted a raised dais facing them. He was just beginning to speak with the words: "Gentlemen of the Committee," when they caught sight of the stranger standing in the centre of the hall, lantern in hand. They gave a cry of alarm, and were just going to scuttle away like frightened rabbits, when Karl called out, "Hi—Ho there—Gentlemen of the Committee—good Sirs—don't run away. I won't harm you—Christmas Tree."
Now Christmas Tree is the most solemn oath among the dwarfs—it is equivalent to swearing on the Bible with us. How Karl knew this, he did not know; it came to him on the inspiration of the minute. Perhaps his grandmother had told him stories in his childhood about the dwarf men, in which it occurred.
It had an instantaneous effect on the dwarfs who stood still at once. "But you are one of the bad men who are building the tunnel," they cried out. "Aha—we can spoil your little game, my good fellow, we can smash you and your snorting old dragon who is coming here to devour us, into pieces. We can throw rocks on the line—Aha!"