“Now,” said Knops, stopping, and putting on an air of intense gravity, as if he were about to deliver a lecture, “I must beg you, my dear Prince, to place perfect confidence in me.  I promised not to harm you.  As a member of the S.P.C.C., I am pledged to protect you; besides, you have no idea how much I am interested in you; this expedition has been planned entirely for your benefit.  Trust me, then, and give yourself entirely up to my control.  Ask as many questions as you wish, provided they are useful ones.  Just say, without ceremony, ’Knops, why is this? or, Knops, what is that?’ and I, in return, if you will be so good as to allow me, will say, frankly, ‘Leo, this is this,’ or ‘that is that.’  But here is the entrance to our habitations.  You will have to stoop a little.”  Striking again with his tool, a panel slid open in the wall, through which they crept.

It was still dark, but the air had changed greatly; instead of the musty dampness of a vault, there was a soft warmth, which was fragrant and spicy, and a beam as of moonlight began to illuminate the passage, which broadened until they stood at its termination, when Leo found himself on a ledge or gallery of rock, which was but one of many in the vast cavern which opened before them.

On its floor was burning an immense bonfire, which flashed and flamed, and around which was a bevy of dwarfs, shovelling on fuel from huge heaps of sandal-wood.  Every gallery swarmed with elves and dwarfs in all sorts of odd costumes, but all bore little lanterns in their caps, and tools in their hands.  Some were hammering at great bowlders, others with picks were working in passages similar to the one Leo had left, and others seemed to be turning lathes, sharpening knives, cutting and polishing heaps of brilliant stones.  Every once in a while a party of queer little creatures much smaller than Knops would trundle in wheelbarrows full of rough pebbles, and dumping them down before those employed in cutting and polishing, would be off again in a jiffy for another load.

Leo was so astonished that he stood perfectly silent, gazing now at the flashing fire which reflected from all sides of the brilliant quartz of the cavern, and now at the tier upon tier of galleries full of busy little people.

“This is one of our workshops,” said Knops, “but not the most important.  Now that you have rested a moment I will take you to that.”

Line upon line of red and green in rubies and emeralds were at the base of the grotto, and then he found that the emeralds sprang up into long grasses, and the rubies into flaming roses, and on slender spears were lilies of pearls and daisies of diamonds, and blending with these were vines of honeysuckle and strawberries, gleaming with sapphires and topaz and amethysts, wreathing and flashing up to a ceiling of lapis lazuli blue as a June sky.  The floor was a mosaic of turquoise forget-me-nots on a turf of Egyptian jasper.