Now Martin supposed that she was just an ordinary woman like any other.
But she wasn't. She was Death who walks about among men and takes them
when their time has come.

After the christening she invited Martin home with her. She showed him
through the various rooms of her house and down into great cellars. They
went a long way underground through cellar after cellar to a place where
thousands upon thousands of candles were burning. There were tall
candles just lighted, candles burned halfway down, and little short ones
nearly burned out. At one end of the place there was a heap of fresh
candles that had not yet been lighted.

"These," Death said, "are the candles of all the people in the world.
When a man's candle burns out, then it is time for me to go for him."

"Godmother," Martin said, pointing to a candle that was burning low,
"whose may that be?"

"That, my friend, is your candle."

Martin was frightened and begged Death to lengthen his candle, but Death
shook her head.

"No, my friend," she said, "I can't do that."

She reached for a fresh candle to light it for the baby just christened.
While her back was turned, Martin snatched a tall candle, lighted it,
and then pressed it on the stub of his own candle that was nearly burned
out.

When Death turned and saw what he had done, she frowned reprovingly.

"That, my friend, was an unworthy trick. However, it has lengthened
your life, for what is done is done and can't be undone."

Then she handed Martin some golden ducats as a christening present, took
the baby again in her arms, and said:

"Now let us go home and give this young man back to his mother."

At the cottage she made the sick woman comfortable and talked to her
about her son. Martin went out to the tavern and bought a jug of ale.
Then he spread the table with food, the best he could afford, and
Godmother Death sat down on the bench and they ate and drank together.

"Martin," she said to him at last, "you are very poor and I must do
something for you. I tell you what I'll do: I'll make you into a great
physician. I will spread sickness in the world and you will cure it.
Your fame will go abroad and people will send for you and pay you
handsomely. This is how we'll work together: when you hear of a person
taken sick, go to his house and offer to cure him. I will be there
invisible to every one but you. If I stand at the foot of the sick man's
bed, you will know that he's going to get well