as said that knives had been used, and that Salve Kristiansen had been
the originator of the whole disturbance--without a shadow of protest,
Carl Beck said; and proceeded then to put various interpretations of his
own upon the affair. Elizabeth left the room, and for some days after
was pale and worn-looking, and more than usually reserved, Carl thought,
in her attitude towards himself.

Captain Beck had paid Salve's fine and procured his release, and the
afternoon before the Juno was to sail his father and younger brother
came on board to say good-bye to him. There was something strange in his
manner that struck them both; it was as if he thought he would never see
them again. He offered his father his hundred-daler note, and when the
latter would not take it, made him promise, at all events, to keep it
for him. The father attributed his unusual manner to distress of mind
and depression on account of his recent adventure with the police; but
as he was going ashore he said, in rather a husky voice--

"Remember, Salve, that you have an old father expecting you at home!"

That evening and a great part of the night Salve passed in the Juno's
maintop, gazing over at Beck's house as long as there was a light in the
attic window. And when that went out it seemed as if something had been
extinguished in himself with it.

CHAPTER X.

The outer side of Tromoe, which lies off the entrance to Arendal, has
only the ordinary barren stone-grey appearance of the rest of the
islands along the coast; a wooden church, with a little belfry like a
sentry-box and serving as a landmark, which lies drearily down by the
sea, and under which on Sundays a pilot-boat or two may be seen lying-to
while service is going on, is the only feature for the eye to rest upon.
The land side of the island, on the contrary, presents a scene all the
richer and livelier for the contrast. The narrow Tromoe Sound, with its
swarm of small coasters, lighters, pilot-boats, and vessels of larger
build, suns itself there between fertile or wooded slopes and ridges,
over which are scattered in every direction the red cottages of the
sailor population, skippers' houses, and villas; and in every available
spot, in every creek or bay where there is barely room for a vessel, the
white timbers of ships in course of construction come into view. It is
an idyllic dockyard, a very beautiful and very appropriate approach to
Norway's principal seaport town; and whoeve