e's duty.

He never obtained any very clear idea of what would happen when he went
to school; but that it was something quite indeterminably dreadful was
evident from the constantly renewed disguised hints, and the repressed,
mystical groans and nods by which they were accompanied.

One day the threat was really carried out: he was to go next Monday
morning.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, he counted on his fingers--he had
all those days left. And how he took care of and played with Silla
during them, and darted on errands like an arrow!

At last there was only the Sunday afternoon left.

He sat at tea-time with Silla and tried to take comfort from her
opinions about school, heard that he was to have his Sunday clothes on
to-morrow too, because it was the first time, and fell asleep that night
with drops of perspiration on his forehead.

In the morning Nikolai was not to be found.

Mrs. Holman inquired, and sought, and called, promising liberally both
torments and pardon if he would only come at once; but it was all of no
use, he had vanished.

After dinner Maren upstairs was startled by seeing him emerge from under
her bed. She gave him some food and asked him to promise to go home; and
Nikolai said he would, only not before it was dark.

In the twilight he made an excursion down to the quay, where he amused
himself for an hour by sitting and rocking in a ship's boat; then in the
wet October darkness he slunk through the narrow, dripping passages
between the warehouses, until he was sure that there was no longer any
light on the square, and spent the rest of the evening lying peeping
over the paling at the light in the two cellar windows at home. He
noticed how Holman came slinking cautiously up and stood a little while
at the door before going in, and how they put Silla to bed. The light
from the windows told him, like two dimly-glaring, merciless eyes, that
if he came home now, the well-merited sentence of justice would most
certainly be carried out.

Then the light was put out.

Through the drizzling rain late that night the gleam of a lantern
glanced among the stacks of wet planks, and behind it was a pair of eyes
which were accustomed to look in the dark for all kinds of persons who
might think fit to hide themselves in the yard. The lantern wandered
about among the narrow rows, sometimes standing still, while it threw
its searching, reddish light as far as possible in between the planks.

N