--the ocean is carrying to
the earth its noise, its secrets, its bitter, briny taste of unexplored
depths.

Soft voices say:

"The sea is coming."

"High tide has started."

"The sea is coming."

Mariet kisses her father's hand.

"Woman!" says the priest tenderly. "Listen, Gart, isn't it strange that
this--a woman"--he strokes his daughter tenderly with his finger on her
pure forehead--"should be born of me, a man?"

Haggart smiles.

"And is it not strange that this should have become a wife to me, a
man?" He embraces Mariet, bending her frail shoulders.

"Let us go to eat, Gart, my son. Whoever she may be, I know one thing
well. She has prepared for you and me an excellent dinner."

The people disperse quickly. Mariet says confusedly and cheerfully:

"I'll run first."

"Run, run," answers the abbot. "Gart, my son, call the atheist
to dinner. I'll hit him with a spoon on the forehead; an atheist
understands a sermon best of all if you hit him with a spoon."

He waits and mutters:

"The boy has commenced to ring the bells again. He does it for himself,
the rogue. If we did not lock the steeple, they would pray there from
morning until night."

Haggart goes over to Khorre, near whom Dan is sitting.

"Khorre! Let us go to eat--the priest called you."

"I don't want to go, Noni."

"So? What are you going to do here on shore?"

"I will think, Noni, think. I have so much to think to be able to
understand at least something."

Haggart turns around silently. The abbot calls from the distance:

"He is not coming? Well, then, let him stay there. And Dan--never call
Dan, my son"--says the priest in his deep whisper, "he eats at night
like a rat. Mariet purposely puts something away for him in the closet
for the night; when she looks for it in the morning, it is gone. Just
think of it, no one ever hears when he takes it. Does he fly?"

Both go off. Only the two old men, seated in a friendly manner on
two neighbouring rocks, remain on the deserted shore. And the old men
resemble each other so closely, and whatever they may say to each other,
the whiteness of their hair, the deep lines of their wrinkles, make them
kin.

The tide is coming.

"They have all gone away," mutters Khorre. "Thus will they cook hot soup
on the wrecks of our ship, too. Eh, Dan! Do you know he ordered me
to drink no gin for three days. Let the old dog croak! Isn't that so,
Noni?"

"Of those who died at sea... Those who died a