l? Come and help Haggart,
stand up with him against the cannons.'"

"You are confusing things, Noni. Drink some gin, my boy. What cannons?"

"Silence, sailor."

He drags him away from the window.

"Oh, you shake me like a squall!"

"Silence! I think he looked at us from the window; something white
flashed behind the window pane. You may laugh. Khorre--if he came out
now I would scream like a woman."

He laughs softly.

"Are you speaking of Dan? I don't understand anything, Noni."

"But is that Dan? Of course it is not Dan--it is some one else. Give me
your hand, sailor."

"I think that you simply drank too much, like that time--remember,
in the castle? And your hand is quivering. But then the game was
different--"

"Tss!"

Khorre lowers his voice:

"But your hand is really in blood. Oh, you are breaking my fingers!"

Haggart threatens:

"If you don't keep still, dog, I'll break every bone of your body! I'll
pull every vein out of your body, if you don't keep still, you dog!"

Silence. The distant breakers are softly groaning, as if
complaining--the sea has gone far away from the black earth. And the
night is silent. It came no one knows whence and spread over the earth;
it spread over the earth and is silent; it is silent, waiting for
something. And ferocious mists have swung themselves to meet it--the sea
breathed phantoms, driving to the earth a herd of headless submissive
giants. A heavy fog is coming.

"Why doesn't he light a lamp?" asks Khorre sternly but submissively.

"He needs no light."

"Perhaps there is no one there any longer."

"Yes, he's there."

"A fog is coming. How quiet it is! There's something wrong in the
air--what do you think, Noni?"

"Tss!"

The first soft sounds of the organ resound. Some one is sitting alone
in the dark and is speaking to God in an incomprehensible language about
the most important things. And however faint the sounds--suddenly the
silence vanishes, the night trembles and stares into the dark church
with all its myriads of phantom eyes. An agitated voice whispers:

"Listen! He always begins that way. He gets a hold of your soul at once!
Where does he get the power? He gets a hold of your heart!"

"I don't like it."

"Listen! Now he makes believe he is Haggart, Khorre! Little Haggart in
his mother's lap. Look, all hands are filled with golden rays; little
Haggart is playing with golden rays. Look!"

"I don't see it, Noni. Leave my hand alone, i