e--you will lose a son, and Mariet will lose her husband, and the
little boy his father. Is there any joy in that?"

"That's right, that's right!" nods the abbot, approvingly. "But what a
mind you have, Desfoso!"

"Do you pay attention to them, Abbot?" asked Haggart.

"Yes, I do, Haggart. And it wouldn't do you any harm to pay attention to
them. The devil is prouder than you, and yet he is only the devil, and
nothing more."

Desfoso affirms:

"What's the use of pride? Pride isn't necessary."

He turns to Haggart, his eyes still lowered; then he lifts his eyes and
asks:

"Gart! But you don't need to kill anybody else. Excepting Philipp, you
don't feel like killing anybody else, do you?"

"No."

"Only Philipp, and no more? Do you hear? Only Philipp, and no more. And
another question--Gart, don't you want to send away this man, Khorre? We
would like you to do it. Who knows him? People say that all this trouble
comes through him."

Several voices are heard:

"Through him. Send him away, Gart! It will be better for him!"

The abbot upholds them.

"True!"

"You, too, priest!" says Khorre, gruffly. Haggart looks with a faint
smile at his angry, bristled face, and says:

"I rather feel like sending him away. Let him go."

"Well, then, Abbot," says Desfoso, turning around, "we have decided, in
accordance with our conscience--to take the money. Do I speak properly?"

One voice answers for all:

"Yes."

DESFOSO--Well, sailor, where is the money?

KHORRE--Captain?

HAGGART--Give it to them.

KHORRE (rudely)--"Then give me back my knife and my pipe first! Who is
the eldest among you--you? Listen, then: Take crowbars and shovels and
go to the castle. Do you know the tower, the accursed tower that fell?
Go over there--"

He bends down and draws a map on the floor with his crooked finger. All
bend down and look attentively; only the abbot gazes sternly out of the
window, behind which the heavy fog is still grey. Haggart whispers in a
fit of rage:

"Mariet, it would have been better if you had killed me as I killed
Philipp. And now my father is calling me. Where will be the end of my
sorrow, Mariet? Where the end of the world is. And where is the end of
the world? Do you want to take my sorrow, Mariet?"

"I do, Haggart."

"No, you are a woman."

"Why do you torture me, Gart? What have I done that you should torture
me so? I love you."

"You lied."

"My tongue lied. I love you."

"A serpent has