o
you? Give us this money. I feel sorry for them, for the scoundrels!
They rejoiced so much, the scoundrels. They blossomed forth like an
old blackthorn which has nothing but thorns and a ragged bark. They
are sinners. But am I imploring God for their sake? I am imploring you.
Robber, dearest--"

Mariet looks now at Haggart, now at the priest. Haggart is hesitating.
The abbot keeps muttering:

"Robber, do you want me to call you son? Well, then--son--it makes no
difference now--I will never see you again. It's all the same! Like
an old blackthorn, they bloomed--oh, Lord, those scoundrels, those old
scoundrels!"

"No," Haggart replied sternly.

"Then you are the devil, that's who you are. You are the devil," mutters
the abbot, rising heavily from the ground. Haggart shows his teeth,
enraged.

"Do you wish to sell your soul to the devil? Yes? Eh, abbot--don't you
know yet that the devil always pays with spurious money? Let me have a
torch, sailor!"

He seizes a torch and lifts it high over his head--he covers his
terrible face with fire and smoke.

"Look, here I am! Do you see? Now ask me, if you dare!"

He flings the torch away. What does the abbot dream in this land full
of monstrous dreams? Terrified, his heavy frame trembling, helplessly
pushing the people aside with his hands, he retreats. He turns around.
Now he sees the glitter of the metal, the dark and terrible faces; he
hears the angry splashing of the waters--and he covers his head with his
hands and walks off quickly. Then Khorre jumps up and strikes him with a
knife in his back.

"Why have you done it?"--the abbot clutches the hand that struck him
down.

"Just so--for nothing!"

The abbot falls to the ground and dies.

"Why have you done it?" cries Mariet.

"Why have you done it?" roars Haggart.

And a strange voice, coming from some unknown depths, answers with
Khorre's lips:

"You commanded me to do it."

Haggart looks around and sees the stern, dark faces, the quivering
glitter of the metal, the motionless body; he hears the mysterious,
merry dashing of the waves. And he clasps his head in a fit of terror.

"Who commanded? It was the roaring of the sea. I did not want to kill
him--no, no!"

Sombre voices answer:

"You commanded. We heard it. You commanded."

Haggart listens, his head thrown back. Suddenly he bursts into loud
laughter:

"Oh, devils, devils! Do you think that I have two ears in order that you
may lie in each o