smile, and kissed Otto's hand. "I should not have known
you then. Had you not shown me your shoulder, on which I saw the letters
O and T which I myself had etched, it would never have occurred to
me that we knew each other! But a light suddenly flashed across me. I
should have said Otto Thostrup; but I said 'Odense Tugt-huus.' [Note:
Odense house of correction.] That was not handsome of me, seeing you are
such a good gentleman!"

"Yes, now adieu!" said Otto, and extended to him unwillingly his hand.

"There, our Saviour looks down upon us!" said the German Heinrich, and
fixed his eyes upon the figure on the cross. "As certainly as He lives
may you rely upon the silence of my mouth. He is my Redeemer, who hangs
there on the cross, just as he is etched upon my skin, and as he stands
along the high-roads in my father-land. Here is the only place in the
whole country where the sign of the cross stands under the free heaven;
here I worship: for you must know, Mr. Thostrup, I am not of your faith,
but of the faith of the Virgin Mary. Here I have cut into the wood the
holy sign, such as is placed over every door in my father-land,--an I,
an H, and this S. In this is contained my own name; for H stands for
Heinrich; I, for I myself; and S means Sinner; that is, I, Heinrich,
Sinner. Now I have completed my worship, and you have given me a
handsome skilling, I shall now go to my bed at the public-house; and if
the girl is pretty, and lets one flatter her, I am still young enough,
and shall fancy that I am Mr. Thostrup, and have won that most glorious,
elegant young lady! Hurrah! it is a player's life which we lead!"

Otto left him, but heard how Heinrich sang:

"Tri, ri, ro,
The summer comes once mo!
To beer, boys! to beer
The winter lies in bands, O!
And he who won't come here,
We'll trounce him with our wands, O!
Yo, yo, yo,
The summer comes once mo!"

As, suddenly on a clear sunny day, a cloud can appear, extinguish the
warm sunshine, conceal the green coast, and change everything into
gray mist forms, so was it now with Otto, who had but just before felt
himself so happy and full of youthful joy.

"You can sleep quietly!" said the host, when Otto returned to Slagelse;
"you shall be wakened early enough to leave with the mail."

But his rest was like a delirium.

The post-horn sounded in the empty street; they rolled away--it was at
daybreak.

"Is that a gallows?" inq