“Her name is Barbara.  They say she is my mother; but he who took away my happiness in this world got both her affection and her mother’s milk.”

Barbara wailed.

His father?  It might be the whole town!—­he looked round on the officials of the court.

This was an answer which fully confirmed the opinion which had been general from the first in this horrible, sensational murder case—­that the court had here before it a bold criminal nature, early hardened in the dregs of town life.

The police still had a pretty clear remembrance of this individual from his violent conduct and other doubtful circumstances under a charge of theft.  And it appeared from his past life, which was thoroughly sifted, that from his earliest childhood he had evinced dangerous tendencies, so that there had even been talk of placing him in an asylum for depraved children.

There were repeated facts brought forward from the time of his apprenticeship in Haegberg’s smithy, which proved that he was an individual given to fighting and violence.

Not longer ago than last year he had threatened Olaves’ life, or so the witnesses interpreted it; and it appeared in the examination in court, that on the evening in question he had persistently plotted against the deceased, and had, just before the perpetration of the deed, declared his murderous intention in the threat:  “It’s the last time in your life that you’ll say that!”

There was undeniably an extenuating circumstance in the fact that there was a love-story connected with the affair, and that the act seemed to be prompted by jealousy.  On the other hand, it was clearly shown that it might also be considered as the outcome of an old hatred existing even in the years of their childhood.

The sentence of imprisonment with hard labour for life was passed.

* * * * *

There was rifle-practice going on, puff after puff, down in the moat.  Further along, on the green, some soldiers were being drilled, and now and again a trumpet signal sounded out on the still morning air.

Under a guard of overseers a little band of fettered prisoners was being conducted, with a clanking echo at every step, along the ramparts from their work towards the inner building of the convict prison.

At a hole in the wall the last of the prisoners slackened his pace a little.  He cast a lingering glance through the opening.

The fjord lay shining blue beneath, with its many white sails and a steamer leaving a thick trail of smoke behind it on the water.

He drew a deep breath, his nostrils expanded, and there were signs of great agitation in his broad face.

The others were already five or six steps in advance, and the overseer began to roar at Number 66, exclaiming morosely: 

“You’d give something to be able to fly out now, Nikolai!”

“I think that’s the way we’re all made!” he answered quickly.