“Oh, no!” mutters Dan.  “Bad hours, they fall to the ground.  They are not His holy hours and He will send them back.  Oh, a storm is coming!  O Lord, have mercy on those who are perishing at sea!”

He mutters and coughs.

“Dan, I have seen the ship again to-day.  Do you hear, Dan?”

“Many ships are going out to sea.”

“But this one had black sails.  It was again going toward the sun.”

“Many ships are going out to sea.  Listen, Mariet, there was once a wise king—­Oh, how wise he was!—­and he commanded that the sea be lashed with chains.  Oho!”

“I know, Dan.  You told me about it.”

“Oho, with chains!  But it did not occur to him to christen the sea.  Why did it not occur to him to do that, Mariet?  Ah, why did he not think of it?  We have no such kings now.”

“What would have happened, Dan?”

“Oho!”

He whispers softly: 

“All the rivers and the streams have already been christened, and the cross of the Lord has touched even many stagnant swamps; only the sea remained—­that nasty, salty, deep pool.”

“Why do you scold it?  It does not like to be scolded,” Mariet reproaches him.

“Oho!  Let the sea not like it—­I am not afraid of it.  The sea thinks it is also an organ and music for God.  It is a nasty, hissing, furious pool.  A salty spit of satan.  Fie!  Fie!  Fie!”

He goes to the doors at the entrance of the church muttering angrily, threatening, as though celebrating some victory: 

“Oho!  Oho!”

“Dan!”

“Go home.”

“Dan!  Why don’t you light candles when you play?  Dan, I don’t love my betrothed.  Do you hear, Dan?”

Dan turns his head unwillingly.

“I have heard it long ago, Mariet.  Tell it to your father.”

“Where is my mother, Dan?”

“Oho!  You are mad again, Mariet?  You are gazing too much at the sea—­yes.  I am going to tell—­I am going to tell your father, yes.”

He enters the church.  Soon the sounds of the organ are heard.  Faint in the first, long-drawn, deeply pensive chords, they rapidly gain strength.  And with a passionate sadness, their human melodies now wrestle with the dull and gloomy plaintiveness of the tireless surf.  Like seagulls in a storm, the sounds soar amidst the high waves, unable to rise higher on their overburdened wings.  The stern ocean holds them captive by its wild and eternal charms.  But when they have risen, the lowered ocean roars more dully; now they rise still higher—­and the heavy, almost voiceless pile of water is shaking helplessly.  Varied voices resound through the expanse of the resplendent distances.  Day has one sorrow, night has another sorrow, and the proud, ever rebellious, black ocean suddenly seems to become an eternal slave.

Her cheek pressed against the cold stone of the wall, Mariet is listening, all alone.  She is growing reconciled to something; she is grieving ever more quietly.