“I see you only at night.  I know all the people around this settlement, and there is no one who looks like you.  Sometimes I think that you are the owner of that old castle where I lived.  If that is so I must tell you the castle was destroyed by the storm.”

“I don’t know of whom you speak.”

“I don’t understand how you know my name, Haggart.  But I don’t want to deceive you.  Although my wife Mariet calls me so, I invented that name myself.  I have another name—­my real name—­of which no one has ever heard here.”

“I know your other name also, Haggart.  I know your third name, too, which even you do not know.  But it is hardly worth speaking of this.  You had better look into this dark sea and tell me about your life.  Is it true that it is so joyous?  They say that you are forever smiling.  They say that you are the bravest and most handsome fisherman on the coast.  And they also say that you love your wife Mariet very dearly.”

“O sir!” exclaims Haggart with restraint, “my life is so sad that you could not find an image like it in this dark deep.  O sir! my sufferings are so deep that you could not find a more terrible place in this dark abyss.”

“What is the cause of your sorrow and your sufferings, Haggart?”

“Life, sir.  Here your noble and sad eyes look in the same direction my eyes look—­into this terrible, dark distance.  Tell me, then, what is stirring there?  What is resting and waiting there, what is silent there, what is screaming and singing and complaining there in its own voices?  What are the voices that agitate me and fill my soul with phantoms of sorrow, and yet say nothing?  And whence comes this night?  And whence comes my sorrow?  Are you sighing, sir, or is it the sigh of the ocean blending with your voice?  My hearing is beginning to fail me, my master, my dear master.”

The sad voice replies: 

“It is my sigh, Haggart.  My great sorrow is responding to your sorrow.  You see at night like an owl, Haggart; then look at my thin hands and at my rings.  Are they not pale?  And look at my face—­is it not pale?  Is it not pale—­is it not pale?  Oh, Haggart, my dear Haggart.”

They grieve silently.  The heavy ocean is splashing, tossing about, spitting and snorting and sniffing peacefully.  The sea is calm to-night and alone, as always.

“Tell Haggart—­” says the sad voice.

“Very well.  I will tell Haggart.”

“Tell Haggart that I love him.”

Silence—­and then a faint, plaintive reproach resounds softly: 

“If your voice were not so grave, sir, I would have thought that you were laughing at me.  Am I not Haggart that I should tell something to Haggart?  But no—­I sense a different meaning in your words, and you frighten me again.  And when Haggart is afraid, it is real terror.  Very well, I will tell Haggart everything you have said.”