“Why don’t you tell him that it isn’t Haggart?  It is a lie!” whispers Haggart rapidly.  “He thinks that he knows, but he does not know anything.  He is a small, wretched old man with red eyes, like those of a rabbit, and to-morrow death will mow him down.  Ha!  He is dealing in diamonds, he throws them from one hand to the other like an old miser, and he himself is dying of hunger.  It is a fraud, Khorre, a fraud.  Let us shout loudly, Khorre, we are alone here.”

He shouts, turning to the thundering organ: 

“Eh, musician!  Even a fly cannot rise on your wings, even the smallest fly cannot rise on your wings.  Eh, musician!  Let me have your torn hat and I will throw a penny into it; your lie is worth no more.  What are you prating there about God, you rabbit’s eyes?  Be silent, I am shamed to listen to you.  I swear, I am ashamed to listen to you!  Don’t you believe me?  You are still calling?  Whither?”

“Strike them on the head, Noni.”

“Be silent, you dog!  But what a terrible land!  What are they doing here with the human heart?  What terrible dreams there are in this land?”

He stops speaking.  The organ sings solemnly.

“Why did you stop speaking, Noni?” asks the sailor with alarm.

“I am listening.  It is good music, Khorre.  Have I said anything?”

“You even shouted, Noni, and you forced me to shout with you.”

“That is not true.  I have been silent all the time.  Do you know, I haven’t even opened my mouth once!  You must have been dreaming, Khorre.  Perhaps you are thinking that you are near the church?  You are simply sleeping in your bed, sailor.  It is a dream.”

Khorre is terrified.

“Drink some gin, Noni.”

“I don’t need it.  I drank something else already.”

“Your hands?”

“Be silent, Khorre.  Don’t you see that everything is silent and is listening, and you alone are talking?  The musician may feel offended!”

He laughs quietly.  Brass trumpets are roaring harmoniously about the triumphant conciliation between man and God.  The fog is growing thicker.

A loud stamping of feet—­some one runs through the deserted street in agitation.

“Noni!” whispers the sailor.  “Who ran by?”

“I hear.”

“Noni!  Another one is running.  Something is wrong.”

Frightened people are running about in the middle of the night—­the echo of the night doubles the sound of their footsteps, increasing their terror tenfold, and it seems as if the entire village, terror-stricken, is running away somewhere.  Rocking, dancing silently, as upon waves, a lantern floats by.

“They have found him, Khorre.  They have found the man I killed, sailor!  I did not throw him into the sea; I brought him and set his head up against the door of his house.  They have found him.”

Another lantern floats by, swinging from side to side.  As if hearing the alarm, the organ breaks off at a high chord.  An instant of silence, emptiness of dread waiting, and then a woman’s sob of despair fills it up to the brim.