Abbot—­Do you mean to say—­eh, you, Haggart—­that you yourself killed him with your own hands?  Perhaps you said to the sailor:  “Sailor, go and kill Philipp,” and he did it, for he loves you and respects you as his superior?  Perhaps it happened that way!  Tell me, Haggart.  I called you my son, Haggart.

Haggart—­No, I did not order the sailor to do it.  I killed Philipp with my own hand.

Silence.

Khorre—­Noni!  Tell them to unfasten my hands and give me back my pipe.

“Don’t be in a hurry,” roars the priest.  “Be bound awhile, drunkard!  You had better be afraid of an untied rope—­it may be formed into a noose.”

But obeying a certain swift movement or glance of Haggart, Mariet walks over to the sailor and opens the knots of the rope.  And again all look in silence upon her bent, alarmed head.  Then they turn their eyes upon Haggart.  Just as they looked at the little ship before, so they now look at him.  And he, too, has forgotten about the toy.  As if aroused from sleep, he surveys the fishermen, and stares long at the dark curtain.

Abbot—­Haggart, I am asking you.  Who carried Philipp’s body?

Haggart—­I.  I brought it and put it near the door, his head against the door, his face against the sea.  It was hard to set him that way, he was always falling down.  But I did it.

Abbot—­Why did you do it?

Haggart—­I don’t know exactly.  I heard that Philipp has a mother, an old woman, and I thought this might please them better—­both him and his mother.

Abbot—­(With restraint.) You are laughing at us?

Haggart—­No.  What makes you think I am laughing?  I am just as serious as you are.  Did he—­did Philipp make this little ship?

No one answers.  Mariet, rising and bending over to Haggart across the table, says: 

“Didn’t you say this, Haggart:  ’My poor boy, I killed you because I had to kill you, and now I am going to take you to your mother, my dear boy’?”

“These are very sad words.  Who told them to you, Mariet?” asks Haggart, surprised.

“I heard them.  And didn’t you say further:  ’Mother, I have brought you your son, and put him down at your door—­take your boy, mother’?”

Haggart maintains silence.

“I don’t know,” roars the abbot bitterly.  “I don’t know; people don’t kill here, and we don’t know how it is done.  Perhaps that is as it should be—­to kill and then bring the murdered man to his mother’s threshold.  What are you gaping at, you scarecrow?”

Khorre replies rudely: 

“According to my opinion, he should have thrown him into the sea.  Your Haggart is out of his mind; I have said it long ago.”

Suddenly old Desfoso shouts amid the loud approval of the others: 

“Hold your tongue!  We will send him to the city, but we will hang you like a cat ourselves, even if you did not kill him.”