He seizes a torch and lifts it high over his head—­he covers his terrible face with fire and smoke.

“Look, here I am!  Do you see?  Now ask me, if you dare!”

He flings the torch away.  What does the abbot dream in this land full of monstrous dreams?  Terrified, his heavy frame trembling, helplessly pushing the people aside with his hands, he retreats.  He turns around.  Now he sees the glitter of the metal, the dark and terrible faces; he hears the angry splashing of the waters—­and he covers his head with his hands and walks off quickly.  Then Khorre jumps up and strikes him with a knife in his back.

“Why have you done it?”—­the abbot clutches the hand that struck him down.

“Just so—­for nothing!”

The abbot falls to the ground and dies.

“Why have you done it?” cries Mariet.

“Why have you done it?” roars Haggart.

And a strange voice, coming from some unknown depths, answers with Khorre’s lips: 

“You commanded me to do it.”

Haggart looks around and sees the stern, dark faces, the quivering glitter of the metal, the motionless body; he hears the mysterious, merry dashing of the waves.  And he clasps his head in a fit of terror.

“Who commanded?  It was the roaring of the sea.  I did not want to kill him—­no, no!”

Sombre voices answer: 

“You commanded.  We heard it.  You commanded.”

Haggart listens, his head thrown back.  Suddenly he bursts into loud laughter: 

“Oh, devils, devils!  Do you think that I have two ears in order that you may lie in each one?  Go down on your knees, rascal!”

He hurls Khorre to the ground.

“String him up with a rope!  I would have crushed your venomous head myself—­but let them do it.  Oh, devils, devils!  String him up with a rope.”

Khorre whines harshly: 

“Me, Captain!  I was your nurse, Noni.”

“Silence!  Rascal!”

“I?  Noni!  Your nurse?  You squealed like a little pig in the cook’s room.  Have you forgotten it, Noni?” mutters the sailor plaintively.

“Eh,” shouts Haggart to the stern crowd.  “Take him!”

Several men advance to him.  Khorre rises.

“If you do it to me, to your own nurse—­then you have recovered,
Noni!  Eh, obey the captain!  Take me!  I’ll make you cry enough,
Tommy!  You are always the mischief-maker!”

Grim laughter.  Several sailors surround Khorre as Haggart watches them sternly.  A dissatisfied voice says: 

“There is no place where to hang him here.  There isn’t a single tree around.”

“Let us wait till we get aboard ship!  Let him die honestly on the mast.”

“I know of a tree around here, but I won’t tell you,” roars Khorre hoarsely.  “Look for it yourself!  Well, you have astonished me, Noni.  How you shouted, ‘String him up with a rope!’ Exactly like your father—­he almost hanged me, too.  Good-bye, Noni, now I understand your actions.  Eh, gin! and then—­on the rope!”