the mail-packet came; it brought my uniform; it was to take the baron and all his cases of scales and seaweeds on board. now it was loading up barrels of herrings and oil at the quay; towards evening it would be off again.

i took my gun and put a heavy load of powder in each barrel. when i had done that, i nodded to myself. i went up into the hills and filled my mine with powder as well; i nodded again. now everything was ready. i lay down to wait.

i waited for hours. all the time i could hear the steamer’s winches at work hoisting and lowering. it was already growing dusk. at last the whistle sounded: the cargo was on board, the ship was putting off. i still had some minutes to wait. the moon was not up, and i stared like a madman through the gloom of the evening.

when the first point of the bow thrust out past the islet, i lit my slow match and stepped hurriedly away. a minute passed. suddenly there was a roar — a spurt of stone fragments in the air — the hillside trembled, and the rock hurtled crashing down the abyss. the hills all round gave echo. i picked up my gun and fired off one barrel; the echo answered time and time again. after a moment i fired the second barrel too; the air trembled at the salute, and the echo flung the noise out into the wide world; it was as if all the hills had united in a shout for the vessel sailing away.

a little time passed; the air grew still, the echoes died away in all the hills, and earth lay silent again. the ship disappeared in the gloom.

i was still trembling with a strange excitement. i took my drills and my gun under my arm and set off with slack knees down the hillside. i took the shortest way, marking the smoking track left by my avalanche. ?sop followed me, shaking his head all the time and sneezing at the smell of burning.

when i came down to the shed, i found a sight that filled me with violent emotion. a boat lay there, crushed by the falling rock. and eva — eva lay beside it, mangled and broken, dashed to pieces by the shock — torn beyond recognition. eva — lying there, dead.