“Is that you, Dan? Do you hear, they are singing, Dan? Haggart has gone away.”
“I was waiting for them to go. Here is another one. I am gathering the pipes of my organ. Here is another one.”
“Be accursed, Dan!”
“Oho? And you, too, Mariet, be accursed!”
Mariet clasps the child in her arms and lifts him high. Then she calls wildly:
“Haggart, turn around! Turn around, Haggart! Noni is calling you. He wants to curse you, Haggart. Turn around! Look, Noni, look—that is your father. Remember him, Noni. And when you grow up, go out on every sea and find him, Noni. And when you find him—hang your father high on a mast, my little one.”
The thundering salute drowns her cry. Haggart has boarded his ship. The night grows darker and the dashing of the waves fainter—the ocean is moving away with the tide. The great desert of the sky is mute and the night grows darker and the dashing of the waves ever fainter.