Elke had grown as pale as death: "And you must go out there again?"
He seized both her hands and pressed them convulsively: "That I must, Elke."
Slowly she raised her dark eyes to his and for a few seconds they looked at each other; but it was like an eternity. "Yes, Hauke," answered the woman; "I know well that you must!"
There was a sound of trotting before the front door. She flung herself on Hauke's neck and for a moment it seemed as if she could not let him go; but that too was only for a second. "This is our fight," said Hauke; "you are safe here, no tide has ever come up to this house. And pray to God to be with me too!"
Hauke wrapped himself in his cloak and Elke took a scarf and wound it carefully round his neck; she wanted to say a word, but her trembling lips refused to utter it.
Outside the white horse neighed so that it sounded like a trumpet in the howling storm. Elke went out with her husband; the old ash creaked as if it were being split asunder. "Mount, master," called the man, "the white horse is as if mad; the rein might break." Hauke threw his arms round his wife: "I shall be here again at sunrise!"
Already he had leapt onto his horse; the animal reared; then, like a war-horse rushing into battle, it charged down the mound with its rider out into the night and the howling of the storm. "Father, my Father!" cried a child's plaintive voice after him: "my dear Father!"
Wienke had run out after them in the dark; but she had not gone more than a hundred steps before she stumbled against a heap of earth and fell.
The man Johns brought the crying child back to her mother; the latter was leaning against the trunk of the ash, the boughs of which lashed the air above her, staring out absently into the night in which her husband had disappeared; when the roaring of the gale and the distant thunder of the sea ceased for a moment she started as if frightened; she felt as if everything was trying just to destroy him and would be dumb instantly when it had got him. Her knees trembled, the wind had blown her hair down and now played with it at will. "Here is the child!" John shouted to her; "hold her tight!" and he pressed the little girl into her mother's arms.
"The child? I'd forgotten you, Wienke!" she exclaimed; "God forgive me." Then she hugged her to her breast as closely as only love can and dropped on her knees: "Lord God, and Thou, my Jesus, let us not become widow and orphan! Protect him, Oh dear God; only Thou and I, we alone know him!" And there was no more interruption to the gale; it resounded and thundered as if the whole world were coming to an end in one vast reverberation of sound.