over nor 
 
 ARIN MICHAEOS 
 
 ' ., "BLAND
 
 THE GOVERNOR
 
 BY THE SAME 'AUTHOR 
 
 THE DANGEROUS AGE: Letters 
 and Fragments from a Woman's 
 Diary. 
 
 ELSIE LINDTNER
 
 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 BY 
 
 KARIN MICHAELIS 
 STANGELAND 
 
 Mi'c.U*li.s K*r.n -, 
 
 - 
 
 TRANSLATED PROM THE DANISH 
 BY 
 
 AMY SKOVGAARD-PEDERSEN 
 
 NEW YORK JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 LONDON-JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD 
 TORONTO BELL & COCKBURN 
 
 MCMXIII
 
 Copyright, 1913, by 
 JOHN LANE COMPANY
 
 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Kajus Pleyelt Poss van Ruyter, known as "van 
 Devil," lord of Brakkevold and Seven-Isles, al- 
 ways rose from his bed and went out into the 
 fresh air before the morning dew had fallen. 
 He did not follow the level and trodden paths, 
 but preferred the secret ways where he might 
 chance upon something that had been hidden, 
 forgotten, or left unnoticed. He liked to creep 
 along the bottoms of ditches, or in the shadow of 
 thorn-hedges, and between the high boundary- 
 dykes of the fields, so that he might come upon 
 his work-people from the rear. 
 
 And then they tasted his dog-whip. 
 
 It was said that the cord was always sticky 
 with blood, so furiously did he apply it, also 
 that, when he laid it aside upon the settle by the 
 
 2138623
 
 2 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 stove, the dogs would lick it to still the pangs of 
 their unsatisfied hunger. 
 
 Never a day passed without a visit to the 
 brick-kiln. 
 
 It was well-nigh a necessity of his existence to 
 tread fast and deep into the slimy clay floor so 
 that the lumps splashed up over his jerkin, and 
 to know that every foot's-breadth of soil would 
 be made into smooth red bricks that, piled to- 
 gether, would bring him heavy silver and new 
 lands. 
 
 His talent for commerce came to him from 
 Holland, and had been sucked in with his moth- 
 er's milk. 
 
 The steep, irregular hillocks along the bay, 
 where formerly goats and geese had grazed, he 
 cultivated to raise crops. Wherever the horses, 
 attached to the heavy plough, could find no foot- 
 ing he harnessed his peasants to it in their place 
 and this on holidays that they might not be in- 
 terrupted in their daily work. 
 
 The little flesh that the peasants ate they had 
 to cut from the carcasses of fallen cattle, dead of 
 disease. With these the butcher could do no
 
 THE GOVERNOR 3 
 
 business. Fish which, fresh, dried, or salted, 
 formed their staple food, were to be caught in 
 shoals in the bay and along the strand. There 
 was no sick man so wretched but that he was 
 counted able to handle eel-spear, whiting-net, 
 or pike-line. 
 
 Twice a year van Devil sent his work-people 
 to the mouth of the fjord to dam up the salt 
 water. Strict attention was paid that the beach 
 might be scraped clean, and the salt thus ob- 
 tained was sold to great advantage. 
 
 The lord of Seven-Isles had a peculiar method 
 of breeding. 
 
 He obliged his peasants to rear puppies car- 
 ing nothing for the fact that it was strictly forbid- 
 den by law to keep many dogs. On the other 
 hand the regulation that ordered them to be ham- 
 strung in the fore-legs suited him very well in- 
 deed the beasts did not run away so easily. 
 
 The peasants themselves must see to it that the 
 front teeth of these dogs were broken off in good 
 time that they might not injure sheep and cattle; 
 if they failed to do this van Devil's wrath fell 
 upon them. If the coats were good and long
 
 4 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 the animals were caught and shorn, and the 
 women had to weave and spin the stiff hair into 
 clothes for themselves and the men. These kept 
 them warm. 
 
 Rotten apples and turnips, baked in the ashes, 
 formed the only sustenance that the peasants 
 were able to give the dogs, and thus the wretched 
 curs were accustomed to keep themselves alive 
 with stinking carrion and putrid fish. 
 
 Refractory serfs were set to dig tree-stumps 
 out of the forest-swamps only the bailiff and the 
 sinners themselves could realize the severity of 
 this punishment. Often when the hole yawned 
 as deep as a man's height and the roots had to be 
 worked out of the evil-smelling mud, one by one, 
 the men must be yoked together, like oxen, to 
 drag them out. The harder they pulled the 
 deeper they sank into the bog, often up to their 
 waists before the roots gave way. 
 
 These were then stacked up in heaps before 
 the brick-kiln to dry in the sun before they could 
 be used for heating the furnace. Van Devil kept 
 an account of every brick, and himself turned 
 over the heaps of ashes to look for half-charred
 
 THE GOVERNOR 5 
 
 stumps which the peasants might have stolen. 
 Women and children and bent old men, crippled 
 with gout, looked after the baking, smoothing 
 and stacking of the bricks ; the shaping was done 
 by capable, matured men. 
 
 One day a little before sunset, van Devil went 
 out to measure the height of the corn. As he did 
 so a smell of fox came to his nostrils and the dogs 
 began to be uneasy. But it was only a girl who 
 had wrapped fox and marten skins about her 
 smooth, brown body. She had her arms full of 
 the foamy white wild-flowers from the stems of 
 which the herds cut flutes. She gave him no 
 word of greeting, and did not make way for him 
 in the narrow path along the ditch but shoved 
 him so brusquely aside that it was he who must 
 spring into the thistle-scrub. He slashed at her 
 angrily with his whip, but she caught the cord 
 with her teeth and whirled around so quickly 
 that the handle slipped out of his grasp. 
 
 Laughing, she stepped in front of. him and 
 flung the whip into the field. Across his breast, 
 under the open vest, lay four chains cunningly 
 fashioned out of gold pieces and wrought plates,
 
 6 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 and welded together in the middle. She tried, 
 coaxingly, to pull it from him, but at that he 
 seized her by the arms and legs and threw her, 
 like a calf, across his shoulder. She kicked him 
 furiously and bit into his ear. 
 
 Despite his burden he puffed out his chest. 
 Her laughter tickled him, rough and heavy as he 
 otherwise was, and now he thought with satis- 
 faction of his seigneurial rights. So gaily did 
 he carry the girl up the winding stair to the castle 
 that she grazed her bare foot against the stone 
 wall and screamed. High up he carried his cap- 
 tive to the battlement which the sun was just 
 sweeping with its crimson rays. 
 
 "What is thy name?" 
 
 ''Kama!" she shouted into his ear, and he 
 squeezed her neck with his strong hand until 
 she promised to be as gentle as the white lambs 
 on the slope under the castle. But she might 
 also play and spring about like the lambs until 
 the sun set. He gave her food and plenty of 
 drink, but so long as an attendant was in their 
 presence he hid her face with his great hand so 
 vastly did she please him.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 7 
 
 Then he led her to his bed-chamber. It was 
 empty, it was large, its walls were dark. Van 
 Devil feared the night, and therefore he had 
 had a bed made for himself surrounded by iron 
 rails as high as a man, and the spikes of which 
 were sharp as lances. To enter it one must 
 mount three steps and pass through a wide door 
 fastened from within by bolts. 
 
 In addition to this howling dogs kept guard. 
 
 She did not wish to creep into this prison; 
 they quarrelled fiercely over the question. He 
 was the stronger, and he pulled her in with him 
 onto the brown bearskin. 
 
 On the following morning she was as if trans- 
 formed, and would fain have remained con- 
 stantly at his side; but for that he had no relish. 
 
 He ordered one of his men, Tyge Baden, to 
 take her on horseback and ride, with spurs, until 
 the sun stood right over his head; then he was to 
 set the girl down, be it in marsh or field, and to 
 ride home alone. 
 
 Tyge was faithful and did as he was com- 
 manded, though the girl tried to cajole him.
 
 8 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Months later, when the snow lay piled up un- 
 der the castle walls, she returned to Seven-Isles. 
 
 Van Deril heard, from his tower-room, foot- 
 steps on the winding stair, which appeared to 
 him strange; for he could not guess whom it 
 might be, seeing that no one dared to disturb him 
 when, with red chalk and a heated brain, he 
 made out his accounts. On all the beams of the 
 ceiling the sun and the moon and the course of 
 the stars were painted and carved, but with a 
 bold hand he reached up and wrote, in red chall^, 
 between the signs of the heavens, the name of his 
 debtor or the sum of silver collected. 
 
 Now he sprang to the door in the belief that 
 he was about to catch a thief. But she who came 
 slowly towards him came with a humble prayer, 
 and when he saw how heavily she carried herself 
 and counted the months that had passed, he grew 
 strangely soft-hearted. 
 
 For never before had he given life to another 
 being. 
 
 He himself led her to the single arm-chair 
 under the bell. The latter hung and rusted; 
 never yet had he needed to summon help by its
 
 THE GOVERNOR 9 
 
 aid. But should it fall from its place it might 
 cause the death of a man. Van Devil saw, with 
 secret satisfaction, how thickly the cobwebs hung 
 about the tongue, binding it to the metal walls. 
 The bell had been dug out of the bog of Seven- 
 Isles, still it belonged to the church, and from 
 time to time he had been commanded to give it 
 up but he would not let it go, and out of re- 
 venge evil tongues had prophesied that, should 
 the bell sound once more in Seven-Isles, van 
 Devil would die a miserable death. 
 
 He listened gently to the girl's complaint. 
 Two chests filled with treasure stood open, and 
 her eyes glittered as she looked from the one to 
 the other. 
 
 She told of the were-wolf that, despite the 
 darkness of the winter day, had followed her 
 over moor and swamp, across the hills and 
 through the river-valleys. Wherever she wan- 
 dered seeking plants whose roots might give 
 form, strength and living soul to the child, came 
 the were-wolf, and scratched with its claws in 
 the earth. With a thousand crosses and exor- 
 cisms she kept it off, but it came ever again, ever
 
 io THE GOVERNOR 
 
 pursuing her. It wished to tear her in pieces 
 and eat the heart of the unborn child. But now 
 the lord of her body must guard her from the 
 monster that she might bear her child in peace. 
 
 Van Devil took her in his arms as carefully as 
 if she were lady of Seven-Isles, and carried her 
 into the stone chamber, where he called his men 
 and bade them prepare a bath for her. There 
 were no women-folk at Seven-Isles to perform 
 a woman's duties. 
 
 It was only when the room was gray with 
 steam and the damp mounted up under his 
 breeches that he thought of going to shut his 
 treasure-chests; but as the woman feared to re- 
 main alone and saw in every corner the blood- 
 thirsty glare of the were-wolf, he soon returned 
 and kept watch with her the whole night 
 through. 
 
 Towards morning she bore the boy, and 
 begged that he might be named Runow. So 
 long as she was suckling him she remained at 
 Seven-Isles, but she was restless and uneasy. She 
 would not let the child out of her sight, but car-
 
 THE GOVERNOR n 
 
 ried it everywhere, wound in a red shawl and 
 bound to her waist. 
 
 When van Devil was absent she tried long 
 and vainly to break, with her back, the door of 
 the tower-chamber. He never took her into it 
 with him, for he had read in her eyes that the one 
 sight of the treasure-chests had filled her with 
 morbid greed. She could not bear the hungry 
 howling of the many dogs, and to please her he 
 fastened them with chains at the foot of the 
 tower, and gave them plenty to eat. 
 
 In the days of spring she sought the fruit-gar- 
 den, which was cultivated and hedged in with 
 care and industry, as van Devil required it to be. 
 And she soon displayed such knowledge of the 
 plants that she was of the greatest help to the 
 gardener. If, whilst she worked with knife and 
 props, it chanced that a bird rose over her head 
 into the air she would throw herself screaming 
 on the ground; but soon she accustomed her 
 throat to imitate all the bird-notes. 
 
 Van Devil saw well enough that she was tired 
 of him, and that she cast stolen, tender glances 
 at his men; but he knew that not one of them
 
 12 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 would dare to touch her, no matter how wisely 
 she might charm. It became his bitter pleasure 
 to tease and torment her. Through the child he 
 held her in fetters. 
 
 One day he took a chill and lay in fever 
 with leeches on his breast and loins. Then the 
 woman was kind and helpful. The touch of her 
 soft hands and the fleeting smile on her face did 
 him good. She prepared hot potions for him 
 from thyme and camomile-flowers and the juice 
 of young carnation-shoots, and gave them to him 
 to drink. The heat oppressed him, and he tore 
 down the chains of the bed and threw them onto 
 the floor. As he did so he let fall the key of the 
 tower-chamber. Shortly after she left the room 
 carrying the boy with her in a shawl slung on 
 her back. She remained away a long time. Sud- 
 denly he remembered that the key had fallen 
 to the ground and now it was gone. He 
 sprang up, the leeches dangling from his body 
 the key was not there. Then he seized his sharp 
 hunting-knife and crept up the stairs to the 
 tower. The door stood open. She was within,
 
 THE GOVERNOR 13 
 
 bending over the chests and stuffing her head- 
 kerchief with jewelry and coins. 
 
 Van Devil did not pause to reflect; she found 
 no time to cry out. He thrust the knife into her 
 back from behind. She fell forward, and the 
 child rolled out of the shawl into the gold. Van 
 Devil laughed, and pushed him carefully aside 
 whilst he counted his treasure thrice over. A 
 bracelet that he had given the woman on the 
 morning after Runow's birth he tore of? the 
 body. Then he called for Tyge Baden, and, 
 with his help, loosened the flags of the floor the 
 length of a man and three feet wide. They dsig 
 out the clay till they came to the oak beams at 
 a depth of four feet. Wrapped in its clothes, 
 the body was then hidden away, the clay stamped 
 down firmly and the flags once more set in placs. 
 
 From that day forth the child was fed on goats' 
 milk, ox-blood, and bread broken up in thin ale; 
 on these he throve. 
 
 In the following year van Devil brought him 
 a play-fellow. It was said that he had set his 
 dog at a pregnant woman who was stealing 
 stumps from the brick-kiln. As he saw that it
 
 14 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 had her by the throat he was smitten with re- 
 morse and tried to whistle it off. But it was too 
 late. He was obliged to pull away the animal 
 by force. She was not quite dead, but neither 
 was she quite alive she bore her child at once 
 just as her eyeballs burst. 
 
 He stood there in the midst of the ash-heap. 
 It was towards evening. Wet mists wrapped 
 him round. The dog set up a mournful howl. 
 A strange feeling impelled him to stab it dead, 
 then he skinned it, wrapped the child in its hide, 
 and carried it home to Runow's bed. 
 
 The boy was named Jacob. 
 
 By day the two children were always together. 
 Between them there was only this difference: 
 that Runow was considered as the legitimate 
 son of van Ruyter and would one day inherit 
 his goods and lord it over Brakkevold and Seven- 
 Isles, whilst Jacob was only permitted, by a 
 gracious whim, to live in his neighbourhood. 
 
 At night the boundary-line was deeply drawn. 
 For then Jacob must go down to the serfs and 
 sleep amongst a lot of grim fellows whose jeers
 
 THE GOVERNOR 15 
 
 and noise deafened his ears but Runow was 
 shut into the iron-railed bed with his father. 
 
 He would gladly have changed places, even 
 though the sour smell and the thick darkness of 
 the cellar were not agreeable, for he feared his 
 father, feared the moonlight that, like a gigantic 
 spider, span and span webs between the rails 
 of the bed; feared the lean dogs that slavered 
 round it, stretching out their tongues towards his 
 face; feared the velvet of the hangings that 
 looked like wet blood in the moonlight. 
 He was timid. 
 
 If he awoke at night and saw the heavy, hairy 
 body of his father turn in sleep under the bear- 
 skin he was terrified and crept aside against the 
 railing. His mother haunted his dreams. Fool- 
 ish talk had filled his imagination with visions 
 of which he could not rid himself. It seemed 
 to him that everywhere, in the smell of the dogs, 
 in every other odour, he could detect the terrible 
 stench from out the flooring of the tower-cham- 
 ber high up above the bed. 
 
 He knew that his dear mother lay there, and 
 that she had been called Kaina.
 
 1 6 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 He could not even bear to see his father thrash 
 the dogs. It made him tremble, and blenched 
 his lips.
 
 Preben Podewitz Lindenow and Mistress 
 Merthe Bolle spent the early years of their mar- 
 ried life in healthy love-making. 
 
 Twin-daughters were the first-fruits. 
 
 But as Mistress Merthe and her husband were 
 one day hunting wild boars her horse stumbled 
 over the roots of a tree, and in the fall her knee 
 was injured so that, for a year and a day, she 
 remained an invalid and obliged to keep her bed. 
 
 Master Preben visited her in friendly fashion 
 every day that passed, but the sun warmed his 
 skin, whilst she soon resembled a gray shadow. 
 The talk between them grew into dispute. When 
 he left the women's quarters he would breathe 
 deeply and sigh with relief. The black wound 
 on her knee from which matter flowed was hor- 
 rible to him. 
 
 Then the report came to Mistress Merthe's 
 ears that her beloved spouse was running after 
 
 all sorts of lasses, and holding orgies with light 
 
 17
 
 i8 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 women about the country-side. Poor Mistress 
 Merthe shut the door in his face and the smile 
 that had formerly played about her lips now dug 
 in both her cheeks a bitter furrow. 
 
 The women's quarters looked onto the narrow 
 inner rose-garden which had been made high up 
 on the ramparts. In front of her room she caused 
 a hanging arbour to be built, with balcony, ante- 
 room and stairs. They carried her out there in 
 fair weather and she rested amongst her cushions 
 in the perfume of marjoram and sweet blue lav- 
 ender and climbing roses. There she lay and 
 listened to the hum of the bees and the sighing 
 of the limes and to the thunder of hoofs when 
 Master Preben rode over the drawbridge. 
 
 And meanwhile her two maidens sang to her 
 and told her stories. 
 
 One evening it pleased her to be carried down 
 to the green lawn and to remain there until sun- 
 set. Master Preben had not yet returned home. 
 The dew dripped from skin and hair, the night- 
 wind dried it again. Still Master Preben had 
 not yet ridden in over the drawbridge, and still 
 Mistress Merthe lay and listened. When her
 
 THE GOVERNOR 19 
 
 maidens would have carried her indoors she was 
 sleeping the gentle sleep of the dead. 
 
 But Master Preben kneeled beside her corpse 
 and would not leave the chamber, and he wept 
 like a woman, refusing food until her burial was 
 over. 
 
 The children, Hilleborg and Brigitte, ha'd at 
 this time scarcely completed their sixth year. 
 Their father had occupied himself but little with 
 them, their mother still less. No wonder, then, 
 that they wandered about the highway and coun- 
 try lanes with coarse words and evil speech on 
 their tongues, pitifully small though they were. 
 
 One fine, fresh morning a couple of years 
 later, as the pair wallowed about in the swamp 
 where the burial-ground of the ancient manor 
 had once lain, Hilleborg found a skull with long 
 teeth and tufts of hair upon the cranium. She 
 seized it by this hair and swung it round like a 
 cart-wheel until her arm ached and she let it 
 fall to the ground. Brigitte picked it up, and 
 they played ball with it until the skull flew to 
 pieces, and loosened teeth and yellow dust flew 
 about their ears.
 
 20 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Then they caught the sounds of a loud dispute, 
 and hid themselves in the rushes to listen. 
 
 "And I will not suffer that you accuse me of 
 theft. So truly as there is a God in heaven I 
 will run away from the manor this instant. No 
 honest woman need listen to your filthy speeches. 
 To brand a maid as a thief because she honour- 
 ably and piously wears a golden breast-ker- 
 chief, a present from her blessed mistress God 
 give her a joyous resurrection from the grave! 
 And if I needs must leave here on my bare knees 
 I will not remain another hour. No one who 
 would grant me the charity of a drink of cold 
 water would expect me to herd with such cursed 
 cattle as you!" 
 
 "Nay, nay, Jytte Malene; I did not mean that 
 by God! you have misunderstood my words." 
 
 "You speak the name of God lightly! Rather 
 call on that of the devil. But in my last prayer 
 I will beg God not to let you leave the world 
 until you have shriven yourself of the sin that 
 you would lay upon my shoulders." 
 
 "Jytte Malene, Jytte Malene you know well 
 how kind and true a friend I am to you. You
 
 THE GOVERNOR 21 
 
 stood beside the blessed Mistress Merthe on her 
 death-bed and you saw with what bitter grief I 
 suffered for my sins. In her name and for the 
 sake of my innocent children I beg you not to 
 quit the manor!" 
 
 "Blessed Mistress Merthe is safe in the grave 
 from your foul talk. Satan so has hold of you 
 that you respect nothing more and do not hesi- 
 tate to accuse a defenceless woman fie, fie, 
 devil!" 
 
 "Jytte Malene noble-hearted maid, you 
 would not abandon me and my little chil- 
 dren!" 
 
 His voice failed him as the woman began once 
 more. 
 
 The pair left the path, but for a long while 
 after the children sat still and brooded over what 
 they had heard. Then Hilleborg threw back her 
 head. "May she go to death and the devil! the 
 damned light o' love. By God, one can smell her 
 long before one sees her she so drenches herself 
 with fennel-water to make herself more attrac- 
 tive! We can put on our stockings without the 
 huzzy, I fancy!"
 
 22 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Brigitte, who seldom spoke many words at a 
 time, added softly, "No woman has ever combed 
 the hair of Runow at Seven-Isles." 
 
 "Runow," repeated Hilleborg, and suddenly 
 she turned a fierce look upon Brigitte, who 
 dropped her eyes and reddened. Hilleborg 
 stooped and picked up the broken jaw-bone, and 
 the sisters tripped away through the yellow- 
 green corn to the river below.
 
 When they were about ten years of age Runow 
 and Jacob were given a tutor, Simen Brockmann, 
 who, in addition to the usual lore of children, 
 was to stuff them with Latin, the art of reckon- 
 ing, and whatever else boys of especially lofty 
 birth might require. 
 
 Although Simen was the son of a wealthy 
 councillor of Ribe, had studied at foreign uni- 
 versities and held the title of Magister*, he re- 
 ceived in wages only his food and drink, and 
 an empty chamber without firing. 
 
 Four long years Simen had already lived like 
 an owl amongst crows, without a friend in whom 
 he might confide. He had returned to Ribe just 
 as his old nurse, Sidsel Pollek, stood on trial, 
 accused of exorcism and of other witchcraft. 
 For countless years the folk had sought her aid 
 for internal injuries, hot and cold fevers, broken 
 legs and pains in the limbs, which she cured with 
 charms and with herb-broths. This was now 
 
 Master of Arts. tr. 
 
 23
 
 24 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 laid to her charge, and a mass of evidence was 
 brought forward against her. 
 
 For it invariably happens that gossips and 
 idlers gladly help to push on the heavy cart. Of 
 true and sworn witnesses there were none. 
 Strongest of all the evidence against her were 
 the two dead fingers that she wore crossed on 
 her bare breast. For, as Soren, the thief who 
 hung on the gallows, had been deprived of two 
 fingers of his right hand, the judge declared that 
 Sidsel had stolen them for her witch's magic. 
 
 She allowed herself to be laid on the rack till 
 her limbs cracked, but even then she swore by 
 the all-seeing Eye of God that she had twisted 
 the fingers from the hand of her dead daughter, 
 and laid them on her breast to guard herself from 
 wasting of the bones and other maladies. She 
 begged that her daughter might be disinterred, 
 but this was more easily said than done, as the 
 graveyard was a wilderness of nettles, weeds and 
 holes, where dogs and pigs rooted. 
 
 Simen vainly exercised his Latin and his 
 jurisprudence, also he swore to vouch for her 
 innocence with body and soul.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 25 
 
 As all this was useless, he himself undertook 
 the hangman's task, and, quite alone, dug in the 
 graveyard twenty ells west and twenty ells north 
 where Sidsel believed that her daughter lay. 
 And he found her, too, recognizing her by a long 
 tooth and two missing fingers. 
 
 But executioner and witnesses were as if 
 wrapped in ass-skins nine times thick into which 
 nothing could penetrate, and they would not be 
 convinced. Therefore, Sidsel was burned, but 
 as a special favour they bound a sack of powder 
 under her back that the fire might finish her 
 quickly. 
 
 Since then Simen had been avoided by his 
 family and looked at askance by the burghers of 
 Ribe. It went so far that his name was called 
 from the pulpit, and he was condemned by the 
 priest to the devil and eternal damnation. 
 
 To begin with, he laughed, and said that the 
 ban would not harm him if the fist but let him 
 be. But he soon came to feel that the ban of the 
 church pressed more heavily than a load of 
 stones, and hurt him more than a flogging. At 
 length he was accused of complicity and had to
 
 26 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 steal out of the town-gate by night to escape the 
 hangman and the gallows. 
 
 In Viborg he learned that Kajus Ruyter of 
 Seven-Isles wanted a tutor. He presented him- 
 self and accepted the miserly conditions offered 
 him. 
 
 Simen won the children's hearts after his own 
 fashion. He told them more than he taught 
 them, and much that he had seen out in the world 
 awakened their interest The days passed in 
 reading, play, and fencing, in which Jacob was 
 especially keen despite his crooked, stooping 
 figure. 
 
 He loved, too, to deck himself in gay-coloured 
 rags. He hung on Runow's horse like the tassel 
 on a peaked cap. 
 
 Of an evening, when they knew that van Devil 
 was hidden in his bed, they would seek the ar- 
 moury with Simen. The moonlight shimmered 
 on the dark-green window-panes. From the 
 chimney came great bats that flapped blindly 
 here and there under the rafters of the ceiling. 
 Words echoed from wall to wall and would not 
 die away. Simen would seat himself on a worm-
 
 THE GOVERNOR 27 
 
 eaten stool, the children close beside him, whilst 
 he told them tales. Jacob's mind was the 
 quicker, Runow's the more retentive. 
 
 In winter time the boys themselves would go 
 down to the courtyard to fetch wood. As, how- 
 ever, van Devil would not allow sweet-smelling 
 juniper and wall-nut to be thus wasted, but only 
 turf and tree-roots from the brick-kiln, they 
 helped themselves as well as they could by mix- 
 ing with their fuel sage and lavender. Runow, 
 who loved a sweet-scented fire or rich and spicy 
 food, would then lie before the hearth and sink 
 into a dream over Simen's wise talk. Sometimes 
 it would happen that both lads fell asleep, and 
 then Simen would spread a skin over them before 
 he went into his own chamber. 
 
 There was little variety in the run of time at 
 Seven-Isles. What happened one day would 
 also happen on the same day in the year follow- 
 ing. Tidings of the death of one, of the feud of 
 another, of discord and strife in the country, sel- 
 dom reached Seven-Isles, and the little that did 
 reach it van Devil kept to himself, knowing how 
 to hold his tongue in his cheek.
 
 28 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Runow grew up lean in the flanks and supple 
 as a weazel. He cared neither for wine nor beer, 
 and could not bear the sight of blood. His voice 
 was soft and low-pitched. 
 
 Often his heart would be heavy and dull as if 
 after a debauch, and it was only lightened when 
 he played upon his little lute and sang songs to 
 its accompaniment that rhymed of themselves. 
 If he knew himself to be unobserved he sang 
 nothing but "Brigitte Lindenow, Brigitte Lin- 
 denow" ; but the name formed for him a hundred 
 sweet little verses.
 
 Around Liinegaard as far as the eye could 
 reach stretched out the great marsh girdled by 
 oak-woods and hills covered with heather. Deep 
 and safe it lay there, so sheltered by the woods 
 that no rainy year could spoil its rich industry 
 of peat-cutting. Every day many dozens of peat- 
 cutters were sent out southwards, and no one 
 could pass along the high-road without meeting 
 the Liinegaard oxen with their piled-up loads. 
 And in spite of this the piles did not diminish 
 nor the peat fail. 
 
 Gold lay here in tons, far more than the rich- 
 est clay-bed could produce. And although Pre- 
 ben might gamble and carouse and leave things 
 to take care of themselves, the work continued 
 steady and sure as the march of the sun round 
 the earth. What folly squandered, luck brought 
 in again. 
 
 Stable-lads and serfs who were always ready 
 enough to lend themselves to mischief were also
 
 3 o THE GOVERNOR 
 
 ready to give their arms and their backs to rhe 
 work. And as they worked they sang. 
 
 It was said that Preben Lindenow measured 
 his silver in drinking-cups an ell in height, and 
 kept it in open chambers, and that his little girls 
 filled their caps with it to toss into the moat. 
 
 And the woods of Liinegaard held thousands 
 of oaks as thick as walls that were sought after 
 and purchased all over the land. Posts and 
 beams from Liinegaard with the red brand- 
 marks supported the walls of fortress and castle 
 for miles around. 
 
 And still the woods grew no thinner. There 
 were always acorns enough for Liinegaard's 
 mighty herd of swine. 
 
 Van Devil was envious of the great marsh and 
 the surrounding oak-woods. He brooded over 
 them by day and he brooded over them by night, 
 and willingly would he have exchanged Runow 
 for the Liinegaard property, though Runow was 
 his dearest treasure. 
 
 By the hour together he would stand and slash 
 with his whip at the smooth marsh-water that re-
 
 THE GOVERNOR 31 
 
 fleeted his envious face; but he could not help 
 brooding. 
 
 One morning he encountered the little Lin- 
 denows seated in a milk-cart filled with red cush- 
 ions that hung down over the wheels. Runow 
 and Jacob were harnessed to it. Hilleborg 
 swung the whip over them: Brigitte lay at full 
 length staring at the sun. 
 
 And then a solution of the problem occurred 
 to van Devil. He need only wait until Runow 
 had attained maturity. For even through dark- 
 ness and mist it was clearly to be seen that the 
 twins were most graciously disposed towards 
 him. 
 
 Apparently it was especially Hilleborg, who so 
 often rode up to the castle late in the evening on 
 an unbroken horse, and awoke the sleeping ser- 
 vants with her loud laughter. Her great, shining 
 eyes hung constantly on Runow, but about her 
 lips played defiance, wilfulness and coaxing. 
 Every one must obey her the brothers, Simen, 
 aye, even van Devil himself when she com- 
 manded an owl-hunt or a horse-race. And as 
 time went on she grew worse. As if she were
 
 321 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 mistress of the house she ordered wax candles, 
 torches, and bright fires to be lit in the hay-loft 
 and in every corner of the tower, and however 
 bitterly van Devil might resent this mad extrava- 
 gance he did not express his thoughts either in 
 word or look. 
 
 Even when she had a dusty barrel of sweet 
 wine rolled into the courtyard, herself drew out 
 the plug with her hunting-knife, drank out of 
 the hollow of her hand and offered the same to 
 the grooms even then he kept silence. 
 
 With severity a man could bridle a woman's 
 caprice and a woman's temper. 
 
 Hilleborg wore no cap as the good old rule 
 ordained. Her long, marten-soft hair flowed 
 freely over her back, but weeks might pass in 
 which the ivory comb that lay in a corner of the 
 hunting-bag did not touch it. Runow liked to let 
 his fingers glide through it and cleanse it from 
 the dust of the road and flakes of wool. As he did 
 so he greedily drank in the fresh, mossy perfume. 
 But if he chanced to touch her arm or her cheek, 
 covered with silvery down like that on the beech- 
 buds, his own flesh shivered and a warm thrill
 
 THE GOVERNOR 33 
 
 crept down his spine. Twice, as she suddenly 
 turned and bit into his lip with her teeth, disgust 
 rendered him speechless as, however, she threw 
 up her head and ran away in anger, he oursued 
 her and called her back. He was happy and con- 
 tent when she came, and she could talk of many 
 things, but when she was absent he thought more 
 of the food that he ate. 
 
 Brigitte came seldom to Seven-Isles, and then 
 she occupied herself mostly with Jacob and Si- 
 men, with Runow she was very shy. She would 
 sit with quiet dignity upon the bench and listen 
 to van Devil's heavy speech; but her eyes and 
 ears were for Runow only.
 
 The plague broke out over the land. Rumour 
 brought it near and terror increased it. Prayers 
 were offered and sung in Danish and in Latin ; 
 but the swine fell dead in the lanes and the stench 
 of carrion hung about the springs and crept into 
 every house. Infection overtook the busy folk. 
 
 Those who, with bared heads, gazed defiantly 
 up at the sun and kept the yearly holidays as 
 usual, and those who covered themselves and 
 crept into dark corners, were alike seized by the 
 pestilence. 
 
 The mice in the wainscoting cried pitifully 
 when their bellies festered; but the rats in the 
 beams of the walls and in the bulwarks of the 
 fjord were as if possessed, rushed into the open 
 churches, and attacked pious folk with their 
 teeth. 
 
 The swollen corpses of these dead rats lay over 
 the church-floors; under the flags were the blue 
 bodies of the people. For all decency had long 
 
 34
 
 THE GOVERNOR 35 
 
 since come to an end, and there was no time to 
 lay them in nailed coffins in accordance with 
 Christian precepts. 
 
 Shrill with horror rang the voices of the con- 
 gregations, and the priests preached for the dead 
 and the living until the Host fell from their 
 hands and their faces stiffened. 
 
 The foul stench of funeral-pyres where 
 witches burned crept about the sweating fore- 
 heads of the judges. The women were con- 
 demned on any evil evidence; but only their 
 bodies became ashes their souls, in league with 
 the devil, flew through the air and spread further 
 disease amongst the people. 
 
 Clear water was troubled with the corpses of 
 dead fish. Mists, smelling of sulphur, hung over 
 marl-pits and marshes. No drop of rain moist- 
 ened the earth through the long months of sum- 
 mer despite the appeal of longing hearts. And 
 the crops rotted in the fields. 
 
 Children and greybeards alike went wailing 
 away from the houses in the hot, heavy air. The 
 wind slept, the scorched trees were motionless. 
 But the dismal groans of the people, rotting away
 
 36 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 alive these groans rang throughout the whole 
 land. The breath of the plague drove away the 
 singing-birds under the sky. Only the rats crept 
 over the ground amongst those whose hearts still 
 beat. 
 
 -v * * -:v -*- # 
 
 The plague reached Seven-Isles also. But van 
 Devil was strong. He had a pit dug and rilled 
 with slaked lime; in this there was room for 
 many. When the pit should be filled there was 
 lime enough for the rest. As he saw dead frogs 
 in his springs he had salt thrown into them that 
 none might drink to his undoing. Water was 
 henceforth only to be drawn from the stream that 
 ran into the great cistern in the courtyard. 
 
 With wise seventy he shot down every dog 
 upon his property. He reckoned sagely that 
 dogs, which sniff at everything, would carry the 
 plague with them. 
 
 But when he had done everything in his power 
 he thought only of Runow, and quickly came to 
 the determination to send his son away, and 
 Simen with him. Simen was, at heart, a prudent 
 man, and foreign customs would perhaps teach
 
 THE GOVERNOR 37 
 
 Rimow to be less tender and not to fear the sight 
 of blood. 
 
 No one thought of Jacob. But every evening 
 in his terror and the simplicity of his heart he 
 sent up a prayer to the distant God of the Trin- 
 ity, and another of equal length to the lord Satan, 
 that Runow might be guarded from pestilence 
 and infection. And now he begged to be sent 
 away with him. The part of a servant would 
 suit him well if only he might not be forgotten. 
 
 "Thou canst probably follow our track; we 
 ride southward on horseback. If thou hast good 
 legs thou wilt overtake us, else must thou remain 
 an obedient son at Seven-Isles." 
 
 It was said in jest, but afterwards Runow re- 
 gretted that he had not dared to go against his 
 father's will and take Jacob with him. Soon, 
 however, he consoled himself. He was not sorry 
 that Jacob was to remain in the neighbourhood 
 of Liinegaard. He himself had not taken leave 
 of Brigitte van Devil had sent him away in 
 haste. 
 
 So the two rode southward towards the fron- 
 tier of the kingdom. They drew halt in no tav-
 
 38 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 ern, for the plague might be dwelling anywhere. 
 As the sun set they bound their horses to an oak- 
 tree and lay down in the dry grass beside the 
 road. 
 
 But when morning came Jacob was sleeping at 
 their side with wide-open, bloodshot eyes. His 
 chest heaved, his feet bled. Runow awoke and 
 saw him, and then Jacob began to cry out in his 
 sleep. On his finger was a narrow gold ring with 
 a green stone. Hilleborg had sent it to Runow 
 as a parting gift. Jacob did not hesitate to hand 
 it over. But he kept Brigitte's greeting for 
 himself. 
 
 They continued on their way through Holstein 
 in short, painful day-journeys. Their plan was 
 to reach the University and there to acquire the 
 knowledge which they most desired. Runow 
 wished to study jurisprudence. It was not his 
 intention to seek a position, but when Seven-Isles 
 should be his he meant to administer justice to 
 every one. He was unhappy when any one suf- 
 fered injustice and he longed to help them. But 
 the very smell of a criminal turned him sick. 
 
 In Utrecht there lived a near relative of Ru-
 
 THE GOVERNOR 39 
 
 now's, Groener Pleyelt by name, and the Univer- 
 sity there was highly praised. In this city, 
 therefore, they established themselves. 
 
 Jacob chose the study of medicine, and Simen 
 remained with them and watched over them as 
 well as he was able.
 
 And the time passed. 
 
 It was a beautiful Sunday, six years later. Idle 
 ships lay in the harbour. The beggars stumbled 
 about with soup-pail and staff. High over the 
 roofs of the houses the bells of the town chimed 
 merrily. In the churches there was a musty 
 smell like that of a poultry-yard it came from 
 the sable-trimmed robes of the ladies. 
 
 They prayed for prosperity at sea, for pros- 
 perity in the city, and that ill-minded enemies 
 might be smitten with disease. 
 
 In the market-place by the cathedral strutted 
 a single crowing cock, nothing else was in sight. 
 
 But in the deep, cool cellars sat the thick-bel- 
 lied, red-cheeked burghers whose fathers had 
 eaten rats under Alba. They now kept holiday 
 with dice-throwing and refreshed themselves 
 with Almighty God's pure grape-juice. If it 
 chanced that curses and abuse were exchanged, 
 
 and if there should be matter for fighting or even 
 
 40
 
 THE GOVERNOR 41 
 
 for death-blows, it was but the ill results of 
 idleness. 
 
 Hidden between houses and yards, sheltered 
 from every cold wind, lay the garden of Groener 
 Pleyelt, and in the garden walked his young only 
 daughter, Cornelia. The weight of her golden 
 hair bent back her head; she did not cease to 
 hum and to imitate the notes of the happy birds 
 in the sunshine. In the brown tan of the path 
 were the countless tracks of her swift footprints. 
 
 One summer morning Cornelia had been car- 
 ried out to Groener, who had just watched half 
 the night over a sick tulip. On that same morn- 
 ing of her birth her mother had died. Since 
 then she had spent all the days of summer in the 
 garden. But in winter, when the bulbs were laid 
 away in deep stone jars, she watched over them 
 in the house, counted and arranged them, and 
 allowed no one else to touch her father's treas- 
 ures. Early in the spring, when wood-mould 
 and dung were spread over the garden and fresh 
 tan for the paths brought in loads from the tan- 
 nery, Cornelia herself bored holes for the bulbs; 
 she knew exactly each one's place, thrust the yel-
 
 42 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 low ivory sticks into the earth, and polished the 
 little silver shields on which stood the name of 
 each bulb. 
 
 Just now the flowers shone in rich-coloured 
 bloom. There were thick-petalled ones, looking 
 as if they were carved out of leather, with swollen 
 veins and wrinkled toad-skins, transparent ones 
 like dragon-flies' wings with clear pores, or soft 
 ones ringed like ostrich feathers or shining with 
 glaze like Delft ware, speckled like birds' eggs 
 of all colours known on earth. 
 
 Cornelia picked worms and black-beetles from 
 the flowers. She stood with dilated nostrils 
 greedily breathing in their perfume. Butterflies 
 fluttered around her, drunk with love they 
 settled themselves on her shining hair to rock 
 themselves and rest 
 
 In the middle of the path lay a little gold- 
 brocaded cap that she had dropped as she chased 
 her tame ermine. She let it lie where it had 
 fallen, sure that Runow would rise from his 
 bench and bring it to her. But Runow remained 
 seated, obstinate and silent. The flowers irri-
 
 THE GOVERNOR 43 
 
 tated his nose and his eyes like shrill trumpet- 
 blasts. 
 
 He looked up at the sky that was free from 
 wind and clouds; there was only quivering air, 
 clear and quivering as silk. Like the silken ker- 
 chief that he had lately tied about Barbara's 
 neck. 
 
 Barbara 
 
 Heniche 
 
 And Cornelia 
 
 He turned Hilleborg's ring on his finger. The 
 little green stone was gone. Perhaps Barbara 
 had loosened it in envy, or perhaps it had fallen 
 out. As he turned the ring all his thoughts wan- 
 dered sadly to Brigitte, who had been silent for 
 six summers. True, news reached him through 
 the letters that van Devil wrote. They told him 
 that the sisters were travelling about the country 
 to visit their distinguished relatives and acquire 
 the education that they sadly lacked. But van 
 Devil wrote seldom and the sisters never. 
 
 Cornelia went up to him; "I found this stone 
 in my chamber. Thou must have lost it out of 
 thy ring last night I"
 
 44 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 She threw her arms about his neck; "Runow, 
 all the flowers that I touch burn so, why is that?" 
 
 All the bells became silent just then and they 
 knew that it was noon. But Groener was already 
 in the garden, and he had seen Runow and Cor- 
 nelia stand embracing one another. He went to- 
 wards them, deep concern visible in his face. 
 
 "Runow, hast thou considered that the close 
 tie of kinship knits you two together? If harm 
 has come to my child neither thou nor any one 
 else can make good the mischief." 
 
 Runow cast down his eyes, but the girl cried 
 into her father's face, "In spite of kinship, in 
 spite of the laws of the church, I love Runow 
 and he me!" 
 
 But Groener took Cornelia by the hand and 
 led her out of the garden. 
 
 When the angelus rang and the city slept 
 Groener's coach went rattling out of it, and he 
 himself sat at home in his parlour and let his 
 fingers glide through the shorn hair of his child. 
 
 Runow lay over the table with his hands to 
 his ears. Cornelia had cried and wept the whole 
 afternoon now all was quiet again.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 45 
 
 Simen sat beside him and talked to him sooth- 
 ingly, telling him that it was destiny and not ill- 
 intention. But Runow shook his head. Simen 
 knew nothing of the falsehood and the wild lust 
 that dwelled within him. Not for one instant 
 had he forgotten the kinship that stood between 
 them. 
 
 And now and now I 
 
 After the coach had returned once more to the 
 city there was a knock on Groener's door. 
 
 "Believe me, blind and deaf I gave my body 
 to love and my soul to deception. On my life 
 and honour if I meant well to any being it was 
 to Cornelia." 
 
 Groener interrupted him. 
 
 "Thanks, son, for thy words and their truth. 
 I will believe that thou hadst meant to deal hon- 
 ourably by her. But as a thousand wax candles 
 of an arm's thickness cannot suffice to banish 
 darkness from the heavens, an evil deed is not 
 undone by words. Thou knewest that so near 
 kinsmen could not stand together before the al- 
 tar. And now should she remain at home she 
 must blush before the flowers that she played
 
 46 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 with as a sister. It will be silent here and empty 
 but time, which gives life, may grant the grace 
 of a speedy death. I have no other hope. The 
 doors have closed behind Cornelia and she is as 
 dead, but no stranger must learn of her disgrace. 
 And have a care, Runow! If thou in time shalt 
 deal out justice and punish injustice thou must 
 never forget what thou thyself hast done without 
 thought of ill." 
 
 Runow would have declared honourably that 
 one woman only, Brigitte, had his love. But 
 cowardice tied his tongue. 
 
 Soon after he and Simen set out for Heidel- 
 berg where he was to complete his studies, and 
 Jacob remained in Utrecht to perfect his knowl- 
 edge of the medical science.
 
 When Runow reached Seven-Isles once more 
 Brigitte and Hilleborg had long since returned 
 home. Van Devil was never idle, and during 
 the years that had flown he had cultivated his 
 friendship with Preben and his daughters. Aye, 
 the bracelet that he had stripped from Runow's 
 dead mother was worn by Hilleborg, and Bri- 
 gitte had received a pearl ornament for her hair. 
 But, unhappily, van Devil could not make up his 
 mind which of the two sisters he must win. For 
 should Runow choose Hilleborg only the treas- 
 ures would matter to her and sweet words were 
 thrown away, but if he should take her sister it 
 was these latter that would be of most avail. 
 
 Long before Runow guessed it, van Devil 
 had discovered that the goal of the two sisters 
 was the same, and he resolved to wait until Ru- 
 now should go wooing. It would certainly be 
 better to know that the property need not be di- 
 vided, but two would not pass for one mouth, and 
 
 47
 
 48 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 were there justice in the world he would long 
 
 survive his son, who was weak and thin. 
 
 Hilleborg followed Runow wherever he went 
 and offered him her mouth and her eyes, but 
 Brigitte was mostly with Jacob. 
 
 Jacob wooed her and she laughed at him. 
 
 "Thou shouldst know that I have other 
 thoughts but seek thy fortune with Hilleborg, 
 she has as many chambers to her heart as a cow 
 has stomachs and still more. Lately she was 
 on the point of running out of the country with 
 that fool of a Volmer Elide, though she can carry 
 him on her arm. Now it seems that she would 
 be glad to run away with Runow if he be not 
 too heavy for her!" 
 
 Before the end of the year a marriage was ar- 
 ranged between Brigitte and Runow. 
 
 ******** 
 
 The pipes sounded, the rafters of the castle 
 shone, the bridal-bed was prepared with silken 
 cushions woven with flowers, and the guests, 
 strangers and acquaintances, sat at the banquet- 
 table and the bridal-board. 
 
 Hilleborg rose from her cushions, went with
 
 THE GOVERNOR 49 
 
 raised goblet to the bridegroom, and said, "Ru- 
 now, my brother-in-law, we two must drink to 
 the years that are to come and to those which are 
 gone!" 
 
 He emptied the goblet till the sapphire at the 
 bottom gleamed up at him like the eye of a ser- 
 pent, and his eyes were soon glazed with intoxi- 
 cation, for he could not carry wine. 
 
 Many of the squires jumped upon the table- 
 cloth and made speeches without sense or mean- 
 ing, and maidens in silver brocade and silk sank 
 their heads in the dishes so that their hair swam 
 in them. They were drunk. 
 
 The music woke them again. Without cere- 
 mony or courtly etiquette each man seized a maid 
 and swung her in a light-footed dance, goblet in 
 hand. 
 
 Again Hilleborg went up to Runow and bade 
 him dance with her the sister-dance, which ends 
 with the kiss of kinship. Brigitte stood sur- 
 rounded by torch-bearers, so dazzled by the red 
 glow that she could distinguish nothing outside 
 the circle. And as Hilleborg seized the tall gob- 
 let, filled it to the brim and drank to him, Runow
 
 50 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 emptied it to the dregs. But then his speech be- 
 came confused. The sapphire sprang out of the 
 goblet and changed into the sparkling eyes of 
 Hilleborg. 
 
 "Runow, my brother-in-law and now also my 
 brother once I sent thee a ring. Never hast 
 thou thanked me for it!" 
 
 He stammered and tried to speak. It seemed 
 to him that he could hear the voice of Groener's 
 daughter saying, "This stone, Runow, I found in 
 my chamber!" 
 
 Hilleborg drew him out into the rose-garden. 
 Glow-worms shone in the dew-wet grass. Ru- 
 now thought that they were stars and tried to pick 
 them up to replace them in the sky but they 
 were extinguished in his hand. 
 
 "Runow, dost thou remember the day when 
 thou combed my hair and kissed its perfume?" 
 
 "Like moss it smelled like moss!" 
 
 "Sit down beside me, brother-in-law." 
 
 He seated himself on the stone bench, Hille- 
 borg bent over him, loosened her hair and let it 
 fall over his face. 
 
 "Canst breathe its perfume now?"
 
 THE GOVERNOR 51 
 
 She covered his mouth with her lips no 
 words were exchanged. But the time passed and 
 they remained away so long that Brigitte looked 
 uneasily about the hall. 
 
 They entered by the same door. Hilleborg 
 stepped lightly and composedly over to Brigitte, 
 kissed her ear and whispered to her what had 
 happened. 
 
 The bride's cry stayed the drunken guests. Si- 
 lence fell along the walls. The musicians ceased 
 playing and the dancers stopped. But Runow 
 went slowly through the hall to where Hilleborg 
 stood, seized her wrists, forced her to her knees, 
 and hurled her on the floor that was soiled with 
 many feet. Then he went up to Brigitte, who 
 still held her hand pressed to her heart. He tried 
 to meet her eyes, but could not raise his own to 
 her. 
 
 All was silent, still as death, as step by step, 
 Runow made his way out of the hall. 
 
 Thus he was divided from Brigitte.
 
 There was one who was not at the wedding- 
 feast although bidden and entreated. 
 
 The yellow jaundice had entered into van 
 Devil's blood and he must needs keep his bed. 
 He lay in a heavy sweat and raged in fever, curs- 
 ing Satan in his heaven and the angels in the fiery 
 ovens of hell. The fiercer grew his anger the 
 wilder grew his talk, the fever seemed to have 
 burned all understanding out of his brain. 
 
 Across the bed, a heavy load on his belly, stood 
 the casket of commercial letters and documents. 
 On the lid of the casket he had drawn up the one 
 letter after the other addressed to his Royal 
 Highness; but these seven-times sealed letters, 
 despite his strictest commands, were not des- 
 patched, but lay heaped up in the ante-chamber. 
 
 One after another the servants of Seven-Isles 
 crept upstairs and listened at the door as it grew 
 dark, then kneeled down simply and implored 
 
 the gracious and well-born lord Satan to take 
 
 52
 
 THE GOVERNOR 53 
 
 van Devil's soul to himself as quickly as possible. 
 The sick man knew nothing of this, and he called 
 the folk to his bedside in a wide circle around 
 his treasure-chest and bade them fold their 
 hands and pray for the recovery of his body. 
 The yellow jaundice was in his blood and neither 
 the wise Iver nor Doctor Jacob knew what to do 
 for him. The cause was no physical one, neither 
 accident nor over-eating had sent the jaundice 
 to his veins, but the exasperation of his heart. 
 
 When Runow received Brigitte's answer, van 
 Devil had reckoned that it would be wisest to 
 wait with his wooing until he had obtained the 
 permission of the church to marry Hilleborg 
 on which account he quickly sought the pastor. 
 
 But the lazy, fat-paunched pastor, who ate 
 only the yolks of his eggs and himself lay in the 
 nuptial bed with Jytte Malene, Lindenow's 
 former paramour, had the mad impudence to 
 forbid the lord of Seven-Isles to follow his will 
 because he desired to wed with the sister of 
 his son's bride. 
 
 As van Devil was not accustomed to contra- 
 diction he pressed the pastor's hand so heartily
 
 54 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 in farewell that the flesh of two finger-joints was 
 
 crushed. He took further revenge on the poor 
 
 priest by forbidding peasants and men-servants, 
 
 with their wives and children, to enter the sacred 
 
 * house of God on Sundays and feast-days. Those 
 
 who went secretly to mass were flogged, and did 
 
 not venture to disobey him a second time. 
 
 Then he tried by fair means to reach his goal, 
 addressing himself to the bishop himself with 
 gentle, pious words which he had rummaged out 
 of old papers. But the bishop, who had already 
 received the pastor's complaint, replied, with se- 
 vere exhortations, that a man with such evil deeds 
 upon his conscience could not as in the evil days 
 of Catholicism buy the right to sin. 
 
 Now it only remained to appeal to the king, 
 but from that side there was nothing to hope for. 
 Whenever the lord of Seven-Isles had been 
 called upon to serve king and country with silver, 
 men, or corn, he had pretended to be sick, and 
 had answered that a dying man could have no 
 thought but for the welfare of his soul. 
 
 So he wasted many letters, filled to the brim 
 with solemn promises, and imploring the king's
 
 THE GOVERNOR 55 
 
 approval. Runow looked upon it as the crochet 
 of an old man, and jested over it with Brigitte 
 and Hilleborg, at the same time taking care that 
 the letters did not reach their destination. Van 
 Devil seemed to grow worse every day, and on 
 the night of Runow's wedding he lay in sweat 
 and fear. 
 
 The day before a whole oven-full of bricks 
 had been spoilt. In fierce anger against the oven- 
 heaters, who, through gossip and idleness, must 
 have ruined his work, van Devil had had them 
 whipped until the blood ran down their backs 
 like tears from the eyes of children. 
 
 As they were afterwards thrown into the dark 
 cellar to await further punishment, one of them 
 cried, with a voice that rang through van Devil's 
 marrow and bones: 
 
 "The blood will not dry on our backs until 
 Van Devil burns in the fires of hell!" 
 
 Although no one need pay any heed to the 
 words of so miserable a wretch, especially when 
 uttered in anger, still, the sick man was attacked
 
 56 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 by such violent trembling that, contrary to his 
 custom, he allowed his light to burn all night. 
 Sweating heavily, he drew his chests nearer to 
 him onto the bed until there was scarcely room 
 in it for himself. 
 
 Then Jacob came and told, in his drunkenness, 
 what he himself had seen and what Hilleborg 
 had confessed. 
 
 The clear colour mounted into van Devil's 
 cheeks, and Jacob received hearty thanks for his 
 errand, for now nothing would come of the mar- 
 riage. Runow had sent word by Jacob that he 
 would be seen no more at Seven-Isles; he was 
 going his way and would never return. He 
 meant to seek his fortune where destiny should 
 cast him. 
 
 Bold and gay, Hilleborg stamped up the stairs, 
 and van Devil asked her if she would be lady of 
 Seven-Isles so soon as permission could be 
 obtained. 
 
 On the same night a letter was despatched to 
 the court in which it was stated that, as there had 
 been no legal union between Runow's mother, 
 the gipsy, and Pleyelt Poss van Ruyter, and as he
 
 THE GOVERNOR 57 
 
 had no security as to the truth of her word; also, 
 as he had never intended to acknowledge Runow 
 as his heir, he must be released from every tie of 
 kinship. If now the king would grant his gra- 
 cious permission to the marriage of van Ruyter 
 with Preben Lindenow's twin-daughter, Hille- 
 borg, he would promise that three-tenths of his 
 rents and his property during seven years should 
 be paid in to the crown; likewise he would pro- 
 vide roof-tiles and wall-bricks for three royal es- 
 tates, as well as free transport for them to their 
 place of destination. In addition he would grant 
 the crown permission to fell in the woods of 
 Seven-Isles as many masts as there are days in 
 leap-year. 
 
 The reply came back under the royal seal that, 
 seeing that Runow, on the evidence of the 
 church-register and of the Parliament, had been 
 acknowledged lawful heir, the kinship could not 
 be set aside and the marriage must not be allowed 
 to take place. But in accordance with the de- 
 mand of the gracious Lindenow, Brigitte's mar- 
 riage was to be declared null and void, and Hil-
 
 58 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 leborg could take to husband whomsoever her 
 conscience approved. 
 
 In the meantime, Hilleborg lived at Seven- 
 Isles. Although Preben was always drunk, he 
 could not bear the sight of her, for Brigitte was 
 the daughter of his heart. 
 
 In haste and privacy the marriage was cele- 
 brated, therefore, at Seven-Isles.
 
 "A hard tooth and a hollow nut, a young wife 
 and an old husband, cannot pass together," says 
 an old proverb, and one that seldom lies. 
 
 Hilleborg was accustomed to follow her own 
 free will ; van Devil did not at once treat her to 
 wrath and hard words, but waited silently. If 
 her character resembled the high-springing pine, 
 his was like the gnarled oak, and it is this which 
 can best meet the storm. 
 
 His greed increased with the years. Never 
 could he win back the round, white silver-dollars 
 that Runow had cost him. He watched with 
 anxiety every foot of his acres and every hillock 
 of peat at Preben's, and was so stingy with the 
 fare at Seven-Isles that every one endeavoured 
 to snatch at something behind his back that they 
 might not be tormented with hunger. 
 
 Only Hilleborg ate what she pleased, like the 
 veriest glutton. Were it salted meat or roasted 
 game, or beer-soup with sour herrings, she used 
 
 59
 
 60 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 both spoon and fingers so busily that her husband 
 in his irritation could swallow no bite, and was 
 glad if later, in the fields, he could find a shriv- 
 elled turnip wherewith to fill his belly. 
 
 Meanwhile, at Preben's one debauch followed 
 the other. Only on Sundays was he sober, and 
 then he sought God's house and Jytte Malene, 
 who ruled him with the utmost piety. 
 
 Nine months after Hilleborg's marriage the 
 news reached Seven-Isles that Master Preben 
 had departed this transient life. 
 
 Van Devil hastened to wash his face with clean 
 water, comb his hair thrice with his fingers, put 
 on his best clothes and ride to Liinegaard, in- 
 stantly to interpose his will in the matter of the 
 division of the property. But he was not ad- 
 mitted to Brigitte's presence, and the pastor stood 
 beside Preben's death-bed. Jytte Malene and 
 other willing witnesses informed him that Hille- 
 borg was cut off from any inheritance. A writ- 
 ten testament, duly witnessed and sealed, was in 
 their possession. 
 
 Van Devil's chest gurgled, and he returned 
 homewards, forgetting his horse. Hilleborg ap-
 
 THE GOVERNOR 61 
 
 peared to be intensely satisfied, and only des- 
 patched a groom to fetch some beehives, as the 
 bees at Seven-Isles gave little honey and very 
 moderate mead. 
 
 Master Preben was buried under the same blue 
 stone in the church beneath which Mistress 
 Merthe rested. And on the stone was written: 
 
 "Beneath these stones 
 Rest his bones, 
 By his wife so true 
 Who sleeps here too. 
 Preben Lindenow of Liinegaard, he 
 By God's grace resurrected be." 
 
 Thereupon Brigitte left the country on a long 
 journey, at first to encounter many difficulties 
 as a single woman whose aim and object were 
 understood of few, but later with much pleasure 
 as she saw strange lands and strange customs. 
 Simen, who was without house or home, re- 
 mained at Liinegaard by her express desire. 
 
 But when a year had gone by and she began 
 to long for the sound of her mother-tongue, she
 
 62 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 sent for Simen, and they travelled for a long 
 while together. And Simen, who now and again 
 had news of Runow, passed on every word to 
 Brigitte lest her anger should be aroused. Thus 
 she learned amongst other things that he had set 
 out over Fladstrand for the flat lands of Laeso, 
 which he was to govern. 
 
 Van Devil knew no rest either day or night. 
 
 Once he struck the spoon out of Hilleborg's 
 hand when she had thrust it too deep into the 
 dish ; another time he shot a cat, had it salted and 
 set before her, but Hilleborg must have heard of 
 it, for she knocked the dish onto the floor and 
 spat into it. 
 
 Not a farthing would he pay even of what he 
 owed, and did any one attempt to use rough 
 words to him he lost all his self-control and his 
 eyes grew red with rage. 
 
 Amongst his men was an old, worn-out fellow, 
 Soren Pop by name, who was good for nothing 
 more than to be laid under the ground. In the 
 winter he fed the swine with husks, and until 
 now he had received in the kitchen the where- 
 withal to keep life in him, little though it was.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 63 
 
 But since van Devil had taken to prying about 
 day and night and watching every pot and crock, 
 no one could give him anything to eat, and he 
 fell ill of hunger. 
 
 In his need he ate refuse out of the pig-trough, 
 but that did him harm. Ulcers formed in his 
 stomach and he raved in delirium. 
 
 He fancied that it might help him if he could 
 seek out Mistress Hilleborg and complain to her 
 of his wrongs, but hardly had he reached the hall 
 when he sank to the ground from weakness. 
 
 He was lying there in his wretchedness when 
 van Devil entered. 
 
 "Save me from pestilence and hunger save 
 me from pestilence and hunger!" he wailed, 
 gnawing at his fingers. 
 
 But van Devil had just perceived how Hille- 
 borg flavoured the beer for the evening meal with 
 cinnamon, as if it were a common herb that grew 
 by the wayside, and therefore he was in his bit- 
 terest mood. First he struck Soren so that he 
 rolled bleeding on the ground, then threw him 
 out of the room so that he again fell and could 
 rise no more, and continued to beat him and to
 
 64 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 call him a thief when at that moment Hille- 
 borg appeared at the door. 
 
 Fear and rage seized upon van Devil ; he ran 
 for his gun and shot Soren through the heart. 
 Hilleborg paled a little at this unexpected sight. 
 
 Van Devil commanded his men to throw 
 Soren Pop into the dung-pit so that the matter 
 might be done with and forgotten. 
 
 Soon afterwards he delivered up to justice four 
 peasants who had bribed a dairy-maid to mix 
 poison in his food. They were taken and ad- 
 mitted having given her a white powder, rat- 
 poison, that she might mix as much as would 
 cover the point of a knife three times in his food; 
 but not more than three, for death must not come 
 too quickly van Devil was to lie and suffer for 
 some days first. The court of justice sentenced 
 them to death; the dairy-maid who had con- 
 fessed her ill-intention escaped more easily. 
 
 Hilleborg was uneasy whilst the trial lasted; 
 also, despite their having been put to the ques- 
 tion, the men had not revealed whence they had 
 obtained the white powder. 
 
 One night Hilleborg was awakened by the grip
 
 THE GOVERNOR 65 
 
 of a hand twisted in her hair, and as she sprang 
 up a good deal of it was torn out. Van Devil 
 swore that it had happened in his sleep, but 
 she guessed that his object had been to shatter her 
 head against the iron of the bed-rails, and thence- 
 forth she slept with open eyes and only rested in 
 the daytime. 
 
 Often the spouses lay and stared at each other 
 until the morning came, ready to fight for their 
 lives, each fearing the other.
 
 Hilleborg stood in the servants' hall, amongst 
 the serving-folk, serfs and peasants. She made 
 them swear by the seven deadly sins and the sa- 
 cred blood of God that one and all would be 
 silent should anything be discovered. 
 
 And she offered her finest horse to him who 
 would take van Devil's life. But their knees 
 shook and not one of them had the courage. 
 
 Then she promised a hundred silver dollars, 
 a good mule, and seven heifers but not one 
 would venture to lay a hand upon him. 
 
 At last she offered the highest thing that a 
 noble lady can offer. She promised to marry 
 the man who would despatch van Devil. Nine 
 serfs held up their arms, and warm and cold 
 shudders ran down Mistress Hilleborg's back. 
 The nine agreed to do together what she asked, 
 and afterwards to draw lots. 
 
 Each of them must vow with a grip of the 
 hand to keep his word. But Hilleborg was not 
 
 66
 
 THE GOVERNOR 67 
 
 yet satisfied. She wished to see van Devi! in his 
 death-agony before the end came. 
 
 She stole the key of the tower-chamber, took 
 its model in soft wax, and had it copied by the 
 smith. Then she went up to the tower, bound 
 a silken cord dipped in oil about the tongue of 
 the bell, and caused a passage to be bored for it 
 along the wall and through the floor to the bed 
 in the sleeping-room. 
 
 On the last evening that remained to van Devil 
 she pulled the cord just as he sought his bed. 
 
 In anguished fear he clung to her, but she con- 
 tinued to pull at the cord and to pretend, in the 
 face of his fearful listening, that she had heard 
 nothing. Without certainty he would not re- 
 main in the darkness with her whom he feared 
 most of all, and he mounted to the tower- 
 chamber. 
 
 No one was there. The bell tolled over his 
 head, and the cracked tones dinned into his ears. 
 
 Then he gave way, and his legs failed him. 
 Like a wounded animal he was forced to creep 
 from step to step down to the room where Hille- 
 borg lay.
 
 68 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 All the doors stood open behind him, the clang 
 of the bell followed him. He climbed into his 
 bed, flung his arms about Hilleborg and hid his 
 face in her strong body. Wilder, ever wilder 
 clanged the bell. He bored his fingers into his 
 ears until the blood sprang from them, but even 
 then he heard the sound. 
 
 Until her arms were weary Hilleborg con- 
 tinued to pull at the cord. Van Devil, quite out 
 of his senses, whimpered and wept. With day- 
 light he recovered his courage, but the door of 
 the tower-chamber was not closed. And those 
 who saw him creep out to the brick-kiln did not 
 recognize him, so great had been the terror of 
 the night. 
 
 An hour later he lay shot before the brick-kiln. 
 His body was riddled with many bullets, like a 
 target. But no one had heard the shots, and not 
 one of the serfs' guns was capable of being dis- 
 charged. 
 
 Upstairs in the hall Mistress Hilleborg sat 
 and cleaned her guns. 
 
 No one wondered that the widow of so old a 
 man wore no mourning. And as no evidence
 
 THE GOVERNOR 69 
 
 could be obtained no one came under suspicion. 
 For the serfs stood fast and united over their 
 deed and knew besides that heaven would look 
 graciously upon it. Therefore had the bell tolled 
 by night without touch of human hand to an- 
 nounce his death. 
 
 But many were astonished that Mistress Hille- 
 borg should be plighted before the altar to the 
 peasant, Tune, and should bear him children who 
 took his name.
 
 Runow sat alone in his great official residence, 
 Klitgaard, over the threshold of which no one 
 stepped unbidden. 
 
 The fathom-thick roof of sea-weed hung over 
 window and door, shutting out air and light, like 
 the cover of a coffin. 
 
 In the silence he could hear the boring of the 
 worms in bench and post, and the moths devour- 
 ing, thread by thread, the tapestries on the walls. 
 If he stood upright his head touched the ceiling 
 and dead flies rained down from the mouldy cob- 
 webs between the low beams. But for the most 
 part Runow walked with bowed shoulders. 
 
 When the wind swept over the earth and 
 whirled against the house the woodwork creaked 
 and every loose object jarred. On many a night 
 he wandered sleepless and depressed about the 
 strand, his gaze following unconsciously the ir- 
 regularities of the coast when the day broke 
 
 he traced the footprints which marked the same 
 
 70
 
 THE GOVERNOR 71 
 
 path. He distinguished them clearly in the 
 white sand; they belonged to his own feet he 
 had made the circuit of the island. 
 
 Then he would go up to the dunes, forget to 
 take the road home, and remain sitting there for 
 hours at a time whilst the sun rose out of the sea 
 and the fish sprang up in golden flashes. He 
 would stare and stare out before him as though 
 he were trying to decipher the runes that the 
 foam of the waves wrote in the shallows, and to 
 read from them his destiny. The sea-birds re- 
 turned home from their fishing. With joyful 
 cries they surrounded their prey and flew down 
 upon the level shore that the sea had spat out and 
 then forsaken. 
 
 Like a field hidden under the bloom of flowers 
 the sand was covered with speckled eggs. The 
 young ones cried for food and the mothers di- 
 vided fish and worms amongst them. But soon 
 a fierce strife would arise between old and young. 
 Eggs would be crushed, young birds pecked to 
 death. When the strife was ended the conquer- 
 ors remained on the battlefield, the conquered
 
 72 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 set forth over the sea to seek new booty and other 
 roosting-places. 
 
 One morning the shallows lay spread out in 
 shining nakedness. No egg, no young bird was 
 to be seen. But the women of the island, whose 
 faces were half hidden beneath their black head- 
 kerchiefs, sat in a circle under the dunes, the eggs 
 amongst them. 
 
 Runow chanced to be present when the birds 
 returned and were received by the watchers, who 
 ran up and down the strand with a mournful 
 flapping of wings. They all raised a hissing cry 
 that awoke the echoes of sea and land, and rushed 
 against the dunes as if to tear both eggs and 
 broods from the laughing women. But they 
 were frightened off with stones. 
 
 For two summers no bird built its nest on the 
 flats. 
 
 When Runow returned to Klitgaard towards 
 noon he was tired and sleepy, and would while 
 away the remainder of the day in sleep and in- 
 significant work. 
 
 The island appeared to him unfruitful as the 
 vault-stones of the church floor, and sad as the
 
 THE GOVERNOR 73 
 
 grey mists of autumn. Surrounded by the toss- 
 ing sea, always covered with scudding clouds, 
 it lay as if under a heavy curse. In vain the 
 waves wrapped it round with supple arms, trying 
 to draw it down into the deep ; in vain the wind 
 stormed around it from the four quarters of 
 heaven, trying to root it up and shake it loose. 
 Firm and immovable the island defied their 
 efforts. 
 
 Runow could not find occupations or pleasant 
 thoughts to beguile the time. Hissing like ad- 
 ders the latter crept about him; he could not es- 
 cape from them. 
 
 He cared more little though that might be 
 for the heather that ate its way in great rusty 
 masses over the whole land, than for the island- 
 folk whose quarrels he was there to adjudicate. 
 Their speech was poor in words as the cry of the 
 sea-gull in notes, and the opinion of their hearts 
 was shut in with seven-times-seven locks of 
 silence. 
 
 In the southern wing of Klitgaard lay the 
 apartments of the bailiff and his clerk. From 
 sheer weariness Runow had decreed that they
 
 74 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 should settle the majority of difficulties without 
 his intervention. If, however, it happened that 
 he was summoned to the hall of justice he judged 
 with righteous severity, and never mildly. 
 
 The people greeted him with bent backs, but 
 their greeting was suggestive of derision. He 
 knew that they hated him. 
 
 It had happened several times that, in his night 
 wanderings, he saw how the island folk them- 
 selves extinguished the lanterns which law and 
 chapter bade them keep alight from evening 
 until morning. On these occasions he acted, 
 despite his distaste for his office. If, during the 
 day, he chanced to see a peasant goading his oxen 
 too cruelly under the yoke he was not afraid to 
 judge and fine him, contrary to all custom. 
 
 And the Laeso peasants did not forget. 
 
 Every man who wore a stinking sheepskin 
 jerkin felt himself to be lord of the island and 
 the sea; they held loyally by each other in their 
 endeavour to maintain this right of lordship. 
 Otherwise there was enmity between man and 
 man for the sake of ancient feud and new injus-
 
 THE GOVERNOR 75 
 
 tice, and nowhere in the kingdom was there so 
 much discord and self-defence as upon Laeso. 
 
 But if two peasants, disputing in their huts, bit 
 off each other's noses, they did not appeal to the 
 governor. 
 
 The laws which were administered to the 
 island by the Viborg chapter-house were strict. 
 But as laws were but a matter of words, and 
 words could be carried away by the winds, the 
 men of Laeso cared not a straw for them. 
 
 Of what avail was it that the chapter-house im- 
 posed a search for those who had defied the law 
 that their lives might pay the forfeit? The peo- 
 ple had as many hiding-places as the fox, and it 
 was seldom that they were caught red-handed. 
 
 Where shallows rendered navigation difficult 
 buoys were floated, but either they broke away or 
 else the chains bound them in the wrong places, 
 so that the skipper, in all good faith, steered 
 straight for the land and lost his cargo if not 
 his life. 
 
 As, in addition to this, the shore-lanterns were 
 extinguished, there were necessarily shipwrecks 
 in abundance.
 
 76 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 During a storm the people of the island would 
 assemble, without speech or sound, in the dan- 
 gerous parts of the coast, to await the hour when 
 there would be wreckage to fetch and corpses to 
 plunder. Bailiff and customs-officer received 
 their share in proportion to the number of their 
 children, and shut their eyes to what happened. 
 
 As the shifting sand gained ground so rapidly 
 it was forbidden to fell young trees and hack 
 open spaces in the woods. But the salt-pans de- 
 voured much wood, and what the day might fear 
 the night smiled upon. 
 
 The people felled trees where and when they 
 pleased. In addition they set up more salt-pans 
 than the law permitted. The island had a super- 
 fluity of sea-weed, but in order to deceive the 
 gentlemen of the chapter-house they placed hut- 
 roofs over the salt-pans that they might escape 
 
 observation. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Like a lean cow with muzzled jaws in long 
 grass, the poor ruined church had stood in the 
 midst of the richest diocese of the island. 
 
 Had the community given according to its
 
 THE GOVERNOR 77 
 
 possessions the roof of the church would have 
 been covered with silver plates instead of with 
 wretched turf. But the whitewash fell from the 
 walls and the damp ran down them, worms de- 
 voured the chairs, and the pulpit was a heap of 
 rotting planks the pastor had to stand upon 
 level ground where streams of rain splashed 
 down upon his gown. 
 
 For the most part he preached to the sexton 
 and his deaf wife. 
 
 The people were industrious. And if on the 
 high holidays of the year they thronged into the 
 church it was not out of piety. They struck one 
 another on the mouth and quarrelled so loudly 
 that the pastor had to be silent. Over their heads 
 the crows cawed down. Should there be an of- 
 fertory the people crowded out, each one trying 
 to be first, and the pastor remained alone with 
 empty hands. 
 
 In the belfry hung a bell so enormous that it 
 sounded far and wide over the island, even to the 
 huts of the herring-fishers in the north. No one 
 obeyed its voice, though the sexton pulled at the 
 rope with all his strength. Then came the storm,
 
 78 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 like a blow in the face from the angry hand of 
 God. The cattle buried their horns in the earth, 
 stretched their four legs in the air, and bellowed. 
 The people threw themselves on the ground that 
 the wind might not dislocate their limbs and 
 blow their eyes out through their ears. 
 
 The storm roared and the bell sounded, but 
 no human hand tugged at the cord, for the sexton 
 was lying flat on his stomach and wailing. Trees 
 were torn out of the earth by their roots and flew 
 through the air, roofs were lifted from the huts 
 like box-covers. 
 
 Sharp and pricking like ice-needles the fine 
 sand blew in through chinks and spaces, cover- 
 ing the hearth-fires and the people's bodies. 
 Three days and three nights long the storm raged. 
 No one tasted food or slept. Then at last the 
 weather grew calm. 
 
 Cows lay far from the herd with burst udders, 
 sheep ran about like mad dogs with red jaws. 
 The walls of the church lay in broken heaps, 
 the belfry tossed on a sand-dune, the bell itself 
 sunk in the sand. The whole diocese was a waste
 
 THE GOVERN OK 79 
 
 of sand, low hillocks showing where house and 
 farm had stood but time levelled them all. 
 
 The poverty which followed now was the just 
 punishment of heaven. 
 
 The island folk implored the great lords of the 
 chapter-house for help to rebuild the church as 
 an atonement. The answer came back, "A 
 mighty finger has testified for the sake of your 
 degeneracy you shall suffer want." 
 
 The ruins were doomed in future to lie un- 
 touched by human hand. The people had to be 
 content with Burum chapel, which was low and 
 narrow. 
 
 And no one built his hut near the fallen 
 church. 
 
 Only the birds of prey who lived in strife with 
 the owls of the wood, came by night to shatter 
 their booty upon its stones. 
 
 But the sand blew round about the bell and 
 against the living metal with a sound like the low 
 humming of insects that never ceased. And a 
 little whirlpool turned and turned under it, 
 drew up the sand and spat it out again quickly 
 and noiselessly, as ants erect their mound.
 
 8o THE GOVERNOR 
 
 In its fall the tongue of the bell had sprung 
 from its hook and buried itself deep in the 
 ground; it was over this that the whirlpool 
 formed itself. Under the bell there was a hollow 
 large enough to admit a man's body. Strand- 
 grass protected the opening with its roots so that 
 the drifting sand could not close it up. The red 
 foxes that crept inside to dig the hollow still 
 deeper were smoked out that their stench might 
 
 not offend Almighty God. 
 
 ******** 
 
 In winter-time Runow sat like a shivering 
 woman and stared with red-rimmed eyes into 
 the blazing peat-fire. However the smoke might 
 stifle him he let his throat burn with thirst rather 
 than go out to refresh himself in the cold air. 
 He amused himself with a pair of dice that he 
 had himself carved out of ivory. He tossed them 
 lightly in his hands and thought of the time when 
 Brigitte and he had thrown dice together on the 
 dyke of the high-road as children love to do. 
 
 But outside sky and sea met in a grey, gaping 
 waste, at one moment like mist, at another like a 
 wall.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 81 
 
 Then a storm would come out of the west and 
 fling itself upon the island, waking him from his 
 lethargy so that, as a free man, he stamped upon 
 the ground, forgot shame, resentment and re- 
 morse, and marked out his way as he himself 
 willed it. Then he would feel himself to be one 
 with the law. He sat in the hall of justice no 
 longer indifferent, and it was of little use for the 
 peasants to swear solemn oaths with uplifted fin- 
 gers; every word was written in the registers, the 
 matter gone into carefully, sheaf by sheaf evenly 
 divided, and justice had its way. 
 
 At the end of the third winter, just as the ice 
 broke, came news from Seven-Isles, but it was 
 not good news. Hilleborg sent Runow, as his 
 one and only inheritance, the bed with the iron 
 spikes whence he had so often watched in terror 
 phantom forms rise in the night. It was only to 
 revile him that she sent it to him now, shortly 
 before her second marriage. But it did not hurt 
 him. 
 
 After much trouble and turning the bed was 
 taken through the house-door and three rooms to 
 Runow's sleeping-apartment, which, next to the
 
 82 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 hall of justice, was the largest of the Klitgaard 
 chambers. 
 
 The red curtains hung about the bed-posts like 
 torn, faded flags, and as Runow had no servant 
 who knew how to mend with careful hand, he 
 himself set to work and folded the stuff so that 
 the one hole after the other was hidden. 
 
 In spite of his repugnance he determined to 
 sleep in the bed. But when, on nights of storm, 
 the iron railings shook around him like anchor- 
 chains so that he could not rest, it seemed to him 
 that he saw once more the hairy breast of his 
 father rising and falling in sleep, and that he 
 could smell again the strong odour of the dogs 
 and their wet hides. 
 
 In deep shame he remembered that his father 
 had not lain alone in the bed, but with Hilleborg 
 beside him.
 
 Odds and ends of information, threads of 
 truth and cobwebs of lies, reached Runow con- 
 cerning the little girl who wandered wild and 
 lonely about the island, without seeking shelter 
 on any hearth. Most people believed that a 
 phantom ship had brought her thither, as no flot- 
 sam or jetsam were cast up. The rudder-tracks 
 of the ship had long since been obliterated when 
 they found her sleeping on the sea-weed masses 
 of the shore. As the all-seeing Eye of God was 
 watching over her they did not kill her, but the 
 shore-bailiff carried her home to his hut with 
 but scant joy at the prospect of feeding a strange 
 bird in a narrow nest. 
 
 She spat into the food that was set before her, 
 and screamed so naughtily and ran so bewilder- 
 edly from wall to wall, like a falcon in a cage, 
 that they soon let her wander out into the open 
 air as she chose. She ran straight towards the 
 
 sea, and her wailing did not cease night or day. 
 
 83
 
 84 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Towards evening she allowed herself willingly 
 to be led back to the hut, and swallowed a little 
 of the despised food. They could see by the 
 working of her lips that it tasted to her like hen- 
 bane. 
 
 The folk drew off her silken clothes to examine 
 her naked and see whether she were marked as 
 a witch ; but they could find nothing. 
 
 She could not be induced to creep under the 
 warm skins where the people of the hut and 
 motherless lambs were together sheltered from 
 the night, but curled herself up on the bare floor 
 by the threshold, and there she slept. Before 
 daylight coloured the sky and sea she pushed 
 back the door-bolt and slipped out. Day after 
 day she watched for the phantom ship. 
 
 When the next evening came and she grew 
 fearful of the dew and of the night, she did not 
 seek the same hut again, but the one that hap- 
 pened to be nearest her. No one shut their door 
 against her, lest she should cast the evil eye on 
 their children or cattle. But as time went on the 
 island folk were more and more ready to leave 
 her to herself.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 85 
 
 Not a single friend did she possess, and she 
 never spoke a word, even when the primitive 
 speech of the island grew familiar to her ears. 
 But when the salt-pans were busy and the end- 
 less song of the men rang through the night, 
 whilst the flame ate its way through the damp 
 sea-weed and the air quivered with the heat of 
 the fires, she drew near to look and listen. The 
 men did not fear her nor she them. And when 
 the sun stood high in the vault of heaven she 
 plucked and plucked the juicy blueberries that 
 grew by the thousand amongst the heather and 
 the broom like shining beetles. It was her way 
 of thanking them for their confidence and the 
 men were glad, for the berries refreshed them 
 more than mead and the sour hop-drink. 
 
 In the summer nights she would bear no roof 
 over her head, but tripped out into the water as 
 far as she felt the ground under her feet, seated 
 herself on a rock that rose out of it, splashed 
 about after the little fishes, and whistled to the 
 seals. These latter came from far off, drew a 
 wide circle about the rock and listened to her 
 notes, but at first they would not venture to ap-
 
 86 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 proach. Then she would suddenly be silent, 
 scarcely breathing. As if rooted to the rock she 
 would sit there. And the creatures took courage. 
 Nearer and nearer they would draw until at last 
 they climbed upon the rock so that she might 
 stroke with her hands their silver-white coats. 
 But if a night-fisher came in sight they slid back 
 into the water to the fish. 
 
 The island-folk had taken her clothes and put 
 on her others that pricked her skin like nettles, 
 so that she often had to shake herself. But in 
 time she grew accustomed to them and no longer 
 noticed their coarseness.
 
 Runow was so wont to see women and children 
 get out of his way at his approach that he had not 
 remarked the slender maid who disappeared be- 
 hind the dunes whenever he came within a bow- 
 shot of her. 
 
 On the other hand, he wondered that he so 
 often smelled a perfume of roses, since no rose- 
 tree would take root upon the island. He could 
 follow the scent, winding and twisting, from 
 which he concluded that it was no morbid imag- 
 ining of his brain. But if he took only two steps 
 to the side of the path he followed he lost the 
 trail in the smell of the sea or the strong odour 
 of the peat. On windless days he often scented 
 the perfume in the valley at the foot of the dunes. 
 
 But once he saw in the wet sand where his own 
 foot-prints had left their track, little fresh marks 
 made by short-tripping feet. Who walked here 
 with naked feet? The island-folk so wrapped 
 
 themselves in wool and skins that the sweat rolled 
 
 87
 
 88 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 down them if they so much as moved, and they 
 swathed their children, too, from head to foot. 
 
 Here and there the tracks laid inside his own; 
 he could see how carefully they had been made 
 that his might not be broken. And suddenly it 
 became clear to him that it must be she who was 
 entered in the register as being without name or 
 country or age. 
 
 Unexpectedly she began to occupy his 
 thoughts. 
 
 One evening he was wandering beside the sea. 
 Poisonous memories were weighing on his soul, 
 each one wounding him with its sting. 
 
 Now he saw Cornelia seated in her narrow 
 cell. Did she long for the chamber in which she 
 had once passed rapturous nights or was her 
 longing now dead? Had the vesper-bell the 
 power to rock her mind to peace so that every 
 sigh became a humble prayer and atonement?- 
 or did the wind carry away with it the cry of her 
 red, trembling lips? 
 
 If she should come to him over the sea, borne 
 by the obedient wind and the healing darkness 
 if she should come with her tender love, wind the
 
 THE GOVERNOR 89 
 
 fair plaits about his neck and laugh so that the 
 birds forgot that it was night and sang with her 
 Cornelia! 
 
 Ah! It would be to bind a poultice on a mis- 
 erable scratch whilst blood sprang from every 
 pore. 
 
 For Brigitte and only Brigitte only she in 
 all the world 
 
 Endless melancholy overwhelmed him. His 
 head sank to the ground, he pressed his forehead 
 upon the sea-sand and his tears flowed. 
 
 The little maid was quite near, but he did not 
 know it. Every time that he stopped and drew 
 breath with a sigh she held her hand before her 
 mouth that he might not hear how sadly she too 
 was obliged to sigh. 
 
 Ever since the night when he had passed the 
 rock on which she sat, and looked at her with un- 
 seeing eyes whilst the moonlight fell upon his 
 face, she had thought of him. Night after night 
 she had followed him noiselessly from point to 
 point of land. Him, the mightiest man of the 
 island! 
 
 But she never dared to approach him by day.
 
 90 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Only once, when she found him sleeping on the 
 dunes, she had crept up to him and touched his 
 forehead with her finger. 
 
 Now she stood terrified. Her ears were sharp 
 as those of the birds of prey, but what sounds 
 were these? He lay still, quite still, like the cold 
 people whom the sea rolled in upon the strand 
 after a storm. Never before had she seen men 
 weep, now she felt so great a pain that she must 
 needs bite her lips. 
 
 To console herself she began to hum the song 
 that her mother and the other women had sung 
 down by the river when they washed their linen. 
 She rocked the upper part of her body to and fro 
 as they had been wont to do, and when the song 
 came to an end she closed it with the long com- 
 plaint that arose along the shore when the bodies 
 of sucklings floated down the stream amongst 
 great blossoms. Then the women bowed their 
 heads until their hair touched the water, wetted 
 their eyes, and plucked upon the shore flowers 
 with long stems which they sent floating after 
 the little bodies. She would not think of it more,
 
 THE GOVERNOR 91 
 
 for then she saw again how the man seized her 
 mother and how the other women stoned her. 
 
 Runow rose. He felt two damp, cold hands 
 on his face. He encircled with his arms a supple, 
 trembling body. From the hair came that in- 
 toxicating perfume of roses that had so often 
 guided his footsteps. 
 
 He tried to speak, but she laid her little hand 
 over his mouth, and seated herself beside him in 
 the sand, rocking her head and crying and 
 laughing. Then she fell asleep.
 
 The people murmured when the governor of 
 the island so forgot the high dignity of his office 
 as to take the crafty huzzy into his house as 
 though she had been of his kin. And in addition 
 he bribed that servant of the Lord, Magister 
 Egede Glob, to perform a sacrilegious baptism; 
 for he gave her the name of the eternally cursed 
 and called her Kaina. 
 
 But he named her thus after his mother. 
 
 Runow considered it right that she should be 
 instructed in all the excellent laws of God and 
 the precepts of the Bible. In this he requested 
 the aid of Egede Glob. 
 
 But to all that the pastor tried to impress upon 
 her with rolling eyes and whirling arms and a 
 bellow like that of a bull, she listened as to the 
 rush and roar of the wind and water; she under- 
 stood not a word of it. 
 
 If he continued to repeat it with waxing anger 
 
 92
 
 THE GOVERNOR 93 
 
 she pressed her jaws together and ground her 
 teeth as if she were eating sand. 
 
 When he exorcised her, laying his hand on 
 her head, a shudder shook her down to her knees, 
 for his fingers smelled of stale fish. But he saw 
 in this a proof that the Evil One had entered into 
 her and that his unclean blood flowed in her 
 veins. 
 
 Glob would undoubtedly have driven the devil 
 out of her in another fashion had the instruction 
 taken place elsewhere than at Klitgaard and in 
 the very room where Runow himself sat. But 
 Runow gave himself plenty of leisure, and the 
 pastor must put up with the shame of seeing how, 
 whenever he threw her a glance, the huzzy 
 laughed all over her face. It was true that they 
 did not speak to each other whilst the lesson 
 lasted, but dumb lips and gleaming eyes can be 
 eloquent enough, and Glob saw clearly that they 
 held intercourse in spite of it, though in a tongue 
 that, like the motes in the sunshine of a room, 
 danced noiselessly up and down. 
 
 At length Egede Glob begged to be relieved 
 of all responsibility for the uncomprehending
 
 94 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 maid. She understood that and peeped up joy- 
 fully under half-closed eyelids. Runow agreed 
 and undertook the post of spiritual instructor 
 himself. He chose the book of Chronicles, and 
 tried with vivid words to impress it upon her. 
 Quietly and gently she listened to him, but if 
 he was silent another chronicle formed itself 
 dreamily upon her lips, unlike that of the Bible, 
 but equally splendid. It seemed as though she 
 forced her words out with difficulty; they came 
 drop by drop, and never in a stream. In the 
 midst of it she would suddenly pause and listen 
 with uplifted hand as if she would seize what she 
 heard, but soon the words began again to trickle 
 out. 
 
 Runow was obliged to divide the time for her, 
 and to separate day and night, that day might be 
 employed for work and the night for rest. He 
 placed, in the narrow chamber near his own 
 room, a little bed for the girl. But for a long 
 time she would not climb into it. 
 
 Runow had to show her how to take off her 
 clothes, and he himself crept into his railed bed. 
 
 Then came the night. The curtains of the bed
 
 THE GOVERNOR 95 
 
 looked black. She could not see him, but she 
 could very well hear him, and he pretended to 
 sleep. 
 
 Kaina crouched on the steps of the bed, her 
 face in her hands. 
 
 Then Runow got up and opened the trap-door 
 of the loft. Overhead was the clear opening of 
 the roof. 
 
 Now she could see the stars and hear the night- 
 wind pass across the sky. Runow drew a stool 
 under the opening, seated himself beside her, 
 and told her about the stars far away up above 
 them, that wandered from eternity to eternity in 
 their destined course. But if one star loved an- 
 other and could never reach it, it threw itself 
 from the vault of heaven down into the sea, and 
 was extinguished and drowned. 
 
 Not Brigitte, but Cornelia, had taught him in 
 her innocence what he now told the child by 
 night. 
 
 But Kaina sat beside him, her face turned up 
 to the window, and dreamed out into the night- 
 sky. 
 
 No the stars were souls. Souls, that have
 
 96 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 never prayed for eternal peace. They die and 
 God pulls off their wings, that they may not fly 
 about in the holy heaven. But over the clouds 
 where the white cold and the god of hunger 
 dwell, they are nailed fast. They shiver with fear 
 and cold. Then they suffer remorse and long for 
 the river that sings eternal songs. At last Buddha 
 pities them and gives the souls their wings again, 
 but they have forgotten how to fly and fall tired 
 into the blue water where people sail in long 
 boats. So soon as they touch the water, however, 
 they are changed into silver scales, and the scales 
 fasten themselves on the nimble fish, that carry 
 them over the seven seas and the hundred waters 
 of the world to the singing river that is ever grey 
 like the mist on the mountains. 
 
 Runow looked up to the hurrying clouds. The 
 sickle of the moon glided forth. It was mid- 
 night. He felt Kaina's head rest on his shoulder 
 she was asleep. He carefully carried her to 
 her couch. 
 
 After that she slept willingly in the narrow 
 bed, but the oaken rails made blue marks on her
 
 THE GOVERNOR 97 
 
 arms and legs when she rolled herself about in 
 the confined space. 
 
 Runow taught her to write, and half the day 
 through she wrote with a stick in the smooth 
 sand. Runow was wise, and he had said that 
 written messages could be carried to the middle 
 of the world, and so she wrote to the souls of 
 her mother and all her little sisters who lived 
 under the great mountains. 
 
 Runow taught her to count on her fingers the 
 days of the month, and the days of the year. It 
 occurred to her to count the stars and to write 
 in the sand how many fell and were changed to 
 silver scales. 
 
 Faithfully she worked with slate and pencil. 
 As she did so her tongue crept out of the corner 
 of her mouth, and her black, curly hair twined 
 about the slate. But in the hooks of the letters 
 and figures she drew little flowers, little fishes, 
 and little stars, and Runow had some difficulty 
 in finding his way in the maze of her writing.
 
 Sometimes Runow's duties took him to the 
 wood in the centre of the island to give atten- 
 tion to the felling and planting of trees, but this 
 journey was not to his taste. 
 
 In the woods of Liinegaard and Seven-Isles 
 the trees had stood like pillars in the aisle of a 
 church. Through the vaulted crowns the light 
 filtered as through a silken sieve and fell in nar- 
 row rays upon the ground where fern and wood- 
 ruff took root The cattle-bells tinkled in many- 
 toned echoes. Heavy-bellied swine trotted 
 along in slow herds, and the bushy tails of the 
 foxes chased gleaming butterflies into flight. If 
 the air darkened at twilight or during rain, hum- 
 ming swarms of gnats passed through the under- 
 brush. And every branch bore a nest. 
 
 But in the Laeso wood it was dark and cold. 
 The network of branches was knotted so fast 
 with tough twigs that not even a snake could 
 
 creep through the thick mass. Between slimy 
 
 98
 
 THE GOVERNOR 99 
 
 pools and dead branches poisonous mushrooms 
 shot up out of the earth. When the wood-cutter 
 drove his axe into the roots, or his saw into the 
 bark of a tree by the light of the lantern for 
 nothing would catch fire in the damp air one 
 heard a mournful shriek like the cry of an ani- 
 mal in pain. The edge of the axe would be blunt 
 by the third stroke and the teeth of the saw bit 
 like a knife in water. But it happened, too, that 
 trunks five ells in circumference went down like 
 old men knocked over by a box on the ear when 
 the axe was only three inches deep in the bark. 
 That the nutrition of the soil was exhausted 
 could be seen when the seven hundred young 
 saplings that were sent every year from Saby by 
 ship and planted in the clearings, immediately 
 rotted and did not take root. 
 
 Kaina feared the darkness of the woods and 
 hesitated to accompany Runow. Again and 
 again she promised to go with him, but when he 
 took the road Kaina was gone, and when he came 
 home she went so coaxingly to meet him that he 
 could not be angry with her. But one day Kaina 
 went readily enough.
 
 ioo THE GOVERNOR 
 
 So long as the light from the fringe of the 
 wood surrounded their path her hand rested 
 quietly in his like a sleeping bird. Runow bent 
 gently over her with encouraging words, but he 
 saw that she walked as if in sleep with wide- 
 open, dark eyes. He pretended not to notice it, 
 and held her hand the faster. They went far- 
 ther. Darkness wrapped them round. 
 
 Suddenly she tore her hand from his and 
 rushed away before he could recover himself 
 and hold her back. 
 
 Round about them rang the screams of the 
 axes was it these that had frightened Kaina? 
 
 "Kaina," he cried, "Kaina!" Echo called 
 back the name, but without answer. Some- 
 times it seemed to him as if he heard twigs and 
 branches crackle and the rustle of creeping 
 game. 
 
 From one tree to another he called her and 
 wondered at the hoarse croaking that rebounded 
 from the trunks. 
 
 Frightened child, silly child! With covered 
 eyes she could tell the four quarters of the 
 heaven. She could not lose her way from here
 
 THE GOVERNOR 101 
 
 back to Klitgaard. But even if she were lost 
 the wood was not half a mile wide in its widest 
 part. Half of it was probably play and half 
 fright. 
 
 She would soon find her way out to the golden 
 sunshine and run towards the dunes. In a little 
 while she would be lying there exceedingly 
 pleased at her trick. 
 
 He forced himself to believe this, but went 
 forward slowly, listening to every rustling sound 
 whenever the axes were silent. 
 
 Then he saw the reddish-yellow glow of the 
 flickering lanterns, heard the rough voices of 
 the woodmen, and could distinguish the saw 
 from the axe. The work ceased for a while, the 
 men turned to him and murmured a "good day" 
 and "good journey," but no one smiled at him in 
 welcome. And once more the axe made wedges 
 in the marked trees. The lanterns were carried 
 round the men's throats, so that the light fell 
 upon their faces and streaked the ground as if 
 with bloody wounds. 
 
 "Have you seen Kaina she ran away irom 
 me?" he asked, and could not keep himself from
 
 102 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 asking. But no one answered him, and he con- 
 tinued, "If she should pass show her the way 
 back to Klitgaard immediately." 
 
 All were silent. But as he continued his path 
 he heard a burst of laughter that cut him to 
 nerve and bone, for he knew that they were 
 mocking at him for the sake of Kaina. 
 
 He wandered on at hazard. Then there came 
 to his ear a shriek so piercing that he must needs 
 cry out, too. And now he rushed on, knocking 
 himself against the tree-trunks as if he would 
 turn them over, ran and ran. 
 
 And no one answered him. He tried to 
 deaden his fear. Was it only an imaginary cry 
 with which his excited imagination had de- 
 ceived him? Or was it the scream of the saw 
 against a hard knot, or a wounded bird? 
 
 But his anxiety increased, and he could hear 
 the beating of his heart. 
 
 Every mound of earth upon the island should 
 be claimed as forfeit if a hair of Kaina's head 
 were injured. Every man should leave his work, 
 form a circle about the wood and search. The 
 peat-holes should be dragged to the bottom. But
 
 THE GOVERNOR 103 
 
 the sea the sea was beyond the power and will 
 of man. 
 
 He seated himself upon a stump, dead tired. 
 His thoughts rested with folded wings. He fell 
 into a doze. When he rose he recollected the 
 errand that had led him to the wood, and to 
 provide himself with occupation he returned to 
 the wood-cutters and ordered them to leave their 
 work and to spend the following seven days in 
 planting. Should the salt-pans need fuel they 
 might rest or use the time in scraping sea-weed. 
 The planting must not be postponed. 
 
 They knew well enough that if the governor 
 of the island brought them the message himself 
 it was because the matter was urgent, for the 
 lords of the chapter-house were severe. They 
 bowed their backs in acquiescence, but con- 
 tinued their task. 
 
 "Have you seen Kaina?" 
 
 There was little sympathy in face or back as 
 they drawled out their "nay." 
 
 "Did you hear anything cry out?" 
 
 "Wet saws soon grow rusty in their speech
 
 104 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 and the axe-blades screech more than they sing 
 we have heard no other cry!" 
 
 Runow grew angry at the answer. 
 
 "Do you loiter to do my bidding and obey the 
 orders of the chapter-house?" 
 
 One murmured, sulkily, "Cannot the women 
 grub in the earth and plant in our place?" 
 
 "You have heard my order be off at once 
 to your work!" 
 
 They mumbled, half surly, half afraid, with 
 loose lips, but dried the blades of their axes on 
 their sleeves, hung their saws over their shoul- 
 ders, fastened their lights aright and tramped 
 away. The soil squelched under their weight. 
 Giant shadows glided out from between the tree- 
 trunks and followed them. 
 
 Runow went towards the sea where Kaina 
 was wont to play. She was not there. 
 
 When he reached Klitgaard he found Idel, 
 the wife of the net-weaver, Germund, waiting 
 for him on the threshold. She came in the name 
 of God and of all submissive island-folk, but 
 especially sent by Hendrik, the strand-bailiff. 
 He dared no more keep the bits of silver and
 
 THE GOVERNOR 105 
 
 silk that Kaina had worn when she was found. 
 Four winters they had lain on the beams between 
 two blessed wooden crosses, and Hendrik 
 would not open the bundle. He did not give it 
 away either, for no one would have it in his 
 house. It was full of perfume, strong as mead, 
 and tickled the nostrils. But with time the smell 
 of fish and the smoke had driven out the per- 
 fume. Hendrik would have kept silence till his 
 death but that his twin-lambs, four weeks old 
 and fat, lay with stretched-out legs. 
 
 He had asked counsel of wise men and they 
 had declared that evil powers lay in the bundle 
 on the beam. In addition, the upper cross had 
 fallen down into the ashes with a great noise the 
 night before as the cock crowed, and as Hendrik 
 had crept out of bed to save the holy symbol, 
 he had burned himself badly in the embers. 
 Here was the bundle. Hendrik had promised to 
 set an iron band on Idel's broken door if she 
 would go in place of him to the gracious lord. 
 
 But as she feared all further conversation on 
 the subject she waddled away. 
 
 Runow opened the knots of the creased mor-
 
 io6 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 sels that had covered Kama's body years before 
 when she lay out upon the sea-weed. He 
 smoothed out the silk. It was fine and soft, and 
 the colours were subdued like the shimmer of a 
 vanishing rainbow. He found a little bodice 
 with arm-holes, the rest seemed to consist of 
 handkerchiefs, sashes and bands, all glimmering 
 with silken threads. 
 
 It was now too small for the maiden who cried 
 for a birch-bath and combed her hair with her 
 fingers. 
 
 In a reverie he spread the pieces over her bed. 
 There lay, under her pillow, the little silver tube 
 filled with oil pressed from the roses of the 
 mountains, the tube that was covered with runes 
 in Kaina's tongue, wound about with needle- 
 fine braids, and protected by a sheath of ebony. 
 It had crossed the sea to Kaina like a greeting 
 from the home-land. And she greedily pre- 
 served the costly drops, each of which intoxi- 
 cated with its perfume. Only when the moon 
 changed and when Kaina, turned towards the 
 east, recited her childish prayer, did she salve 
 with it the crown of her head and the soles of
 
 THE GOVERNOR 107 
 
 her feet All over the house one could trace the 
 perfume but Kaina was not there. 
 
 Runow longed for rest and the hunger of a 
 whole day gnawed at him, but he dared not seek 
 repose. Distant thunder shook the floor of the 
 house, the benches creaked. He opened the door 
 and went out. The clouds hung low. Under 
 them the wind blew from the east and from the 
 west with burning heat. Like summer lightning 
 the fluttering butterflies shimmered against the 
 thunder-clouds. Moor-hens hurried to their 
 nests. Beetles buzzed towards the heather, seek- 
 ing shelter. 
 
 The sea swelled heavily, cleft by swift flashes. 
 Out of the deafening noise grew silence, and all 
 was still again. The rain began to fall. 
 
 Runow reached the boundary of the wood. 
 Flashes of lightning made the earth seem red 
 with glowing steam. He gasped, suffocated by 
 the heat. 
 
 He must find the child and press her to his 
 breast. And out of the deep anxiety of his heart 
 arose the certainty that Kaina was now near.
 
 io8 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 He hesitated, fearing to tread upon her, and 
 stood still to listen. 
 
 But the thunder roared about him as if all the 
 rolling stones from the bottom of the sea had 
 been whirled up into the clouds and again cast 
 down by force of gravity upon the wood, fol- 
 lowed by pouring spring floods. 
 
 A flash illumined everything around him. In 
 the glow he saw Kaina but two steps away, her 
 arms stretched out towards him. There was 
 blood on her face. But another flash broke 
 through the clouds and felled him to the ground 
 and towards Kaina. He felt the blood from her 
 face trickle over his forehead and was seized 
 with horror. Pains shot through every limb, 
 and they were as if crippled, but the warm blood 
 streamed over his brow and glued his eyelids 
 together. 
 
 It was late in the night when Runow at length 
 ventured to rise, take Kaina in his arms and flee 
 from the wood. 
 
 But she was dumb as a dead bird. He only 
 knew that she lived by the beating of her heart 
 against his own. He became easier when she
 
 THE GOVERNOR 109 
 
 lay in her narrow bed and her wounds had been 
 dressed with linen soaked in oil, and her breath 
 came and went softly in sleep. 
 
 He meant to watch over her until the day 
 came, and to learn from her what had happened 
 in the wood. But he slept beside her and only 
 awakened in the clear daylight. Kaina sat on 
 the floor, busily binding the gay-coloured silks 
 about her body. She stretched them out and 
 shook her head in amazement. She cried im- 
 ploringly, pathetically, in the tongue of which 
 Runow understood not a syllable. Then she 
 passed her hand over her arms and legs as if 
 she were seeking something that was gone. 
 Runow fetched from the corner by the stove all 
 the chains of amber and mussel-shell that she 
 had strung together and was wont to bind on her 
 ankles and arms, but she let them fall through 
 her fingers to the floor, wept bitterly, and cov- 
 ered her face with her hair. 
 
 Days and weeks passed before she came to 
 herself again. Then she only knew that she had 
 let go of Runow's hand and had fallen over a 
 bough with living teeth. It had bitten her fore-
 
 i io THE GOVERNOR 
 
 head, and all the other trees had tried to bite her 
 too. She had heard him call, but had not been 
 able to utter a word. 
 
 That was the only time that Kama entered 
 the wood of Laeso.
 
 One night she awoke. Runow's stealthy foot- 
 steps had disturbed her dreams, and now she 
 heard him walking up and down, up and down. 
 
 For four days she had tried in vain to capture 
 his glance. It had passed over her and by her 
 without meeting hers. She put her fingers in 
 her ears, but the knocking in her head only 
 sounded louder. For a long time he continued 
 to walk up and down, and at length he threw 
 himself upon his bed, unable to rest. 
 
 Kaina struggled to remain quiet. Twice she 
 sat up, the third time she sprang out onto the 
 floor, folded her hands cross-wise over her breast 
 to subdue the beating of her heart, and crept 
 over the threshold to Runow. Over the iron 
 steps she reached the railing, pushed back the 
 door, and glided inside like a bird into its nest. 
 
 Runow could scarcely breathe so tightly did 
 she press her arms about his neck, and he was 
 forced to laugh. But in the same moment Kaina 
 
 in
 
 ii2 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 realized that she was naked, and overcome with 
 shame, crept over to the wall. There she lay 
 and sobbed, with all her ten fingers in her mouth. 
 Runow thought that evil dreams had frightened 
 her, and had not the heart to send her away, but 
 talked to her gently. 
 
 As she would not leave off crying he thought 
 that there must be something wrong with her, 
 and asked whether she suffered. 
 
 And as he asked that she felt an intense pain 
 under her left breast. She pressed her hand 
 upon it without answering, and Runow, who 
 saw the gesture, put out his hand to touch the 
 sore place; but he felt that her breast was round 
 and warm as that of a maiden. 
 
 He drew back his hand and suddenly found 
 himself unable to speak. 
 
 To break the shamed silence he began to twist 
 her long hair about his hand. It was so long 
 that it flowed over the pillow onto the smooth 
 leather of the couch, and it smelled of roses. 
 
 He spread it over his tired eyes and his face, 
 and laid his cheek to rest upon it. Unconsciously 
 he continued to pull lock after lock towards him,
 
 THE GOVERNOR 113 
 
 and did not notice that her head yielded and was 
 bent backwards by his gentle tugs. At last her 
 neck lay under his mouth, but then he fell asleep 
 resting heavily on Kama's hair. 
 
 She dared not move even to draw the coverlet 
 over her shivering body or to creep nearer to 
 him. Her head was so near his that every breath 
 warmed her neck comfortingly. 
 
 The hair stretched and the roots pricked like 
 sharp thorns. But he might pull every hair from 
 her head if it so pleased him, she would make no 
 sound. 
 
 And he slept on. 
 
 "Brigitte Brigitte " She did not forget 
 
 the word. Was it a star, was it a flower? But 
 as he cried it again in piteous tones Kaina be- 
 came jealous of the word. She knew that Ru- 
 now had come from over the sea, but she knew 
 neither river nor mountain of his native land. 
 
 In the morning when Runow lifted his head 
 from the pillow to see what the hour might be 
 he was greatly astounded, for there lay Kaina as 
 naked as if the sea had thrown her up. And he 
 had slept upon her hair and dreamed sweetly
 
 ii 4 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 of Brigitte. He wished to spread the coverlet 
 over her, her shoulders were so cold that they 
 chilled his hands; but he would not let his glance 
 rest on her, feeling that it would be an insult to 
 the young body. And when Kaina awoke a mo- 
 ment later Runow lay staring at the ceiling. 
 
 No, never had he enjoyed such healthy slum- 
 ber or dreamed so sweetly as now with his head 
 upon her hair. This night he had been wander- 
 ing in a rose-garden. 
 
 He told her so without turning his eyes upon 
 her, rose, and dressed himself hastily that she 
 might have the couch in peace. 
 
 The railing was cold, but from the middle of 
 the bed where Runow had lain there streamed 
 towards her a warmth that caught at her as if 
 with supple fingers. She knew not what to do 
 for shame, fire seemed to trickle down her back. 
 When she walked her knees knocked together, 
 and she felt the warm life of her body like an- 
 other being that wrapped her round and de- 
 voured her, and would no more let her be. 
 
 But Runow had said, "Never have I slept so 
 soundly."
 
 THE GOVERNOR 115 
 
 Kaina weighed her hair in her hand and went 
 to Germund's good-natured wife, Idel. Old 
 Idel took the sheep-shears, sang a penitential 
 psalm, and cut all the hair from Kaina's head. 
 Like broken tendrils the locks fell to the ground, 
 and as each fell it was like a stab through bone 
 and marrow. It seemed to her that the hair 
 moaned. Over the stubble of her head Idel 
 strewed ashes from the hearth that Kaina might 
 not be attacked by the cold pestilence. 
 
 And Kaina left the hut carrying the dead, cold 
 hair. It had curled so wildly before. Now 
 it lay smooth from wrist to wrist like a skein of 
 wool to be wound. It felt chill and damp. 
 
 From the bundle under her pillow she chose 
 a piece of silk, red as poppies, went to Idel once 
 more, and for three whole days learned to cut 
 and sew out of the silk a little cushion. With 
 the last drops of the oil of roses from her little 
 tube she scented her hair, hid it in the cushion 
 and sewed it up. Where the couch was highest 
 she laid it. But she felt as though she had torn 
 her own red heart from her breast and given it to 
 Runow.
 
 ii6 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 And night after night Runow slept upon it 
 and could not turn his thoughts from the stubbly 
 head of the child and her eyes that no longer met 
 his, but were downcast in pain and shame. 
 
 The spring days came, so rich in light from 
 the high heaven down to the white floor of the 
 sea; but the light blinded him. The sun itself 
 seemed to stand between him and her, his words 
 sounded as distant as a call from mountain to 
 mountain over a deep valley. 
 
 Runow called her a child, and knew that she 
 was a maiden. His manner towards her changed 
 as a wind that blows from hot to cold. If she 
 entered, unexpectedly and humbly, the chamber 
 in which he was bending gloomily over his 
 heavy law-books, he drove her away again 
 either with his silence or unwilling words, or he 
 himself left the room. But if she wandered 
 away from Klitgaard and lay down to rest wher- 
 ever she chanced to be when night fell, his mind 
 would be filled with vain unrest. 
 
 One day he sent an urgent message to Flad- 
 strand, to purchase for Kaina more suitable gar- 
 ments and robes reaching to the ground, that he
 
 THE GOVERNOR 117 
 
 need no longer be obliged to notice how her 
 limbs took on softly rounded forms. But for her 
 hair, that grew luxuriantly like shoots on a 
 lopped tree-trunk, a comb and a tight-fitting 
 cap. Kaina obediently put on the garments, but 
 felt herself like a miserable prisoner in the many 
 bands and strings. 
 
 There came a day when Runow had double 
 bolts set upon the oaken door between Kama's 
 chamber and his own, so that in future he must 
 pass by the wing of the house and through the 
 turret-door when he wished to enter his room 
 from the others. He could give no other reason 
 for this than that now Kaina might sleep un- 
 disturbed by him. 
 
 He himself drew the bolt and fastened a pad- 
 lock upon the door yet he often left his couch, 
 drawn by greedy longing, to try whether it were 
 not open. But it did not give under his grasp. 
 
 It would have had to be broken in. 
 
 But what he would have done had it been 
 open he himself did not know.
 
 In a letter from Simen came a greeting writ- 
 ; ten by Brigitte's hand; a greeting and nothing 
 more. It was like an empty tankard set to the 
 lips of a thirsty man. 
 
 Brigitte was at Lunegaard, surrounded by 
 suitors for her hand and heart. Over the draw- 
 bridge they were so easily admitted to the manor, 
 so hospitably received, and then so quietly des- 
 patched, that it was pitiful to see. She sat at her 
 embroidery-frame and drew her needleful of the 
 reddest wool in and out of the linen, whether the 
 suitors laughed or wept. And on the linen ap- 
 , peared storks with long beaks, geese, churches, 
 and skies with clouds, all rosy-red. As she 
 smiled in greeting to them and as she smiled in 
 farewell she showed all her white teeth, but 
 closed her lips tightly to every fresh proposal. 
 
 Simen sat beside her in the hall. He would 
 draw maps of the lands that they had seen, with 
 
 dots for every town and lines for every river 
 
 118
 
 THE GOVERNOR 119 
 
 they had visited, and with Simen she discussed 
 all manner of topics. 
 
 On the linen there appeared also ripe grapes 
 and begging friars she was no past-mistress in 
 the art of needlework, and Simen often laughed 
 at her; but she could always tell him when and 
 where she had seen this, that, and the other. 
 
 He had advised her to keep a journal from 
 the beginning of their voyage ; it was well to do 
 so if one wished to retain the memory of it. 
 There still lay in her travel-chest with the bronze 
 bands an almanac full of empty pages, but one 
 word was written on the first and last. It was 
 "Runow," and nothing but that. 
 
 As she now sat at Liinegaard in her stately 
 splendour, knowing that Hilleborg, in a peas- 
 ant's dress of coarse ticking, was forced to en- 
 dure the blows and rough speech of her hus- 
 band, she realized the power of wealth and the 
 joy of freedom. 
 
 It rested with her to make Runow happy 
 above all other men. And she saw that the 
 anger trickled from her heart like sand from an 
 hour-glass. To compel one's self to nourish ill-
 
 120 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 will is harder than to catch wind with a fishing- 
 net. 
 
 So she played two notes on the string that was 
 called Runow, and Simen responded with a 
 thousand, and she added a greeting to the letter. 
 
 Another year Simen begged for permission 
 to go to Runow and to find out whether he were 
 happy and how he ruled the island and his own 
 mind. 
 
 When he returned home he talked ceaselessly 
 to her of all that he had seen and heard, only 
 keeping silence with regard to Kaina; why, he 
 himself did not know. 
 
 He must describe the appearance of the island 
 and the steep dunes, that, like pointed battle- 
 ments, shielded it against the fury of the sea. He 
 must describe Klitgaard and the green elm-trees. 
 
 Still a winter passed and yet another.
 
 East of Klitgaard lay two grey huts like float- 
 ing hillocks of sea-weed. In one of them lived 
 Arnlys of Iceland with Gefen; but Gefen was 
 dull and heavy, whilst her blood was like the hot 
 geysers of her native isle. Hot and hasty she 
 was and his stupid laziness disgusted her. That 
 she might not continually breathe the same air 
 as him she made a hole in the roof of the hut 
 and one in the wall, and when she did not lie 
 looking up to the free sky she lay by the hole in 
 the wall and peeped out towards Tarben's hut 
 
 The five children mocked at the grumbling 
 father and hopped like lambs about the lively 
 mother. She lavished caresses upon them and 
 kissed their ears, and rolled about in the sand 
 with them, and boiled all the birds' eggs they 
 found. She took them in her arms and played 
 with them. 
 
 But fourteen paces away lay the hut where 
 Tarben lived with his gentle Maja. Maja had 
 
 121
 
 122 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 no children, and whenever she heard Arnlys' 
 children laughing she fretted so much that she 
 withered in the place where fresh shoots should 
 have sprung out. 
 
 Their eyes met during many days and it came 
 about that Arnlys and Tarben cared only to live 
 for one another. But Arnlys' husband and Tar- 
 ben's wife had also eyes, and these must be 
 blinded. 
 
 Tarben was fond of the five children because 
 they made Arnlys gay and happy and they, or 
 the eldest of them, helped to urge her to an evil 
 deed. She hesitated, hoping that death might 
 remove the superfluous; she would rather have 
 caressed Tarben with hands that were not sticky 
 with blood. But Maja became pregnant, and 
 her joy awakened a wild fury in Arnlys' soul. 
 
 If Tarben would not listen to her she would 
 leave the country and return to Iceland and 
 never see him again. He gave way, and they 
 agreed that, at the same hour, when the sun was 
 high overhead, they would do the deed that 
 would leave them henceforth in peace with one 
 another.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 123 
 
 Arnlys enticed Gefen into a sack. He was to 
 try whether it were large enough to creep into 
 in the cold of winter. Laughingly she tied the 
 sack over his head, seized the mussel-knife and 
 stabbed him until he was quiet. 
 
 Tarben heard the cries, but he shrank from 
 killing the gentle Maja who had just fallen into 
 her noonday sleep. Still, he knew what Arnlys' 
 vows meant, and at last he threw himself upon 
 Maja with the whole weight of his body. 
 
 She gasped aloud for air, but he did not move; 
 then there was a rattling in her throat, and he 
 felt how Death crept over her body from her 
 head to her heels. But he had killed two, and 
 Arnlys only one, and he was seized with terror. 
 
 He listened for Arnlys' voice; all around was 
 silent, in the hut, beneath the sky, even the sea 
 was still. Maja lay there with open mouth, 
 there was no trace of violence. Somewhat 
 soothed he stepped to the door, seeking Arnlys, 
 but he dared not take the fourteen paces to her 
 hut. 
 
 Whenever he had asked her, "What shall 
 we do with the bodies afterwards?" she had
 
 124 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 answered, "First the deed; then everything will 
 arrange itself." He dared not cross the thres- 
 hold and he dared not return to look at Maja's 
 open mouth. 
 
 As he stood there in the silence, Kaina came 
 creeping through the heather. A butterfly flew 
 before her and took the path between the huts. 
 Tarben knew Kaina and had often seen her by 
 the fires when there was singing at the salt-pans 
 south of Klitgaard. Now she came in the hour 
 of need and he begged her to run across to 
 Arnlys' hut, but not to enter nor to look through 
 the hole in the wall, only to call Arnlys to 
 Tarben. 
 
 She pointed with one finger towards Arnlys 
 and another to Tarben ; she had understood. 
 
 Over by the hut she called, "Arnlys to Tarben 
 Arnlys to Tarben!" but as no one answered she 
 went nearer, sprang upon the loose pieces of turf, 
 and peeped in. But before Arnlys could call to 
 her she ran away frightened and screaming 
 through the heather, straight to Runow. 
 
 Arnlys had at that moment been in the act of 
 smearing the lips of her children with blood
 
 THE GOVERNOR 125 
 
 from Gefen's wounds as a seal of silence that 
 must never be broken. And as there was no ten- 
 derness for their father in their hearts they had 
 looked on in silence and without blenching. 
 
 Runow was not inclined to go himself and see 
 whether Kaina's words were true, but he sent 
 the bailiff's man and the constable, and a third, 
 Vige Laem, the warder of the prison, who hap- 
 pened at that moment to be guarding a vacant 
 cell. 
 
 Tarben and Arnlys were taken in the midst 
 of their love-making and before even the bodies 
 had been disposed of.
 
 At the end of the path leading southwards 
 from Klitgaard lay the prison. A governor who 
 had been there before Runow's time had been 
 unwilling to have his children disturbed at night 
 by the clanking of the chains against his walls. 
 Therefore, he had built a prison-cell at his own 
 cost and had it well secured with iron and tough 
 oak. A man could stand upright in it. Three 
 rings were fastened to the walls, to each was 
 welded a chain. If many thieves or perpetra- 
 tors of outrage awaited trial together they were 
 locked into the dark room in the garret at 
 Klitgaard. 
 
 Before the spy-holes were iron bars, red with 
 rust. Any one might spit into the prisoner's 
 eyes and vent their spleen upon him. He was 
 in no way protected. There was a spy-hole to 
 the north, one to the south, one to the east, and 
 another to the west. If chill winds were blow- 
 ing, the prisoners bent double in their chains 
 
 126 

 
 THE GOVERNOR 127 
 
 and let them blow over their backs, but in the 
 cold of the winter days the ankle-rings and hand- 
 irons were glowing hot. 
 
 The warder, at this time Vige Laem, who an- 
 swered for the prisoners with his life, lived 
 twenty paces away; but loved his bench and his 
 hearth-fire too well to trouble them, save that he 
 shortened the fetters of those who danced and 
 sprang about in their chains. 
 
 Here Arnlys and Tarben were shut up. Who- 
 ever looked through the spy-hole by day saw 
 them always eye to eye and lip to lip. Arnlys 
 sang to Tarben whilst outside the five children 
 howled and screamed for their beloved mother. 
 But Tarben was dearer to her than the five. She 
 did not fear hell, for she knew that Tarben 
 would follow her through death and judgment 
 into the terrible pains of damnation. But those 
 who were ashamed to look during the day, and 
 who spied at night, saw worse. And Vige Laem 
 knew it, but he did not shorten the chains. 
 
 The case was so clear that it was unnecessary 
 to postpone it. Any attempt to obtain grace 
 from the chapter-house was superfluous.
 
 128 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 The governor of Laeso had only to sign the 
 sentence according to which they were to lose 
 first their hands and then their heads. If it 
 could have been done in the darkness without 
 his knowledge, without his presence, he would 
 have set his name to it as easily as he snapped 
 his fingers in the air, but when once the verdict 
 was sealed the governor must himself follow the 
 cart to the place of execution, himself hear the 
 sentence read, and see the axe fall with his own 
 eyes. 
 
 The executioner was old, and his hands 
 trembled. 
 
 Runow could not readily make up his mind 
 to despatch to the grey kingdom of shadows two 
 people who burned with so fierce a love for one 
 another. 
 
 He took the pen in his hand, let it fall again, 
 and stared at the row of letters until they danced 
 and swam before his eyes. From the black lines 
 of the parchment he saw blood filter and from 
 the corners of the room he heard the cry that 
 would be stifled ere it broke from the throat. 
 Once more he took the pen and let it fall. His
 
 THE GOVERNOR 129 
 
 fingers were limp and his hand as thick as a 
 sponge full of water. 
 
 In addition to this Arnlys' children came day 
 and night begging beseechingly for the life of 
 their dear mother. He could hardly rest at 
 night, for he heard their despair beneath his 
 walls, and heard the elder children trying to 
 comfort the little ones. But justice was justice, 
 and even lesser crimes were atoned for with 
 worse punishments than this. 
 
 Runow took the paper into his chamber. 
 Here sat Kaina, writing on a tablet. 
 
 He sat down beside her. 
 
 "Kaina lay thy hand on mine, firmly, with- 
 out trembling, and now at once!" 
 
 She looked up at him without understanding, 
 but she did as she was bidden. Then he wrote his 
 name. 
 
 He read the sentence over to her and ex- 
 plained what she could not understand in the 
 language of the law. But Kaina continued to 
 look at her hand, and then she hid it under her 
 neckerchief. 
 
 On the evening before the two were executed
 
 130 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Runow sent to ask them whether they had any 
 special wish for he hoped that Arnlys would 
 give her children into his protection, and be- 
 lieved that she would desire to have them with 
 her during her last night. 
 
 But Tarben begged that he and Arnlys might 
 spend it without their fetters, and Arnlys begged 
 that Tarben might be executed first, and that she 
 might hold his head in her hands ere it was cut 
 off. 
 
 Although this was a double wish, Runow 
 granted it, and he sent them wine by Vige Laem 
 that their sleep might be sound, if not calm. 
 
 But when the morning came it seemed to Tar- 
 ben that the sun was white and the whole sky red 
 as flowing blood, and his lips grew chilled on 
 Arnlys' lips; his fingers could not grasp hers; his 
 arms hung limply at his sides and his head sank 
 on his breast. He had to be carried to the cart 
 by force, but Arnlys lifted him out in her strong 
 arms. Then he begged in senseless terror that 
 Arnlys might be executed first so that he could 
 gain a second of time. 
 
 Then her courage, too, failed her, for she had
 
 THE GOVERNOR 131 
 
 believed that death would be as the intoxicating 
 passion of the night. But she would not be 
 weak. She turned her eyes away from him 
 now she heard the five children cry and wail. 
 She stopped her ears with her fingers until the 
 executioner seized her arms and severed them 
 from her body. 
 
 Runow had returned home, ill at ease, with 
 the remembrance of Arnlys and Tarben, and 
 filled with remorse at the thought of the chil- 
 dren who were now wandering homeless. 
 
 From the watchman's room came noisy sing- 
 ing, a noble carouse was in progress in honour 
 of the sinners' journey to hell. 
 
 Between whiles he heard the windlass of the 
 well creak and creak as if some one were draw- 
 ing up water without cess, but old Ture was 
 overhead in the loft turning apples, and the ser- 
 vants were sleeping their midday sleep. He 
 went to see what it was. By the well stood Kaina, 
 turning the heavy windlass so that her face was 
 red with the exertion. Whenever the bucket 
 rose over the wall of the well she tilted it over 
 her right hand.
 
 132 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Then Runow grew angry. He got out through 
 the window and knocked the bucket out of her 
 hand, so that it fell from the hook and into the 
 well. He pulled her in by the wrist; she must 
 answer his questions, and tell him what was evil 
 in a just sentence and why she was behaving like 
 a woman in labour. 
 
 But Kaina could say nothing. The cold, 
 damp hands were tightly folded and the water 
 dripped down from her clothes. Runow left 
 her standing there and went out himself. 
 
 So she was rebellious and self-righteous and 
 would not comprehend or was it that she 
 lacked understanding? She should not make 
 mock of him before every one rather than that 
 he would remain alone. Aye, far rather! 
 
 He went to Germund's hut and arranged with 
 him and old Idel that they should take Kaina to 
 live with them now that she was a maiden and 
 could scarcely continue to dwell under his roof 
 without awakening remark. They agreed will- 
 ingly, and it was settled that it would be best to 
 wait a month that she might prepare herself for 
 the change.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 133 
 
 So the matter was arranged, but immediately 
 after Runow regretted it. He should have acted 
 with forbearance and not in violent anger. She 
 was soft as the lightest breath of air. It was not 
 she who would tempt him. In her veins flowed 
 no fire. And in all the wide world she had only 
 him and him alone. 
 
 But now he had spoken with Germund and 
 it was best that Kaina should know of it at once. 
 
 The door of her chamber was fastened. Yes, 
 that he knew. Yet never did the darkness fall 
 but he stood before it, begging her to tell him 
 if she were still angry. And never did she shoot 
 back the bolt, but he took her in his arms and 
 held her there and would not let her go.
 
 Ture, the old gnarled fellow who, whilst the 
 winter lasted, went in and out of all the rooms 
 at Klitgaard with wood and bellows, had seen a 
 good deal. 
 
 True, the huzzy was no longer in the house, 
 but in the snow before the turret-door he found 
 her footprints, and also in the freshly-strewn 
 sand of the Governor's chamber. 
 
 But if any one asked him what he had seen, 
 were it watchman or common folk, his mouth 
 was closed with two-inch spikes. Calmly he 
 smoothed the bed and sniffed at the red cushion 
 that smelled of sweet musk. 
 
 Yet he heard well enough how the pair passed, 
 with chatter and talk, those hours which the 
 Lord Himself had measured out for deep and 
 snoring slumber. For Ture lay in the loft over 
 the room, and if the trap-door stood open to the 
 sky he heard words and sounds of love as well. 
 
 It was easy enough to see that the huzzy came 
 
 134
 
 THE GOVERNOR 135 
 
 from the ends of the earth whither sailed the 
 masted ships, for she talked of the stars as if they 
 were beasts with wings, or other ungodly human 
 shapes. 
 
 Once it happened that he stretched his head 
 over the edge of the trap-door, and then he saw 
 the huzzy standing in the middle of the floor, 
 weeping in the moonlight as if her nose were 
 smeared with onions but the governor kneeled 
 before her on his bare knees and prayed to her 
 as the pastor prayed before the altar on high fes- 
 tivals. Luckily Ture drew back his head before 
 either of them had become aware of it, and 
 thenceforth he sprinkled whey plentifully before 
 the bed that the magic which no doubt hung 
 about the huzzy might not harm his gracious 
 master. 
 
 Only to Arnlys' children did he communicate 
 something of his knowledge. 
 
 In the hut of Germund, the net-weaver, Kaina 
 sat awaiting the last hours of the day that it 
 might soon be evening and night. The sun might 
 more easily penetrate closed eyelids than the 
 hole in the roof that Germund had stopped with
 
 136 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 skins against wind and weather. The room was 
 filled with smoke. 
 
 But Kaina did not look for the sun. Her eyes 
 sought the floor where Germund's feet moved 
 like wounded beasts amongst the ashes, and 
 where his nets lay strewn about. He knotted 
 them peacefully whilst he shivered with cold, 
 for he was blind as the hen upon his right shoul- 
 der. But Idel turned the spinning-wheel and 
 span. The threads broke more easily than her 
 speech. As she chattered her loose tusks rattled 
 like the shuttle of the weaving-stool. Now and 
 then she pushed the glowing peat with her foot 
 so that it flamed up and sent the ashes flying high 
 over the soup-kettle. 
 
 Under the beams of the roof hanging fish blew 
 hither and thither in every draught, like linen 
 on a bleaching-line. 
 
 If Germund's fumbling fingers could not 
 loosen the knots of the yarn he gave it to Kaina, 
 who unfastened them without a word. And Idel 
 made her hold the mug out of which Germund 
 sipped his beer, and she had to free the fish from
 
 THE GOVERNOR 137 
 
 bones and gills before Germund's toothless jaws 
 crushed them. 
 
 At the sixth hour after noon the old people 
 crept beneath the skins under which Kaina laid 
 a little sack of herbs to ward off pains ; she placed 
 the cat against the soles of Germund's feet to 
 keep the warmth in them, and set the hen upon 
 the pillow. Then she raked the ashes over the 
 embers and sat awaiting the hour when Runow 
 would knock upon the beams and summon her 
 to him. 
 
 Her thoughts left her no rest. The nights 
 seemed endless when Runow did not call her, 
 and she believed that the day would never come. 
 To him she was a coaxing kitten with soft paws 
 and sharp claws, so charmingly wild that no 
 reason could bridle her, yet obedient and tender. 
 Away from him she felt nothing but fear. It 
 was awakening jealousy. 
 
 Runow had so often murmured Brigitte's 
 name in his dreams that Kaina at length asked 
 him what it was, and he swore that it was a 
 flower in the woods of Lunegaard far away from 
 Laeso.
 
 138 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 She was silent for a while, but then asked 
 again. Her examination became a torment. He 
 must ever be careful and on his guard against 
 the questions over which she brooded night after 
 night. 
 
 Soon she no longer spent her days in Ger- 
 mund's hut. Runow felt himself unsafe. From 
 behind, from before, she came creeping upon 
 him, always meek and always sad. She tracked 
 his path he could only move in the circle that 
 her watchfulness drew about him. 
 
 When she shut her eyes she could see all that 
 her mind desired, all that she had known and 
 lived through with her mother long ago. What 
 did Runow see when he closed his? What did 
 his dreams whisper to him? with what were his 
 thoughts occupied during the hours that she 
 spent in Germund's hut? 
 
 But she could not look into his heart. Between 
 his soul and hers was an abyss that sensual love 
 could never bridge over.
 
 During all this time Jacob was earning bread 
 and fame in the city of Bremen. He lived in 
 the house of the baker, Johann Nimmergut, in 
 the Trinnengasse, in an attic wherein black 
 meal-dust flew about amongst cockroaches and 
 crickets. The apprentices stamped up and down 
 in the sticky dough, coughing and cursing; the 
 housewife scolded in the kitchen below, the rats 
 fought in the gutter. If there were an interval 
 of silence one heard the death-watch ticking in 
 the wall. 
 
 But to Jacob all this was as it should be. The 
 world was nothing but misery, he himself was 
 miserable. 
 
 He carefully stopped all the holes in the walls 
 with cotton-wool and rags to secure himself from 
 curious eyes. 
 
 Under the bull's-eye window stood a trunk 
 covered with red leather, and with a heavy lock. 
 
 It came from Seven-Isles. Here he would sit 
 
 139
 
 140 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 in his hours of idleness, looking over the wall at 
 the brothers in the garden of the cloister 
 opposite. 
 
 Brown cowls flapped against their thin legs, 
 the lean, restless hands clasped fat breviaries. 
 In bodily misery, in mental anguish, they went 
 about with whining lip? and long faces their 
 mournful eyes glanced after every cloud, after 
 every leaf that the wind carried over to them. 
 Others shovelled earth about the vegetables in 
 the garden, bowed their necks and rooted up the 
 weeds that the sun had brought forth. The 
 garden-paths were worn smooth as mirrors by 
 their dragging feet. 
 
 At the end of the garden was the back of a 
 house which the cloister, although it offered a 
 high price, had not been able to purchase. Here 
 lived three stout women who jested and laughed 
 all day and all night. But when the brothers ap- 
 proached the walls their steps faltered and they 
 clasped their breviaries more firmly. 
 
 When Jacob had looked until he was tired he 
 would open the fat-bellied trunk and shake out 
 the few treasures of clothes, weapons, and bright
 
 THE GOVERNOR 141 
 
 ribbons that he had collected. But he first of all 
 shot the bolt of the door and the shutter of the 
 bull's-eye, and lighted a candle. 
 
 Then he would adorn himself with one jerkin 
 over another, chains and sashes in all directions, 
 and rings on all his five fingers. In this array he 
 puffed himself out like a great peacock. No 
 maiden loved her white skin so well as he loved 
 the finery that helped him to hide his body. His 
 senses glowed whenever his hand touched vel- 
 vet, or the precious stones of his scabbard shone 
 before his eyes. 
 
 Yet he thought with shame of the early years 
 at Utrecht when he had decked himself out with 
 every checquered silk that he could get hold of, 
 and made himself the butt of all and especially 
 of Runow. 
 
 Since then he had grown to understand that 
 fine clothes only fit straight bodies, and he 
 adorned himself merely for his own benefit when 
 he was alone. But there in Johann Nimmer- 
 gut's chamber he danced French dances with im- 
 aginary ladies, kneeled in the dust before them 
 and offered them incense then he would brush
 
 142 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 the dust from his costly clothes, pick off straws 
 and flakes, and dress himself once more in his 
 black, worn-out mantle. 
 
 He knew his own crooked shadow. 
 
 Johann Nimmergut gave him as much bread 
 as he could eat, and the apprentices procured 
 for him the brew of the house and milk, because 
 he lanced their abscesses and his presence in the 
 house was an honour. The half of his income 
 he gave to the old people of the town and the 
 hospitals for poor, illegitimate children. 
 
 Thus did Jacob. 
 
 And he saved and economized as if he had 
 been van Devil's own son. All that he earned 
 of gold and clinking coin he divided into two 
 parts; for the one he purchased favour and good 
 repute, the other he hid away in his trunk. 
 
 Kind words and friendly treatment were a 
 necessity of life to him, he himself was a spend- 
 thrift in them. 
 
 But to what end he saved he did not know. It 
 seemed to him that gold possessed a power like 
 healthy life-blood, and that some day it would 
 double the strength of his years.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 143 
 
 He would remain with a dying man through- 
 out whole nights, and murmur heavenly prayers 
 with him. He could seem contented when the 
 air of the sick-room was thick with suffocating 
 odours. He did not know impatience. He wept 
 with those whose tears flowed and laughed with 
 the happy. 
 
 No woman was able to torment him. For 
 Runow alone dwelt in his heart, and only Ru- 
 now. He permitted him everything and 
 grudged him everything. If Runow were glad 
 he hated the cause of this gladness because it 
 was not himself. 
 
 Old Simen was fond of him and wrote often 
 of what had taken place and of his hopes. Thus 
 Jacob knew that Brigitte had brooded over her 
 anger, and that Runow was caged like a beast on 
 sandy Laeso. But no one summoned him no 
 one wanted him. 
 
 Many a good goose-quill did he break in writ- 
 ing to Simen. At one moment he looked down 
 upon him in contempt because he ate Brigitte's 
 bread of charity, at another he praised and 
 blessed him for every kind word and every scrap
 
 144 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 of news from Liinegaard and Laeso; at one mo- 
 ment he boasted and showed off, at another he 
 was tender as a child, and again so shameless 
 that Simen washed the hands that had touched 
 so uncleanly a letter. 
 
 But when Simen had visited Runow at Laeso 
 and there heard only friendly words concerning 
 Jacob he wrote at once to tell him so, and Jacob's 
 fingers grew moist. 
 
 If there were any possibility that Runow 
 would receive him under his roof he certainly 
 would not hesitate, but would quit Bremen in- 
 stantly. He considered for a long time how he 
 should act, and months passed before he made 
 up his mind to write to Runow. The letter was 
 written cunningly and cleverly, composed of 
 memories of childhood. He did not mention 
 Brigitte, but only begged that Runow would 
 allow him, as his faithful brother, to tread the 
 same soil and breathe the same air as himself. 
 The answer soon came back. 
 
 "For God's sake, come, dear brother, and share 
 my days. I have forgotten what has been before.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 145 
 
 The present is nothing. Nothing can happen. 
 I am weary, weary." 
 
 At the end of the letter was written, "A 
 stranded sailor was thrown upon a desert island. 
 He trained up an ape, for he longed for a com- 
 panion. He dressed it as a man and tried to 
 teach it to speak. Thus did I, but the ape did 
 not learn to speak, and I am alone on the desert 
 island." 
 
 Jacob had five new iron bands set on the trunk 
 from Seven-Isles, occupied himself for five days 
 in collecting the money that the citizens owed 
 him, and then travelled northwards. At Flad- 
 strand he hired a boat to himself that not a day 
 nor an hour might be wasted. He pomaded his 
 hair with scented oil and adorned himself like 
 a bride who goes to meet her bridegroom. 
 
 Close by Laeso he looked over the edge of the 
 ship down into the mirror of the water and saw 
 his crooked shadow; angrily he tore the fine 
 clothes from his body, threw them into the water, 
 and once more put on his mantle. The sailors 
 thought him mad that he should throw into the 
 sea gold-embroidered festal garments.
 
 146 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 He met Runow whilst he was still far from 
 Klitgaard. The brothers kissed each other ir 
 greeting. 
 
 And they talked together without cess, for 
 there was something that neither would speak 
 of, and yet in the first pause it must be named. 
 
 Runow showed Jacob the wood in the north- 
 ern part of the island, the salt-pans in the south- 
 hidden in thick smoke showed him the seven 
 stout elms that grew on the unfruitful soil, and 
 in the west the strip of green grass with three 
 lean cows, and the dyke that surrounded Klit- 
 gaard, high in parts and low in others. 
 
 Jacob asked whether the women of the island 
 were pleasing. Runow answered that they were 
 pale as sand-grass and full of freckles as a 
 
 flounder. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Kaina sat in the hut in restless longing. Then 
 one evening she went, of her own accord, to 
 Klitgaard and crept through the turret-door into 
 the house. Runow heard her and came out 
 Alarmed, he thrust her into the back chamber 
 where he was wont to do his accounts.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 147 
 
 Thence she heard him talking to a stranger 
 with tender words, and heard them call each 
 other "brother." 
 
 All became silent. For a long while she stood 
 alone, forgotten. In the middle of the night she 
 ventured to open the door. She heard double 
 breathing from Runow's bed and from her own 
 little one. Then she rushed to the railing and 
 woke Runow out of his sleep. 
 
 Runow passed his hand over his brow. He 
 had forgotten Kaina now that his dear brother 
 was come and slept in her bed. But Kaina must 
 remain with Germund until he summoned her. 
 
 Runow was weary and fell asleep as they 
 chatted. 
 
 There was much talk about the brother. I del 
 could not cease speaking of him. He took out 
 blind people's eyes and stuck balls of fat in their 
 places that looked just like eyes. He stroked 
 lame women under their knee-joints so that they 
 sprang about like hares over ploughed fields 
 aye, when Gunild Kaefer got an ulcer that 
 burned like hell he blew through the eye of a 
 needle on to it, and Gunild was cured in the same
 
 148 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 moment. He spoke as softly as a mouse. And 
 he kept all his secret art in his hump-back. 
 
 But Kaina hated the brother, and when he en- 
 tered the hut and began to chat she took on a sour 
 and obstinate look and would not say a word. 
 
 He was repugnant to her, simply repugnant.
 
 Simen had warned Runow that Brigitte would 
 come some day and since then he had watched 
 every east wind lest it should bring her. 
 
 There were still moments when he loved 
 Kaina dearly, but even in her arms he felt no rest, 
 he was forced to listen for Brigitte's coming. 
 And his longing was so great that he could not 
 lock it up in his own heart. 
 
 Then he told Kaina about Brigitte. 
 
 During whole nights he would speak of her, 
 and Kaina begged him not to be silent. Only 
 she wondered why she felt so tired and so cold. 
 She murmured his words after him. 
 
 Idel had seen by her breasts that she was preg- 
 nant, but Runow felt no joy over the news and 
 soon forgot it. 
 
 Now at last Kaina understood that she was not 
 wanted, and she hid herself in the hut with Ger- 
 mund and Idel. 
 
 Often she asked whether it hurt to die, and 
 149
 
 150 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 whether death came in the day or in the night. 
 Or she asked whether souls could die. "For my 
 soul is so sick, so sickl" 
 
 But no one must speak Runow's name, she kept 
 it off with both her hands. 
 
 That name should be surrounded with silence, 
 utter silence. She feared lest her mournful 
 thoughts should twine themselves about him and 
 injure him. She wept no more now. 
 
 She who was named Brigitte had always dwelt 
 in his heart. Now she knew that it was so. 
 
 But if Runow came at times to the hut and 
 summoned her out, she had to follow him, how- 
 ever much it hurt her. Afterwards she wiped 
 her lips he had thought of Brigitte, his caresses 
 should be effaced. 
 
 And in her body dwelled the new little 
 
 existence. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Kaina fled from Germund's hut. In the sand- 
 hollow under the bell, by the ruins of the church, 
 she hid herself until the child should be born. 
 
 Hither there came no light or sound from the 
 world. Her body rested in a waking sleep, she
 
 THE GOVERNOR 151 
 
 felt no pain and no joy. The whole day long 
 she sat and scratched with her nail on the metal 
 so that it sang. 
 
 Sometimes she was seized with longing to 
 wander on until she found the great river and 
 eternal peace; but she was too weary. If at 
 night she left the hollow to look at the stars, her 
 eyes began to shed tears. The cry of the wild 
 birds of prey filled the darkness, and they struck 
 her face with their hard wings. Then she be- 
 came aware of her sick soul and crept once more 
 under the bell. 
 
 Daily, at the hour of twilight, two careful 
 hands thrust under the bell a bowl of food. They 
 were not Idel's withered hands, nor Runow's 
 she would have known these by their perfume 
 they were two hands that did not seek hers, but 
 drew back noiselessly, to come again at the fol- 
 lowing twilight hour. Once it happened that 
 they touched her face, and a perfume came to 
 her that was like the smell of crushed willow- 
 boughs. Food was distasteful to her, yet if she 
 left it uneaten the child in her womb became
 
 152 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 restless, and its little hands seemed to press upon 
 her heart. 
 
 It must be Idel who sent the food, for no one 
 but Idel knew that she was in the sand-hollow. 
 Idel had herself advised Kaina to fly. For it had 
 come about that Germund's hut resembled an 
 open field where people came and went without 
 seeking anything, but only to gather about Kaina 
 and see the condition of her body, and to mock 
 at her. 
 
 Therefore she had fled to find peace.
 
 When once Brigitte had formed her resolution 
 she no longer hesitated. Time will fly, death 
 will bring counsel, she thought, and plucked out 
 the white hairs that had grown since she last saw 
 Runow. Every little pain it gave was sweet to 
 her. When her hair had resumed its colour once 
 more it seemed to her that she had won back the 
 years. 
 
 She plucked all the climbing roses of the gar- 
 den and shook them into her bath, and called 
 herself a fool for having waited so long. And 
 as she lay in her bath she summoned her waiting- 
 women and bade them pluck jasmin and lilies 
 for now time and anger and longing were ban- 
 ished from body and thoughts. 
 
 And she asked, "Could you tell from my skin 
 that as many years have passed over me as there 
 are weeks between Trinity and Advent?" 
 
 Only two coachmen conducted her across 
 
 Jutland. 
 
 153
 
 154 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 She was shaken over the hard hollows of the 
 hills, and over the rough stones of the roads, she 
 was shaken up there in the north where the 
 wheels sank into the soil and the country resem- 
 bled a church-yard of sand-hillocks. But she 
 lay in her carriage, sang to herself, and laughed 
 until the tears stood in her eyes, and chattered 
 as if she were talking with Runow. Often she 
 slept and laughed in her sleep. If they passed 
 a stream she must descend and drink out of the 
 hollow of her hand. In the carriage she looked 
 at her face in a mirror at every moment. 
 
 For a while she was sick during that rough 
 journey to Laeso-land; but when she reached it 
 she was as sound as ever, and left her men behind 
 her and would find the way alone. It mattered 
 not how far she might have to go. Her blood 
 would run, her heart beat, her soul long and her 
 foot tread until she came to Runow. 
 
 The land seemed strange to her eyes. No 
 boundaries cut it into fields, no road bordered 
 with poplars wound along from north to south ; 
 nothing separated the good from the bad soil. 
 The sand moved under her feet like ants, it was
 
 THE GOVERNOR 155 
 
 hard to walk. The wiry heather wound itself 
 about her ankles and held fast the fur-edged hem 
 of her robe. 
 
 Strong and yet soft did she become at sight of 
 the empty flats. It was hot under the glowing 
 twilit sky, where day and night were struggling 
 together, where the last rays of the sun flamed, 
 and over which the shadows crept so hot that 
 she loosened her hood and let her hair stream 
 about her. 
 
 The clasp hung down from her waist and 
 knocked with a ringing sound against her knees 
 as she went. She was not in the habit of wearing 
 jewels, but for this meeting with Runow she had 
 adorned herself with the bridal-gold of Mistress 
 Merthe Bolle. She longed for him; it did not 
 occur to her that there might be any obstacle in 
 the way. 
 
 Here on the storm-beaten island day after day 
 would fly past but the nights should be long 
 winter nights, every one of them. 
 
 She knew that there existed women who, in 
 morbid longing, kiss their lips sore on the greedy
 
 156 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 mouths of many men but this she did not un- 
 derstand. Only Runow, only the one, only him. 
 
 She paused where she was and cried her hope 
 into the twilight like a powerful bird that feels 
 the pressure of the air beneath its wings. 
 
 Whether the sea closed over her, whether the 
 sky fell upon her, strewing over her its burning 
 stars nothing could assail her under Runow's 
 care. For his pleasure was her body formed 
 she laughed and thought of her industry at the 
 embroidery-frame. 
 
 Soon she was no longer alone. Figures rose 
 about her. Like the dead from their graves they 
 rose from the earth, the ugly, grey people. They 
 made their way through the heather with awk- 
 ward gait and hanging heads. They exchanged 
 no intelligible words with one another, but men, 
 women, and children bleated, bellowed and 
 gaped. Not one lifted his brow to be blessed by 
 the last rays of the sun, or turned to watch the 
 darkness of night that raced upon them from the 
 east. 
 
 Brigitte went on her uncertain way with con- 
 fident steps. She was hungry. The darkness
 
 THE GOVERNOR 157 
 
 lay thick over the island, the roll of the sea came 
 to her ears, high trees sighed. The sharp sickle 
 of the moon mowed through the clouds that were 
 white as cotton-grass. 
 
 She passed by low huts from which the fetid 
 odour oozed out through plank and beam. She 
 stumbled against a willow-stump and stood right 
 in front of the edge of the wood. The ground 
 was damp and a strong smell smote her nostrils. 
 
 She turned and approached one of the huts. 
 The latch shone, white smoke rose from the turf- 
 roof. She heard distinctly the breathing of two 
 people. It was Germund's hut. 
 
 Late in the night she reached Klitgaard, 
 counted the windows, the clay-holes, and the 
 thick-boled elms. 
 
 She pushed the door open and went through 
 all the rooms until she found Runow. 
 
 Brigitte had followed her longing until she 
 had reached her goal. 
 
 Runow might have spared himself all words 
 of remorse, she cared not a whit for them. The 
 blood sang in her veins and she heard only that. 
 
 They awoke at noon. Their hands had rested
 
 158 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 in each other's. Old Ture stared at them out of 
 a corner. The sun was high above Klitgaard 
 and the fine clothes were strewed about all over 
 the room. 
 
 But Brigitte begged for fried bacon, she called 
 from the bed that she was nearly dead with hun- 
 ger. Then Ture crept away. 
 
 The whole day long Runow rubbed his eyes 
 and looked at Brigitte. She was there. Her 
 laughter tickled his ears whether she spoke of 
 sad or joyful things. 
 
 Jacob could not understand their joy. He said 
 that, as the marriage had been declared null and 
 void, the matter must first be put right. 
 
 Aye, that was worth while! Her three uncles 
 Lindenow, each bonier and more disagreeable 
 than the other, must first be won over, for they 
 were her guardians. Then the king, who had 
 enough to do with his kingdom, and then the 
 church and all the clergy. 
 
 "Thou art stupid, Jacob, stupid, and not at all 
 sensible see here!" She drew out the decree of 
 invalidity, struck fire with flint and tinder-box 
 and held the writing to it.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 159 
 
 "Thy right hand, my husband!" Runow 
 stretched it out, uncertain what was about to 
 happen. 
 
 Swiftly she pressed the burning paper together 
 and laid it in the hollow of his hand. 
 
 She seized his wrist and held it fast. The wax 
 melted in the palm, the letter burned to ashes. 
 Runow would have cried out, but he controlled 
 himself. Directly after he went out and plunged 
 the hand into cold water Brigitte saw it from 
 the window. 
 
 They finally agreed to follow Jacob's advice, 
 which was good and sound. When the wind 
 changed again Brigitte should return to Liine- 
 gaard, and go to her kinsmen and to the king to 
 arrange for another marriage. For if she re- 
 mained with Runow without this it might injure 
 him and still more his children. 
 
 Runow would have preferred to bid farewell 
 to his office and to the island, and to have gone 
 with her at once, but she would not hear of it. 
 
 For seven years he had lived there quite alone, 
 for seven years she would share with him the
 
 160 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 stillness of the island, then they would live at 
 Liinegaard for the rest of their lives. 
 
 She scarcely thought to return before the 
 spring, for her mission would occupy time; be- 
 sides, Simen must have her counsel as to the 
 manor and the crops for the coming year.
 
 As many candles shone at Klitgaard as the 
 tables had spikes to fasten them on and the walls 
 holders to thrust them into. The wind had 
 changed and to-morrow Brigitte was to start out. 
 
 Now she was in haste to get away. She showed 
 them, laughingly, how lightly she could turn her 
 tongue to a hundred different tones and manners 
 of speech. Each of the crabbed kinsmen must 
 be won over by every means in her power, 
 by coaxing, by coldness, by cunning, by presents. 
 Everything should go smoothly and well. 
 
 Meanwhile, she sat beside Runow and played 
 with his hands and called them idle. They were 
 whiter and softer than hers. But Brigitte herself 
 took care of the forty beehives at Liinegaard, and 
 herself smoked out the bees every autumn. That 
 gave her stings and freckles and sunburn. 
 
 She called Jacob, jestingly, a musk-rat decked 
 out for a wedding, on account of his sweet-smell- 
 ing, many-coloured clothes. 
 
 161
 
 162 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 He looked angry. He had warned Runow 
 that the time was come when Kaina must bring 
 forth her child, but had been rebuffed; whilst 
 Brigitte was under his roof only one name might 
 be pronounced, and that was hers. 
 
 At Klitgaard and in Runow's chamber Kaina 
 bore her child. 
 
 When the first pains racked her body she was 
 lying under the bell. She screamed, and the 
 screams grew and rang against the metal walls, 
 grew and echoed back like splitting blows 
 against her forehead, drove red-hot wedges into 
 her ears. It was as if the walls of the bell were 
 closing together about her. Every breath 
 sounded like a cry. 
 
 When she was silent the child, too, was para- 
 lyzed by the terror in her blood ; it did not move, 
 did not struggle towards life. 
 
 At last she managed to crawl out, with clammy 
 skin, weary to death, full of fear for the living 
 being who commanded her body and was itself 
 a body, though as yet invisible. The pure air 
 lent her strength. Soon she began to creep on
 
 THE GOVERNOR 163 
 
 hands and knees through the silent night towards 
 Klitgaard. 
 
 Lights shone from all the windows. Laugh- 
 ter rang through the house. 
 
 As she hesitated, uncertain, the pains began 
 once more. The child struggled angrily for re- 
 lease. She entered through the open turret-door. 
 
 And she bore the child without a sound. It, 
 too, made no sound ; every drop of blood in her 
 had warned it to be still. 
 
 When once Runow had seen it she would get 
 up and go with it to the great river. She would 
 dip her forehead in the water, amongst blossoms 
 the child should float away through all the 
 rivers, across all the seas 
 
 She fell asleep. 
 
 Runow's unrest drove him out of the room 
 away from Jacob and Brigitte. On the thres- 
 hold he felt that Kaina was there, and he saw 
 her and by her the little babe. 
 
 He kneeled down beside her, kissed her hands, 
 wept and drove her away with soft, despondent 
 words. For Brigitte of Liinegaard was come, 
 and she must know nothing, nothing at all. But
 
 164 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 when Brigitte slept he would come to Kaina and 
 remain with her and her child. 
 
 She knew that he was lying. 
 
 Wearily she rose from the couch and crept 
 obediently out into the night with her little one. 
 She seated herself on a stone by the pond beside 
 the house, uncertain what to do. She tore strips 
 from her dress and wrapped them about the 
 
 babe that the chill of the night might not harm it. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Wax candles burned in Runow's chamber, 
 twelve by twelve, in a wide circle. He had re- 
 moved every trace of Kaina with his own hands 
 and now he awaited Brigitte. 
 
 The lights burned crookedly, wax 'dropped 
 from them continually. 
 
 "The candles prophesy ill, every one of them 
 is weeping!" She would have extinguished 
 them, but Runow would not let her. He must 
 have light that he might see her and know that 
 she was with him. 
 
 Brigitte took the red silk cushion and held it 
 against her cheek. "It is as soft as a woman's 
 hair, so it seems to me. Tell me, Runow, what
 
 THE GOVERNOR 165 
 
 is the name of the woman who sewed it for thy 
 dreams? Was it that maid in Holland?" 
 
 As he made no answer she asked no more con- 
 cerning it. She showered her caresses upon 
 him and talked into his mouth so that her words 
 sounded like the cooing of doves. They fell 
 asleep as blissfully as if this night were the last 
 that was given them to live and love.
 
 Kaina lifted the child towards the setting 
 moon, towards the rising sun, and then pushed it 
 softly far out into the pond. 
 
 Startled out of their lazy sleep the carp swam 
 towards it in dense shoals, opening their jaws 
 and snapping at its little living fingers. 
 
 Kaina saw this with horror, but she hast- 
 ened away. For the child must not find its 
 path to the eternal peace pursued by weeping 
 and lamentation. 
 
 As she fled past Klitgaard she struck her nose 
 against an unseen post and cried out, but ran on. 
 
 Brigitte awoke and asked, "Who was that who 
 cried?" 
 
 Runow was silent that his voice might not be- 
 tray him. Again she put her question, seizing 
 him by the arm, and now he answered as if out 
 of heavy slumber, "I heard nothing!" 
 
 She was not so easily satisfied, but wrapped 
 her cloak about her nakedness and went out into 
 
 166
 
 THE GOVERNOR 167 
 
 the white twilight. Between two elms she saw 
 the water of the pond move. In one place the 
 fish were collected in a shoal. The air was so 
 still that she could hear their greedy snapping. 
 They shot to and fro. When the sun mounted 
 higher she distinguished the child. It looked 
 as if it were fleeing before the rapacious fish 
 from the one shore to the other. 
 
 She was seized with fury against the being 
 who had thrown so helpless a creature of God 
 into the filthy water. She threw back her mantle, 
 waded out, beat off the fish with her large hands 
 and took the child, but slipped again and again 
 in the mud and could scarcely reach the shore. 
 
 Once more she wrapped her cloak about her 
 and hid the child against her warm bosom. Ru- 
 now was at the window, his lower lip hanging. 
 She held it out to him, not noticing his horror. 
 
 "See, Runow, see this little thing, but take it 
 carefully! I pulled it out of the pond and I am 
 all wet." 
 
 He took it in his hands. Twice he opened his 
 lips, but he could not speak. Then he fell for- 
 ward on his face.
 
 168 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 She had not held Runow to be so weak, al- 
 though somewhat cowardly. She shivered under 
 the cloak and shook him softly, but the womanish 
 fainting-fit lasted some time and he lay uncon- 
 scious on the floor. She drew a deep breath and, 
 collecting all her strength, lifted him with diffi- 
 culty on to the bed. He still held the child fast. 
 
 Then she dried her body and dressed herself. 
 When she looked round at him he was crouching 
 at the end of the bed farthest from the child. 
 
 She could not help pitying him. "Thou must 
 be weak indeed if so pitiful a thing can rob 
 thee of thy strength. I could almost believe 
 that thou hadst never seen a corpse before. But 
 hasten and call out thy lazy fellows that they 
 may discover who has borne this night, that the 
 punishment of her sii* may follow in its footsteps. 
 My hands would gladly seize the filthy, good- 
 for-nothing woman and I wish with all my 
 heart that her eyes may be thrust out before she 
 loses her life!" 
 
 She was so indignant that she herself awakened 
 the watchman and the bailiff from their sleep 
 and led them to Runow. She gave one order, he
 
 THE GOVERNOR 16$ 
 
 another, for he must first collect his thoughts; 
 but before an hour had passed men were search- 
 ing in all directions. Old Karen Maja who had 
 long, fine fingers and who helped to loosen in- 
 fants from their mothers, went with them she 
 should see by the women's breasts which of them 
 had recently borne. 
 
 Brigitte fetched a little red trough in which 
 she laid the child, covering it over with a ker- 
 chief. Shortly after she brought the law-books 
 that Runow might show her what punishment 
 could be dealt out for so evil a deed as the killing 
 of a tiny, new-born creature. 
 
 There was a scratching at the door. Arnlys' 
 little girl entered and said, in a low voice, as 
 though frightened at her own errand, "She, 
 Kaina, is lying out there and scooping out the 
 pond, and she is crying that the fish have 
 eaten a little child who crept out of her body!" 
 
 Brigitte rose hurriedly, seized the trough and 
 dragged Runow out with her. By the pond sat 
 Kaina, scooping up the water with her hands. 
 
 Brigitte dropped the trough beside her; "Does 
 she recognize her evil deed?"
 
 1 70 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Kaina seized the child, pushed back her 
 chemise and laid the little corpse against her 
 breast, from which the milk oozed. 
 
 She looked up and asked, softly, "Are you she 
 who is called Brigitte of Liinegaard?" And 
 without awaiting a reply she said, again: u But 
 you slept every night upon my hair every night 
 you slept upon my hair!" 
 
 Brigitte bent over her and asked her, sharply, 
 "Who slept upon thy hair?" 
 
 Kaina was silent, and Runow did not move. 
 
 Whilst Brigitte ran to fetch Vige Laem, Ru- 
 now must keep watch over Kaina, but she did 
 not speak to him. Only she shuddered as if the 
 chill of the little body pierced through her 
 breast to bone and marrow. 
 
 Kaina was conducted to the prison-cell, but 
 she might not keep the child with her. It must 
 remain at Klitgaard until the trial was ended. 
 
 Before Brigitte went on board she made Ru- 
 now promise to send her long and frequent let- 
 ters and to tell her of the trial and the sentence. 
 Over the rail of the ship she gave him her hands, 
 and he touched them with his cold lips and held
 
 THE GOVERNOR 171 
 
 them fast, and went out into the water, unable 
 to let her go. 
 
 "Thou, Brigitte, art my only strength for good 
 and evil." 
 
 She laughed and tore herself away from him, 
 and wept.
 
 The friends of Arnlys and the kinsmen of Tar- 
 ben kept watch under the prison walls. It was 
 whispered amongst them that the governor was 
 seeking a means to send the huzzy away by ship ; 
 but that should not be, even though the day's 
 work and the night's rest must be sacrificed to 
 prevent it. Those who at other times could not 
 agree as to white and black, now yielded amiably 
 and divided time and watches between them, that 
 sentries might always be pacing the path. 
 
 Kaina had the cell to herself. She was not 
 fettered. The governor insisted that a sick 
 woman should not be fastened, and still less 
 weighted with iron. In the beginning she stood 
 and looked out into the clear air, but from all 
 the spy-holes staring, evil eyes were watching 
 her and did not leave her face. 
 
 After that she crouched upon the ground 
 where no one could reach her; but whenever 
 
 she looked up she saw again the watching eyes. 
 
 172
 
 THE GOVERNOR 173 
 
 For the most part she hid her face in her lap 
 so that it was dark and quiet about her. The 
 blood sang in her ears as if she were sitting be- 
 side the sea or under the big-sounding bell. 
 Then she could dream peacefully of the little 
 child and imagine that it still rested under her 
 heart, or that it was creeping out of her body 
 but if she woke and tried to grasp it she caught 
 at empty air. 
 
 At night, when the shadows glided in at one 
 spy-hole, out at another, over the walls and the 
 floor, over her face and hands, her heart grew 
 terrified. The silent night bore to her listening 
 ears a thousand noises. She heard the fish 
 snapping in the pond. Only one wish filled her, 
 and nothing more for herself that they might 
 give her back her little child. 
 
 She gazed at her empty hands that had once 
 held it. It seemed to her that she could hear it 
 crying in every corner, and she crept round the 
 cell to reach it, tapped on the walls and on the 
 floor, everywhere. The child was not there. 
 
 Outside in the warm summer night some one
 
 174 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 lay and snored, there was always some one there, 
 but he slept lightly. 
 
 Days and week? passed, and still she had not 
 been summoned to trial, still the trough with 
 the child stood at Klitgaard; but in the turret 
 that Runow did not enter. Vige Laem began 
 to wonder. Was the huzzy to remain on there 
 for nothing, and be a burden to him who must 
 feed and watch her? 
 
 Restlessly Runow wandered to and fro and 
 waited. He would have Kaina brought before 
 him when the time came, and would ask her 
 name and her country, and the name of the man 
 who had made her a mother. When the time 
 came. 
 
 He knew Kaina, and knew that in the presence 
 of others she would be silent despite force and 
 threats. And he and she should not be left alone. 
 
 But when Vige Laem sent word to know 
 whether he should not set a pair of small iron 
 links upon her legs that she might not escape 
 before her trial and get him into trouble or even 
 lose him his office, Runow saw that he must act. 
 
 Any one who would bear witness would be
 
 THE GOVERNOR 175 
 
 summoned to Klitgaard, the hall could be cleared 
 out if there were not room enough, and all state- 
 ments would be believed. And before all these 
 eyes, before all these evil tongues, Kaina would 
 stand without one helping hand stretched out to 
 her! 
 
 It must be, for there was no way out. After- 
 wards there would be time enough for flight. 
 
 But whenever he thought of Kaina she seemed 
 to him like the little, helpless child amongst the 
 swarm of greedy fish. He banished the thought 
 from his mind. 
 
 Jacob gave him counsel, which he instantly 
 followed. 
 
 He sent an urgent message to the mainland 
 with a letter to the lords of the chapter-house, 
 stating that the great difficulty of the case obliged 
 him to demand an extra judge that a just sentence 
 might be obtained more speedily. The same 
 boat carried a message to the governor of Saby, 
 Dyre Funder, begging him to come instantly to 
 Laeso and support the governor of the island, 
 Runow Ruyter, in a most important and pressing 
 affair.
 
 176 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Dyre Funder came willingly and speedily. 
 The fat wolf-fish that were caught in the north 
 of the island were a great dainty to him, and he 
 ate them three times a day with pepper-corns 
 and melted butter. He chatted good-humour- 
 edly with Jacob about Tubingen and its good 
 beer, and the white wine that is so difficult to 
 keep from going sour. 
 
 It was only on the following day that he found 
 leisure to make inquiries concerning the girl, 
 Kaina. Runow was somewhat taciturn and slow 
 in his explanation, but the words flew readily 
 from Jacob's tongue. 
 
 So Dyre Funder learned that Kaina had lived 
 for more than three years under the roof of 
 Klitgaard. 
 
 But since then ? 
 
 Aye, since then -! 
 
 Dyre Funder quite understood that she had 
 wandered about in accordance with her own evil 
 pleasure. So many the more would be the wit- 
 nesses of her shame. 
 
 The trial was to take place on the following 
 morning, and the bailifT wrote in chalk on the
 
 THE GOVERNOR 177 
 
 doors of Klitgaard and ran to Vige Laem who 
 must himself go through the country and sum- 
 mon the people to the assembly, even the workers 
 at the salt-pans and the inhabitants of the cluster 
 of huts that lay huddled together near the 
 church. 
 
 The peasants lifted their heads, but not the 
 spoons from their sour fish-soup there would 
 be good sport to-morrow! 
 
 The strange judge became the more eager the 
 more he learned of Kaina, the pastor Glob was 
 also to bear witness as to her Christianity, of 
 which there certainly was not much to boast.
 
 Dyre Funder listened carefully to all the tes- 
 timony, and much that was new thus came to 
 light. Runow was in the habit of stopping the 
 peasants when their tongues began to wag, but 
 the strange judge was gentle and gave them time 
 to say all that they wished. Two old, stunted 
 hags, with sharp tongues, spoke up willingly; 
 aye, she ran after young men, old men, and even 
 boys, and crept in impudent shamelessness into 
 the very huts, the huzzy, each night into a new 
 one so that they had to protect their men-folk 
 from her. Certainly that was a while ago. For 
 since then 
 
 For since then? 
 
 Runow rose from his seat of judgment, and 
 let his eyes pass keenly and slowly over every 
 face, and no one knew anything of the nights 
 that had passed "since then." As he once more 
 
 seated himself it seemed to him as if the whole 
 
 178
 
 THE GOVERNOR 179 
 
 room were covered with green mould, and his 
 fingers were paralyzed. 
 
 Dyre Funder asked whether any one sus- 
 pected, knew, or guessed who had been her light 
 of love at the time when the child was conceived. 
 
 A hissing murmur passed through the hall, a 
 noise, but no words. 
 
 Once more Runow rose and asked, in a sharp 
 voice and with smiling lips, whether they had not 
 a suspicion a mere suspicion. 
 
 It was old Poul Finken who summoned up 
 his courage to speak. 
 
 If the just judge and the gracious lord really 
 wished to know, it was the devil himself who was 
 father to the child, he and no other. 
 
 But Pastor Glob, who was perspiring in a 
 corner, plagued by many flies, demanded to be 
 heard and sworn. He told of all the insults that 
 the girl had heaped upon him, although he 
 had vowed with great spiritual and physical 
 warmth to fill her with simple, Christian faith. 
 But, nevertheless, she was a blasphemer, with 
 thick blood, and possessed by paganism. He had
 
 i8o THE GOVERNOR 
 
 shed tears upon the altar-cloth over the way- 
 wardness with which she had rejected grace. 
 
 Then Kaina was led in, tied only with a slen- 
 der hempen cord that did her no hurt, and a 
 heavy hail of angry questions rained down upon 
 her. 
 
 For a long while she remained silent, until 
 Vige Laem shook her good-naturedly by the 
 arm, and then she began to cast side-glances 
 and to nod when she was spoken to, or to 
 shake her head, quite by hazard and without 
 understanding. 
 
 She said that she knew neither her name nor 
 her land. Once her eyes glanced towards Ru- 
 now, but she immediately blinked as if they had 
 encountered too strong a light. Runow watched 
 her calmly, her thinness, the result of captivity, 
 went to his heart. For the rest, so long as she 
 was present in the hall, he felt himself secure. 
 He knew his power over her yielding spirit, and 
 although he saw that her head and arms trembled 
 with pain he felt that he was safe. 
 
 She was asked about the child. 
 
 She caught at her breast; something sucked
 
 THE GOVERNOR 181 
 
 and tugged at it as if little lips were seeking 
 sustenance. Ah, how it hurt her as she became 
 aware that milk was trickling from it! 
 
 The bailiff brought in the little trough; it was 
 placed in front of Kaina and the cloth was 
 removed. 
 
 "Dost thou acknowledge it? Was it flesh of 
 thy flesh? Did it creep from thy lap?" She 
 swayed backwards and forwards and sighed 
 deeply at each question. 
 
 "Have these, thy hands, dealt out death to it?" 
 
 With a spring she reached the trough, pressed 
 it to her, rocked it in her arms. 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 She cried it aloud so that the hall rang with it. 
 
 But Dyre Funder held a fold of his mantle 
 before his nose and shuddered before he con- 
 tinued: 
 
 "Two conceived it who shared thy lust?" 
 
 She rocked the child and did not at once 
 answer. 
 
 "He slept upon my hair every night he slept 
 upon my hair!" her lips whispered, as if in a 
 tender caress. She did not look at Runow, but
 
 182 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 spoke only to the child. Her eyes shone and 
 wandered restlessly over it. Then the gleam 
 went out of them and she ceased to rock it. 
 
 For now she saw 
 
 For now she saw what her arms held! 
 
 She stretched them out at full length in front 
 of her and stepped backwards, her gaze fixed on 
 the child, back through the crowd of witnesses 
 who made way for her, backwards to the wall. 
 She could not get farther away from the child 
 and yet could not let it go. 
 
 All eyes stared at her. 
 
 Runow also. Something like an iron ring was 
 pressing on his brain and kept his head from 
 bursting. 
 
 Without a word Jacob rose from his place, 
 took the little trough from Kaina's hands and 
 carried it out. Dyre Funder opened his mouth 
 wide in amazement until Jacob returned. 
 
 "Dear friend and gracious lord judge, my 
 nose, like a dainty maid, was near to fainting, 
 and therefore I took the liberty!" 
 
 They all laughed. 
 
 But Jacob's eyes blinked ceaselessly as if under
 
 THE GOVERNOR 183 
 
 strong emotion. The witnesses repeated in 
 Kama's presence their complaints and accusa- 
 tions. When she was interrogated, and believed 
 from the tone of Dyre Funder's voice that he ex- 
 pected her to answer "yes," she nodded, other- 
 wise she looked only at the door and from the 
 door to Jacob. 
 
 So far they arrived on the first day. 
 
 And Dyre Funder ate with satisfied con- 
 science, and in company with Runow and Jacob, 
 fat wolf-fish, young moor-hens, and spiced leg of 
 mutton. Laeso appeared to his palate an agree- 
 able land, with sensible, expansive witnesses. 
 
 But when Runow next day was chained to his 
 bed with toothache, with warm poultices on his 
 cheek, and Dyre Funder remained alone whilst 
 the pastor Glob gave his testimony against Kaina 
 and questioned her, she kept a moody silence. 
 She crouched together and let her arms hang, 
 whether they poked or pushed her. Silently she 
 brooded. 
 
 For the strange judge's benefit, the watchman 
 had recently arrested two foreign glass-blowers 
 who were accused of assault and other lewdness.
 
 184 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Runow had had them locked up in the dark loft 
 at Klitgaard, where they sat and howled and 
 stamped like wild horses from sheer boredom 
 and wickedness, in the narrow darkness just over 
 the chimney. Their breath whistled with fury. 
 
 He thought that such enlivening company 
 might loosen the stubborn tongue of the girl- 
 but he would not allow any love-making. 
 
 In his ardour he followed Vige Laem into 
 the prison-cell, and helped him to measure the 
 scoundrels' chains. 
 
 Then each of them was fastened to the wall in 
 such a way that he could make two paces in the 
 cell. Dyre Funder watched through the spy- 
 hole to see the fun. 
 
 Both the glass-blowers sprang to the length of 
 their chains and snatched at the girl, who pressed 
 herself back against the wall. They tore the 
 damp sleeping-skin from under her feet so that 
 she fell, and they caught hold of her dress. But 
 Dyre Funder laughed and they let her go again. 
 She speedily became docile, and promised to 
 answer everything, and before the night came 
 the chains were shortened.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 185 
 
 When Runow heard from Dyre Funder's lips 
 how Kaina had been tamed, his toothache left 
 him, and he rose to conduct the trial once more. 
 The best thing would be to send the two fellows 
 out of the country as quickly as possible. Each 
 had an ear clipped off with a pair of sharp 
 shears, and they were set upon a small, flat raft 
 that would carry them whither it and the wind 
 pleased, but not back again to Laeso. 
 
 After this Runow kept well and watchful dur- 
 ing all the seven hearings, and Kaina answered 
 obediently. When Dyre Funder asked her 
 whether an evil spirit had fathered the child, she 
 answered "yes." She was condemned to the ten- 
 fold death. But as she possessed only one life, 
 Dyre Funder pondered sagely and decided, with 
 Runow, that her limbs should be broken and she 
 herself burned. 
 
 The affair had come almost too rapidly to an 
 end ; Dyre Funder would gladly have remained 
 for some weeks upon the island with its appetiz- 
 ing wolf-fish, but the Saby court of justice could 
 no longer dispense with its worthy judge. How- 
 ever, he promised to be present at the girl's exe-
 
 i86 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 cution; he would not miss that pleasant spectacle 
 after the fatigues of the trial. 
 
 Before he departed Kaina was chained' with 
 heavy fetters on wrists and ankles, and Vige 
 Laem received strict orders on no condition to 
 loosen them until the sentence should be carried 
 out. 
 
 The boat that conveyed Dyre Funder to the 
 mainland also had on board two trustworthy men 
 who were to bear the sealed sentence to the high 
 court of the chapter-house of Viborg. In all 
 probability it would have to be forwarded thence 
 to the higher court, and this would occupy some 
 time.
 
 Winter came suddenly with ice and snow. 
 The sea was covered with blocks of ice. The 
 ground was like roughened hide, the hollows 
 became sheets of glass. 
 
 Every one was shy of touching iron, for it 
 burned like fire to the hand. Those who had fuel 
 made themselves comfortable on the hearth, the 
 others crept under wool and skins and kept them- 
 selves warm with their own sweat. Between 
 Laeso and the mainland the ice screwed and 
 squeezed itself, cracking and grinding. There 
 was no fish to be caught. 
 
 The watch was now superfluous. 
 
 Kaina lay in the prison. The raw marks on 
 her wrists and ankles were red-hot with the cold. 
 Icy snow drifted into her eyes, burning them like 
 salt the whirlwind tore through every spy-hole. 
 The floor was a morass of filthy pools that shone 
 like envious eyes in the daytime, and in the night 
 
 froze to ice. 
 
 187
 
 i88 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Each morning Vige Laem sent her a copper 
 brazier of coals. Over it she thawed her frozen 
 hands and feet so that the wounds smarted and 
 their crusts fell off. 
 
 The food that he gave her tasted of one thing 
 and smelled of another; she touched it with re- 
 pugnance, but when she had fasted for two days 
 she dug her fingers into it and devoured it all to 
 the last morsel. Then it lay like smouldering 
 peat in her stomach. 
 
 Sometimes Jacob came. First she would hear 
 his shrill, disagreeable laugh as he talked to Vige 
 Laem of unchaste things, mentioning her name. 
 He brought her freshly smoked mutton and a 
 can of warm milk wrapped in a cat-skin, but 
 she threw it on the ground from him she would 
 take nothing. She distrusted the very breath of 
 his mouth. 
 
 Dearly, with the gold that he loved more than 
 his own soul, with shrill laugh and with unclean 
 speech, Jacob purchased the right to enter the 
 cell. And Vige Laem thought his own thoughts. 
 
 Once Jacob bargained with him that he might 
 loosen the fetters for a while. Aye, Vige Laem
 
 THE GOVERNOR 189 
 
 agreed, and agreed also to remain away and leave 
 them in peace for a whole night. They might 
 enjoy themselves as they pleased. 
 
 To show his good-will he brought in a well- 
 filled hay pillow, laid it on the skin couch, and 
 set two braziers at the head and foot of it. 
 
 But it was for a very different reason that 
 Jacob wished to see the fetters loosened. 
 
 Deaf to his whispers, Kaina rolled herself to- 
 gether in a corner. He stood before her hesitat- 
 ing and in his abstraction he stroked her face 
 with his fingers. 
 
 Suddenly she sprang up, seized them, and held 
 them fast She recognized the two deft, soft 
 hands; they smelled of crushed willow-twigs. 
 They it was that had brought her food every 
 evening under the bell. 
 
 The coals filled the cell with yellow smoke, it 
 was dark, and they knew not what to say to each 
 other. Jacob warmed a can of water over the 
 fire, washed her wounds, poured grey salve into 
 them and bound them up with linen. He combed 
 her poor hair, and gave her a clean chemise and
 
 190 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 a new dress in place of that which the glass- 
 blowers had torn. 
 
 She let him tend and care for her. 
 
 Then she rested on the fresh hay-pillow and 
 Jacob talked to her. But he said nothing of his 
 own beating heart, nothing of the sick longing 
 that had filled him ever since the moment when 
 he had first seen her. Runow was still lord of her 
 will and he only brought her a message from 
 Runow. 
 
 In Runow's name he talked to her kindly, in 
 Runow's name he betrayed Brigitte and swore 
 that never again should she set foot in Klitgaard. 
 But for her life's sake Kaina must hold herself 
 in readiness so soon as an answer and a ship 
 should come from Holland and the ice break. 
 
 She pointed with her finger was it over the 
 sea? She would not cross the sea only not cross 
 the sea ! but rather meet death willingly. Her 
 heart was so weary, weary unto death, so that 
 she could no longer feel with her finger where it 
 was. And she knew that Brigitte would come 
 back; of course she would come back. 
 
 Then she fell asleep and in sleep she
 
 THE GOVERNOR 191 
 
 stretched out her two arms and laid them about 
 Jacob's neck, and his lips rested upon hers. But 
 she murmured Runow's name, and he freed him- 
 self from her embrace and crept away.
 
 The skipper was at Klitgaard with greeting 
 and a letter from Greener Pleyelt. From the 
 letter hung a seal. 
 
 "The ship, laden with Delft tiles, is sailing 
 northwards. The skipper is more serviceable 
 than faithful he can be bought with gold. Only 
 send the girl to me. What bread I have shall be 
 divided into two portions and she shall share 
 my hunger. 
 
 "Yet I would counsel thee, Runow, not to link 
 thy life to any woman's. Rather take the punish- 
 ment of thy sin and save thy soul whilst there is 
 yet time. 
 
 "Know that thou hast so poisoned Cornelia's 
 blood, the purest of the pure, that she is not 
 ashamed to speak her unchaste lust and to call 
 upon thy name, instead of kneeling before Him 
 upon the Cross. Neither my prayers nor my 
 pain can banish the malady from her body. 
 
 "It is empty here. All is empty around me 
 
 192
 
 THE GOVERNOR 193 
 
 and in my heart. The flowers died, they froze 
 one winter-night as my joy froze one summer 
 night when Cornelia left the city. 
 
 "But thou art called judge over men's lives 
 to the damnation of their souls and thine own! 
 I am old and I cry, Woe unto thee, Runow!" 
 
 The skipper's mouth went like a mill-wheel. 
 It was to be expected, he said, that before many 
 years had passed Groener Pleyelt would wander 
 with beggar's sack and beggar's staff from door 
 to door, if he were not in the mad-house. All his 
 goods he gave away, and the costly herbs of the 
 garden were left to wilter and to freeze. He 
 himself preferred to lie on the threshold of the 
 church with seven crippled beggars, weeping 
 and beating his breast. Or he gathered to him 
 the maidens of the town, like a swarm of doves 
 about a sieve of corn, and bellowed into their ears 
 concerning sin and the temptations of the blood 
 until the fear for their little white souls sent 
 them away. One was forced to pity him, for 
 his beautiful daughter was possessed, and the 
 heaviest penance could not suffice to free her. 
 
 Runow wrinkled his forehead in doubt. But
 
 194 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 come what might Kaina must go to Groener in 
 Utrecht, and even if she, too, must lie before the 
 church door. If she would not go willingly, 
 then she must be taken by force. 
 
 Runow made the skipper swear silence, and 
 they began to bargain. 
 
 Thamis of Rotterdam, such was the skipper's 
 name, would lie at anchor six days under the 
 island, but not an hour longer. 
 
 The three crabbed merchants in Elsinore who 
 were awaiting the ship's cargo, were not easy to 
 deceive; should they learn the true reason of the 
 delay he would lose their confidence and a great 
 part of his profits. 
 
 On that account he must take care of his skin 
 in advance, and demand high payment for the 
 undertaking. 
 
 They came to an agreement 
 
 But from the moment when Thamis of Rot- 
 terdam anchored his schooner west of the island 
 Kaina was watched again. Two men or two 
 women walked noisily, day and night, about the 
 prison. They made beer over peat-fires in a 
 sand-hole and kept Vige Laem awake with it.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 195 
 
 No one was the least in doubt as to the meaning 
 of Thamis' presence. 
 
 He strutted about the island in a pair of high, 
 shining riding-boots, a jerkin of chequered 
 leather, and a turned-down collar round his 
 broad neck. He jested with every one he met, 
 and the women were crazy after him. It was 
 with difficulty that he kept himself from 
 boasting. 
 
 A plan was laid between him and the gov- 
 ernor; he was to make friends with Vige Laem, 
 in order, by favourable opportunity, to entice 
 him away from his duty. 
 
 He carried out this plan by hanging about 
 under the prison walls with Vige Laem, sur- 
 rounded by a flock of idle island folk. 
 
 He boasted to them all of what he had seen 
 in the warm seas of the south, where birds and 
 fish and swollen corpses from the bottom of the 
 sea burned, so that smoke and red flames licked 
 the keel of the ship. And on shore it was still 
 worse. The wild huzzies of the African coast 
 ate men's fingers like the roes of fish. And their 
 kisses burned hotter than the many-coloured
 
 196 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 jelly-fish on the surface of the water that are 
 nothing but burning slime. He had lost three 
 fingers of his left hand. But if, by the help of 
 the Most High and a good wind, he should re- 
 turn once more to Holland, it would not be long 
 before he again sailed southwards, even if they 
 should devour all the fingers of his right hand, 
 too. 
 
 The ignorant women swallowed his words 
 with delight, looked at their fingers and his 
 crippled hand, and laid down their infants in the 
 heather. 
 
 Thamis went guilelessly to Klitgaard and an- 
 nounced that the week had now passed, and that 
 he must sail if he did not wish to be set in the 
 stocks by the angry merchants. Runow bar- 
 gained with him for six days more, and Thamis 7 
 demands increased. 
 
 It was probably wiser to remain quietly on 
 board his ship, and avoid intercourse with the 
 island folk. 
 
 And he did so; but he leaned over the side of 
 the ship and played upon a flute, and all the 
 women came running to the strand. The sweet
 
 THE GOVERNOR 197 
 
 music delighted their ears. They began sud- 
 denly to make their nets with ardour, to collect 
 stones, and make tar for the boats. 
 
 But the watch over Kaina was not relaxed. 
 
 The next time Thamis screwed the price up 
 five-fold, for now he might as well throw the 
 beautiful Delft ware overboard to the fishes it 
 was too late for the June market in Elsinore, 
 according to the contract. 
 
 For such a price five ships without other com- 
 mission or cargo could have been obtained from 
 Holland. 
 
 That might be, said Thamis, but one did not 
 care to lend one's self to secrecy and his, at any 
 rate, was not cheap. 
 
 Towards evening he was to come and learn 
 the decision of the judge. And he slouched 
 along to his friend Vige Laem. The latter was 
 in the act of cleaning out the prison, as it was 
 his habit to do once a year, but Thamis might 
 enter if his nose were not too sensitive. He 
 had not yet seen the girl for whom so much was 
 at stake. When he had occasionally peeped in 
 she had always lain with her face hidden in a
 
 198 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 forest of black locks that surrounded her like 
 coai-smoKe. 
 
 Would she instantly get up and bid good-day 
 to Master Thamis of Rotterdam? She stood 
 up, with both hands before her face. Thamis 
 pulled them away and examined the girl with 
 half-shut eyes, until she was uneasy down to the 
 soles of her feet. He took her softly around the 
 neck with the two remaining ringers of his left 
 hand, and it seemed to her as if ants were creep- 
 ing under her skin. 
 
 Vige Laem thrust his pitchfork into the firm 
 crust that loosened itself with a fearful stench. 
 Not for a barrel of fat Flemish herrings would 
 he have anything to do with this yellow monster; 
 she was spiteful, and scratched with fingers and 
 toes worse than the woman in the neighbouring 
 hut when one came too near her! And yellow 
 into the bargain as if she had been soaked in 
 oil and smoked in the chimney. 
 
 See, see the little thing, the smooth monkey! 
 Thamis gently separated her jaws; her mouth 
 was red right down to the gullet. Well, he 
 would soon have her on board. But now Vige
 
 THE GOVERNOR 199 
 
 Laem had finished his work, and might permit 
 himself a game of dice. 
 
 But on the same evening Thamis presented 
 himself at Klitgaard and was far more pliable 
 than before. 
 
 He promised to remain lying off the island 
 until the gracious lord could collect the 
 wretched money. As now, in any case, his cargo 
 was lost there was not so much haste to return 
 to Holland. According to his promise, he 
 would hold himself in readiness to sail night or 
 day. He would stake his life on it that the girl 
 should be carried safely on board and there 
 watched over and shielded like his own 
 daughter. 
 
 Thus a fresh respite was obtained. Whilst 
 the sentence was not yet made known, and whilst 
 Brigitte was not at Klitgaard there was still 
 time. 
 
 But Runow had not the money that Thamis 
 demanded. He could not dig it out of the earth, 
 neither could he cut it out of his flesh he did 
 not believe in the fable of selling his soul to the 
 devil or he would long since have forfeited it
 
 200 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 His conscience ate into his soul like a loath- 
 some moth of which he longed to be free. But 
 he could as easily rid himself of the needs of 
 his body as of his thoughts. 
 
 When he was alone he cursed his cowardice, 
 yet that cowardice was not the result of physical 
 weakness, but of an unsound mind. For care 
 and terror were, in reality, no worse than evil 
 dreams. If one but trod straight forward and 
 slept on the right side one need fear neither 
 dreams nor terror. 
 
 Jacob could help, Jacob must help. He found 
 him occupied in healing a cut arm. His fingers 
 carefully felt in the deep, bleeding wound to 
 find the severed tendons and tie them together. 
 Runow was forced to shut his eyes and lean 
 against the door-post. For the moment Jacob 
 had no time to spare; the arm must first be 
 bound up. 
 
 Softly and soothingly in tender words like 
 those with which Runow had hunted Kaina out 
 on the night when she bore her child Jacob 
 answered that he would rather give his liying 
 heart to be devoured by swine than sacrifice the
 
 THE GOVERNOR 201 
 
 little that he had earned in many years of 
 sweating. 
 
 But Runow did not cease to plead. There 
 were soon no words that he had not dragged out 
 and whispered and cooed to Jacob. Disgust 
 seized him for his own speech and its impo- 
 tence, but still he sought other words, and still 
 others. He must find the one that would per- 
 suade Jacob. 
 
 Could he not find it
 
 The day and hour of Kaina's execution were 
 now written in chalk on the barn-door. There 
 was a crowd before it, for every one wanted to 
 see the white marks very few could understand 
 them. 
 
 The pyre should be elegantly decorated with 
 red heather and green twigs, fine as if with flow- 
 ered upholstery I 
 
 And God grant that the sun might shine that 
 day, and that the rain might not fall ! 
 
 Joyous expectation reigned everywhere, as be- 
 fore Whitsuntide and St. John's Eve. 
 
 The highest court of the kingdom had sup- 
 ported the verdict of Dyre Funder and the judge 
 of the island. The decision was made known 
 to both, but Dyre Funder requested a postpone- 
 ment of twelve days, as he was at present pre- 
 vented from coming, but would greatly like to 
 see the sentence carried out. 
 
 202
 
 THE GOVERNOR 203 
 
 In addition, the flesh of the wolf-fish was par- 
 ticularly good in early summer. 
 
 Runow's forehead was as empty of thoughts 
 as a stone is of corn. He felt a soft, secret buzz- 
 ing in his head. He listened to see whether it 
 might not be the saving counsel but he could 
 not find it. He even spoke very softly at this 
 time and could bear no noise. He turned with 
 incontrollable fury upon every one who looked 
 at him. 
 
 Silence reigned at Klitgaard as if a corpse lay 
 in every room. 
 
 The brothers spoke together no more. 
 
 Runow had sent an urgent messenger to Bri- 
 gitte, begging her to come at once if she were 
 at Lunegaard. He was partly driven to it by 
 terror, partly by dullness. 
 
 If only he might hear Brigitte's tickling 
 laughter in every corner the horror would lose 
 its power over him. If only she were with him 
 he would take her hands, and the strength of her 
 mind, her will and her love, would pass from her 
 blood into his. Never more would he let her go. 
 
 Now that the day was fixed, fear seized him
 
 204 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 lest Brigitte should not reach the island in time. 
 She surely would not come with empty hands, 
 surely not! Should she be leaving Liinegaard 
 for a year and a day she would herself take 
 charge of her money. 
 
 But, thereupon, he vowed that he would not 
 touch a farthing, though she should bring with 
 her the hundred-fold of what Thamis demanded. 
 This he swore. 
 
 Jacob rowed alone in a boat out into the deep 
 sea. Temptation had assailed him. 
 
 He understood Kama's deadly terror, he knew 
 how Runow suffered. 
 
 But Thamis did nothing but stroll about the 
 prison cell and play to Kaina on the flute. 
 
 She should be broken and burned sooner than 
 fall a victim to his lust. 
 
 This was Jacob's melancholy decision. 
 
 He let his oars drop. It was deep out here and 
 there was no bottom to be seen. Whatever might 
 be buried here would be hidden from all, in- 
 cluding himself. 
 
 He let the gold glide through his ringers be- 
 fore the deep swallowed it.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 20$ 
 
 With it he might purchase her life with it 
 he might purchase her body for Thamis of 
 Rotterdam. 
 
 He leaned over the side of the boat, no ground 
 could be seen at all, only bluish-black rippling 
 water. 
 
 And then he turned homewards. 
 
 His gold was dear to him as the light of his 
 eyes. 
 
 But in the Seven-Isles trunk it was not safe 
 
 from Runow. 
 
 ******** 
 
 The pyre was set up with greater care than 
 the bridal-bed of the Laeso peasants. Each one 
 contributed his mite, and was happy in thereby 
 assuring himself in an easy manner from light- 
 ning and pestilence the whole year round. 
 
 They came from all quarters as to the Kir- 
 mess. Damp wood was surrounded with dry, 
 dried stumps with green branches. Turf was 
 dug out in circles from under the heather, and 
 twigs stuffed into all the spaces so that there 
 might be equal quantities of flames and smoke,
 
 206 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 that the spectacle might be a prolonged and a 
 joyous one. 
 
 The executioner's boys stamped out in the 
 centre a hole for the stake. It was only to be 
 erected at dawn. 
 
 But the young huzzies who still slept alone 
 and called themselves virgins, ran to the wood 
 and sought out a tree that had been felled by 
 the storm and that seemed to them sufficiently 
 slender to form the stake. 
 
 They hoisted it onto their shoulders, and al- 
 together, side by side, they carried it to Klit- 
 gaard and laid it across the stream, where it was 
 cleared of bark and branches. Then, forming a 
 long chain, they ran to collect wild rosemary 
 and broom, grass, and heathery dune-straw and 
 house-leek, to wind about the pole as if it were 
 a May-tree. 
 
 Every maid tore out a tress of her hair and 
 wound it in with the rest, that lust might not burn 
 her nor men run after her by night. 
 
 On the tip were bound three cows' tails to 
 ware like white pennants in the breeze.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 207 
 
 This was in accordance with ancient island 
 rite. 
 
 Kaina would be bound to the stake below tfie 
 breast, not so fast but that head and limbs might 
 defend themselves and struggle against the 
 flames. 
 
 The pyre was erected in front of the windows 
 of the hall of justice, the bailiff declared it to 
 be suitable, the girls again lifted it on to their 
 shoulders and carried it to the foot of the scaf- 
 fold-mount.
 
 The morning broke, and Runow had slept. 
 But in his dreams the deed had been accom- 
 plished not once, but seventy times over. 
 
 He awoke with a taste of blood on his tongue, 
 and scars upon his hands. He had to lean 
 against the bed-post to meet the day and to real- 
 ize that it had really come and that he was not 
 dreaming. 
 
 Blood, blood and the taste of it upon his 
 tongue I 
 
 Now he remembered everything. 
 
 Cowardice and will together governed him, 
 so that in his dreams he had bitten his tongue 
 that it might keep silence, his hands that they 
 might be still and not grasp at Kaina to tear her 
 from the pyre. 
 
 Unconsciously he began to recite the sentence 
 from beginning to end, in a loud voice, as if he 
 were standing before all the people. 
 
 His lips must read it and not Dyre Funder's. 
 
 208
 
 THE GOVERNOR 209 
 
 But it was early morning, a still, clear morn- 
 ing, and outside in the courtyard the cock was 
 crowing. Nothing was as yet accomplished, 
 there was still time, the miracle might still 
 happen. 
 
 Runow glanced curiously at his hands. So 
 that was how they looked the hands that had 
 set name and seal under the sentence, soft and 
 round. 
 
 Under his gaze they clenched themselves as if 
 they knew their guilt. There were the bloody 
 wounds he wanted to wash them off, but then 
 he remembered the day when Kaina had stood 
 at the pump and poured water over her right 
 hand. He rubbed them with coarse linen and 
 held them in the sun and tried to force them to be 
 still, but they continued to tremble. 
 
 It seemed as if they were only awaiting an 
 occasion to give him the slip but the tendons 
 were surely strong enough to hold them back! 
 A furious hatred filled him for the cowardly 
 hands. He would have liked to trample upon 
 them ; and that reminded him of the pain he had 
 felt when the letter burned to ashes in his palm.
 
 210 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 He measured the height of the sun. When it 
 had traversed the short curve from Tarben's 
 empty hut to the roof of Klitgaard, all living 
 things must be silent the leaves on the trees, 
 the flight of the wind whilst the executioner 
 broke her tender limbs and bound her on the 
 pyre, whilst the flames ran through the wiry 
 heather and licked the soles of her feet, ran up 
 her breast to her brown cheeks; whilst her cry 
 rang over the whole island and rilled the air 
 together with countless sparks of fire. 
 
 And if all the winds of the earth should blow 
 upon the island her ashes would never be scat- 
 tered, her cry would never be silenced. 
 
 No, no nothing had happened yet, there was 
 still time! His brain was tormented, plan after 
 plan formed itself one pressing upon the other. 
 
 Old Ture summoned him to table, Dyre Fun- 
 der had come. But Runow dressed himself first 
 in his holiday clothes. The clothes offered him 
 a welcome shelter, a covering for the terror of 
 his body but his face was still bare and his 
 hands; uncovered before the eyes of all. 
 
 No one must notice his uneasiness.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 211 
 
 He sat down and watched how Dyre Funder's 
 jaws crunched his food. He himself chewed and 
 swallowed and talked until he at last discovered 
 that he had not yet taken a single bite into his 
 mouth. 
 
 Then he ate, and the food tasted good. 
 
 Afterwards, Dyre Funder went to rest him- 
 self for a while, for it was a very hot day. 
 
 The time was passing, but it must not pass ac- 
 cording to its own sweet will, it must stand still. 
 Runow began to count the lost minutes, pulled 
 the hand from the clock and broke it. 
 
 Time must stand still, the sun must stand still, 
 as once in earlier days over Gideon, over 
 Gideon? 
 
 He grasped at empty air and crooked his fin- 
 gers. Now he had time fast. 
 
 Then he heard an evil, creaking sound. 
 
 Ture was in the yard splitting wood, no doubt 
 to be used for baking. He turned towards the 
 other side. The dung-pit gleamed in the sun in 
 front of the exuding elms like a beehive sur- 
 rounded by its bees.
 
 212 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 The executioner's youngsters ran past with a 
 last load of purple heather. 
 
 But the noise that had struck harshly on his 
 ears? 
 
 It was jacob. He stood by the grindstone, 
 sharpening the narrow knife that he used for 
 his patients. 
 
 Runow looked side-ways at Jacob, Jacob at 
 Runow. Then Runow went out, for now he 
 knew what to do. 
 
 There was still time to buy Thamis. 
 
 He passed through the narrow chambers to 
 the east turret where stood Jacob's chest. He 
 tried to loosen the iron bands with a knife, but 
 he found that an axe would be necessary. He 
 lifted it wildly as if against one who defended 
 himself. 
 
 The bands sprang, the nails fell out. He al- 
 most broke his fingers in opening the chest. 
 
 But at last it was open. 
 
 He pulled everything out, silk, feathers, lace, 
 dagger-sheaths but there was no silver and no 
 gold, either. 
 
 Then he noticed that tears were running from
 
 THE GOVERNOR 213 
 
 his eyes, he heard his lips murmur a paternoster 
 half-way through. He would have left the 
 room and ran against Jacob. 
 
 They looked each other in the face. 
 
 "Wouldst thou know where it is hidden that 
 which thou art so eagerly seeking?" asked Jacob. 
 
 "It is well guarded I hid it under the bell 
 beside the child thou hadst conceived with herl" 
 
 Runow started back. Jacob continued, "Un- 
 der the bell, Runow now thou knowest it. And 
 only thou canst know whether it is safe there!" 
 
 Jacob was wise. 
 
 It suddenly seemed to Runow that he had for- 
 gotten how to read. Not a letter could he re- 
 member, and yet he must needs read the sentence. 
 He took it up, but was tired and dull, and only 
 wished to sleep. 
 
 Outside some one passed along the wall, now 
 there were two. A light murmur arose. More 
 and more came. Were all the inhabitants of the 
 island surrounding Klitgaard to see him start 
 for the place of justice? 
 
 Some one scratched at the door, meekly, un- 
 certainly, as if with withered fingers. Arnlys'
 
 214 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 daughter entered with Tarben's old father. They 
 came to announce that the Dutch schooner had 
 sailed that morning. The evening before Mas- 
 ter Thamis of Rotterdam had quarrelled with 
 Vige Laem and the others outside the prison, 
 and had so shamelessly slandered the highest of 
 the island that if he had had his deserts he must 
 have been fastened to the ring which would be 
 free at noon. But at dawn he had sailed, and 
 was now out of sight. 
 
 Runow knew well that they were come to 
 watch his face, and he stared so fiercely into Poul 
 Finken's eyes that he was obliged to hang his 
 head. In the door he lisped, insinuatingly, 
 "Kaina starts grandly from the court, and with 
 a great following!" 
 
 Runow clenched his hands that he might not 
 falter. They turned their backs and went out 
 without another word. 
 
 Ah, now! ah, now! 
 
 The "poor sinner" bell was tolling from the 
 loft of the Burum chapel. The respite was at an 
 end at an end. 
 
 A fly buzzed about Runow's nose, it must die.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 215 
 
 Life for life. What was its pitiful life in com- 
 parison with Kaina's? Ah, no, only not hers, 
 only not hers! But thefly it must die, at any 
 rate. He struck with the palm of his hand 
 against the beam and the fly disappeared in the 
 sticky soot. 
 
 Why could not the people come in to see how 
 he had killed the fly? 
 
 He threw himself down upon his face, bit 
 into the planks of the floor, scratched in the black 
 joints, prayed the earth to swallow him. No 
 power should force him to the seat of justice. 
 His tongue would rot away if it must read the 
 sentence. 
 
 He ran about distractedly to find a rope, 
 knotted it into twenty nooses, bound himself 
 tightly to the bed-post and stuffed a handker- 
 chief into his mouth. 
 
 Jacob came and called him out to his duty. 
 The procession was formed and only waiting 
 for him. Jacob took the handkerchief out of 
 his mouth and loosened the noose from his neck. 
 
 Did he wish all the people to call him a 
 coward?
 
 216 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Runow wept, with his arms about Jacob's 
 neck. 
 
 Now he knew what he would do. He would 
 read aloud the sentence before all the people so 
 that it rang through the air, and then Kaina 
 should not stand alone upon the pyre. 
 
 Already he felt the flames pass from her hair 
 to his, and felt them eating through his skull. 
 
 Only his fingers shook with fear. 
 
 For a little while he worked up his courage, 
 then all fear had left him. He took the written 
 sentence and, throwing his mantle over him de- 
 spite the warmth of the day, went out. 
 
 The coach awaited him. Dyre Funder was 
 stretched out in it with sleepy eyes. Runow 
 glanced calmly over the many faces that were 
 turned to him, took his place beside Jacob and 
 gave an order to the driver. 
 
 His hands rested peacefully on his knees, he 
 was glad to see the sky so blue. 
 
 The coach rolled away from Klitgaard and 
 joined the cart that stood before the prison. 
 
 The procession wound slowly along the sandy 
 road to the hill of execution, a low, desolate rise
 
 THE GOVERNOR 217 
 
 in the neighbourhood of the Hornfisher huts and 
 the great salt-pans. 
 
 Next to them hobbled Germund and Idel, 
 hand-in-hand, and they wept all the way. Be- 
 hind them, close to the cart, danced the children 
 of Arnlys. Their tongues did not rest. They 
 threw rotten fish at Kaina. The smallest was 
 carefully carrying a closed pitcher. 
 
 She pressed close to Kaina and asked, 
 maliciously: 
 
 "Art thou thirsty? then drink from our sweet 
 mother's mug!" 
 
 Kaina did not move. Her hands were bound 
 fast on her back, but otherwise she wore no 
 fetters. 
 
 Then the child tore the cover from the jug, 
 intending to throw its contents into her face, but 
 old Idel struck it and the red mass poured over 
 the child herself, so that she broke out into a 
 howl. 
 
 It was full of ants. 
 
 The fat women opened their chemises at the 
 neck, but their heads were so covered up that 
 only teeth and noses were visible.
 
 218 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Beggars and cripples crept along with the rest, 
 pensive and joyous for afterwards there would 
 be hot fish in every hut. 
 
 The short distance appeared long in the in- 
 tense heat. 
 
 By the hill of execution Arnlys' children 
 joined hands except the youngest, who still 
 howled and shook herself. The crowd looked 
 on and formed a chain. 
 
 In a three-fold circle they danced around the 
 pyre and the executioner, the cart and the coach. 
 It was impossible to distinguish a separate note 
 from their unanimous yells. The executioner's 
 youngster played on his clarionet. 
 
 A suckling bit its mother in the breast so that 
 she screamed out. The air was perfectly still, 
 not a breeze was blowing. The three white cows' 
 tails hung limply on the stake. 
 
 Kaina looked down at her lap. 
 
 Now and then a shudder ran through her body, 
 and she moaned softly. The executioner unfast- 
 ened her hands. There was silence all around, 
 a moment of breathless silence.
 
 THE GOVERNOR 219 
 
 The bleating of a sheep in the distance sounded 
 like a loud noise. 
 
 Now Kaina raised her eyes for the first time, 
 and met those of Runow. It was as if she awoke 
 from heavy stupefaction to bewildering happi- 
 ness. It was as if Runow took her into his arms 
 and shielded her from the angry, evil people. 
 
 With a laugh as clear as sunlight she 
 looked across their ranks. She looked at her 
 nails that were long as claws. She combed her 
 hair with her fingers, but it curled about her 
 head in stiff black ringlets, blacker than pitch. 
 
 Suddenly she became ashamed of the prison 
 dirt and drew her bare legs under her. And she 
 sat there rocking the upper part of her body to 
 and fro and smiling. Once more her eyes had 
 met those of Runow. 
 
 He hesitated, half intoxicated with sweet and 
 distant memories. Thick mists seemed to rise 
 within him and to surge about him, and fine, 
 pricking rain to fall inside his brain. 
 
 The executioner toyed impatiently with his 
 tools.
 
 220 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 Runow rose. He staggered as if shaken by a 
 violent shuddering and then stood upright. 
 
 He turned his eyes away from Kaina, looked 
 down at the paper and read. His clear, soft 
 voice could be heard far away. The paper 
 shook, for his hands trembled. 
 
 Kaina followed him, murmuring each word 
 after him as he read. The smile died slowly on 
 her lips. 
 
 At last! 
 
 The clarionet blared again, and the crowd hur- 
 rahed. The executioner turned to Kaina, cover- 
 ing her with his back. 
 
 At that instant Runow recollected how damna- 
 bly it had hurt when Brigitte pressed the burn- 
 ing paper into his hand. 
 
 Kaina screamed for the first time. 
 
 Runow did not move from the spot where he 
 was seated, and he did not look up until all was 
 at an end. 
 
 During this time Jacob had distracted himself 
 by boring his sharp knife through his hand.
 
 Runow had tamed his hands, tamed them by 
 biting his fingers when they would not obey him. 
 They no longer trembled, but were like intelli- 
 gent, well-trained animals, perfectly submissive 
 to his will. He lifted them towards the sun, let 
 them dance upon the surface of the table, 
 clenched them tightly, stroked them carefully 
 they no longer trembled. 
 
 But if he sat a while in the hall of justice and 
 forgot to pay attention to his thought and will, 
 his hands would slip from him so helplessly that 
 the tendons had no power to command them 
 again, try as he would. His whole body was 
 bathed in sweat as if every pore had burst. It 
 seemed to him in his terror that the life-blood, 
 fearful of his misery, was trickling from his 
 veins, and that he must bleed to death. 
 
 If some one did not quickly pass him a drink 
 he would fall together, and lie with snapping 
 jaws, like a dog in a fit. Jacob would then be 
 
 221
 
 222 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 summoned and would pour jugs of cold water 
 over him until he once more became calm. 
 
 He had tamed his hands, but his eyes would 
 not let themselves be controlled. 
 
 In that hour of noon, when the flames of 
 Kama's pyre rose high into the sunshine his eyes 
 had absorbed so much glaring light that they 
 were blinded as if by lightning. On the follow- 
 ing morning he had noticed that they blinked 
 and shifted about like the sails of a wind-mill, 
 and could not bear the light of day, nor the sun, 
 nor the gaze of a human being. 
 
 He tried in vain to fix them upon his mirror, 
 they still glanced away and aside. In vain he 
 opened them wide, they contracted morbidly. 
 
 Jacob gave him ointment for the eyelids, but 
 he remained equally shy of the sun and of men's 
 glances. Then Jacob had to cut him a green 
 cardboard shade which he wore ever after. 
 
 Yet neither shade nor smarting ointment, nor 
 even the darkness of the night, could banish the 
 faces that haunted him. 
 
 And although he rubbed his nostrils with
 
 THE GOVERNOR 223 
 
 onions and with perfumed water he could not 
 rid them of the stench of burning. 
 
 A little later he went and complained to Jacob 
 that his ears pained him like hollow teeth. The 
 air sang in them as if in a mill, there was also 
 a harsh noise like that of a knife upon a grind- 
 stone. 
 
 Kama's five screams of agony sounded in them 
 ceaselessly. 
 
 Jacob warmed oil and poured it into his ears 
 so that he sprang about in pain. Then they were 
 stopped with cotton-wool that no sound of the 
 air might enter them. 
 
 Soon he was demanding, angrily, that every 
 one should shout aloud so that he might hear 
 their voices. 
 
 If he believed himself unobserved he slunk 
 over from Klitgaard to the ruins of the church. 
 The bell drew him. 
 
 But his own restless shadow followed him. 
 He feared it, he heard its footsteps. He hunted 
 it away, stoned it, covered it with sand-grass, 
 enticed it far out into the marsh in vain, in
 
 224 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 vain ; it clung to him, as the tongue cleaves to the 
 gullet. 
 
 He would approach the bell until he could 
 hear the fine trickling of the sand under it. He 
 longed to touch with his hands the cold, sound- 
 ing metal. But he dared not go close to it. 
 
 Round about the bell he went so often and so 
 long that there was a circle in the sand where he 
 had trodden. 
 
 Words would close his throat like thirst he 
 had to do violence to his voice to prevent it from 
 whispering what filled his thoughts. He had 
 vowed to himself that the inhabitants of the 
 island should atone bitterly for Kaina's death. 
 Their hands, their will, had led her to the pyre, 
 and not his. Especially Arnlys' children should 
 atone, all five of them. It was they who had led 
 the dance around the mound of execution. 
 
 Thus it happened that he one day encountered 
 the little girl with a stick of lead in her hands. 
 He accused her of having stolen it from the ruins 
 of the church. But she denied it, and her four 
 brothers with her. In spite of this he had their 
 ears cut with the shears, like sheep, the little
 
 THE GOVERNOR 225 
 
 girl's right ear was cut off entirely. Thenceforth 
 they would go about branded as thieves, the mark 
 could never be washed out. 
 
 He was seized with a sudden horror of water; 
 he could not take it into his mouth without think- 
 ing of the pond and the child in the shoal of carp. 
 Yet he was always plagued with thirst since the 
 smoke of Kaina's pyre had entered his throat. 
 The sweet, warm milk of the cows tasted so good 
 that more than once he drew it himself from their 
 full udders. But when, after a night's dream, he 
 remembered what he had half forgotten, that the 
 ashes of Kaina's dainty body were strewed over 
 every field and meadow, over dune and heather 
 after that he touched neither the milk nor the 
 flesh of any animal of the island. 
 
 Only the fish which were caught in deep water, 
 by a west wind, and far from the shore, formed 
 the scanty nourishment of his body.
 
 A boat laden with trunks filled with mantles, 
 linen, furs, cushions and silver, arrived in ad- 
 vance with the news that Brigitte would soon 
 be there with a troop of kinsfolk. 
 
 All the rooms were prepared. 
 
 Every day fresh meat was hung on the hooks, 
 fresh fish laid in pickle, and dough rolled out 
 for rich tarts. 
 
 On the roof of Klitgaard stood a keen-sighted 
 man, protected from the sun, whose only duty 
 was to watch for the boats. Runow himself stood 
 there by the hour gazing from under his shade 
 far out into the distance. 
 
 On the shore stood three carriages with horses 
 harnessed to them, and these were changed so 
 soon as they grew tired of standing. The bodies 
 of the carriages, woven of supple, peeled twigs, 
 were covered with white ox-skins. But the car- 
 riage which should convey the bride to Klitgaard 
 
 226
 
 THE GOVERNOR 227 
 
 was lined entirely with bags of eiderdown sewn 
 together. 
 
 If Brigitte had come the first time alone and 
 unexpected, this time the whole island should 
 receive her. 
 
 And she came. 
 
 With her were so many von Lindenows that 
 the low-ceiled rooms of Klitgaard could not con- 
 tain their laughter, that rang far out through the 
 walls. The hall of justice had to be used. In 
 it the pastor Glob united Brigitte and Runow 
 and exhorted them to be fruitful, laying before 
 them also other virtues pleasing to God and man. 
 
 The hall grew close from the warmth of the 
 sun and of the smoking meats. The guests gath- 
 ered together in twos and fours, each one 
 prattling of his possessions. 
 
 Brigitte's earlier marriage-feast was much dis- 
 cussed, and not softly. 
 
 Runow and Brigitte sat side by side, both of 
 them silent. She held her head high. Her long 
 eyes shone. Every nerve was strung to its full 
 pitch. 
 
 She sat there as if eternally silent, and was only
 
 228 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 conscious of the pressure of Runow's knee against 
 hers through the velvet of her robe. She held 
 her arms crossed upon her breast to subdue its 
 joyful heaving and to hide it from the eyes of 
 men. 
 
 Runow knew nothing of it. 
 
 At the window stood a little water-trough 
 rilled with piled-up aniseed-rolls. That was all 
 that he saw. 
 
 The guests had opened the trunks of docu- 
 ments at the upper end of the hall. Old mar- 
 riage-papers, abstracts from the law-books, sum- 
 monses and what-not, were spread out over the 
 table. Each had taken possession of a document, 
 followed the writing with his finger, and spelled 
 it out. As the trial-records were also produced 
 every one wished to know what sentences had 
 been dealt out, during the last year of grace, upon 
 the flat lands of Laeso. 
 
 Mathias Lindenow, Brigitte's uncle, who sat 
 next to her, seized the portfolio. In a rough, 
 vulgar voice he read, with difficulty, Dyre Fun- 
 der's seven hearings of the maid Kaina. Bri- 
 gitte grew impatient. She no longer dreamed
 
 THE GOVERNOR 229 
 
 now, but followed the lines with her finger. The 
 sentence was written in Latin letters. Runow was 
 obliged to read it. 
 
 A little later he got up and went out, not notic- 
 ing Brigitte, who followed him. In the brew- 
 house a peacock had been so hastily withdrawn 
 from the fire that fat and meat fell into the ashes, 
 and a burning smell arose. The flames shot 
 upwards. 
 
 Runow seized the water-jug and put out the 
 fire at one throw. For a long time he stood draw- 
 ing in the damp, white steam that mounted from 
 the ashes, then he ordered the servants to light 
 another fire under the peacock immediately. 
 
 They did as he directed.
 
 When Runow found himself, later on, alone 
 in the bed-chamber with Brigitte, he fancied, in 
 his sick imagination, that he saw sulphur-smoke 
 stream from her mouth and blue flames under 
 her skin, and her breasts seemed to him like the 
 brown scars of wounds. 
 
 And now she was Kaina. Her feet danced and 
 sprang on the glowing peat. From her shattered 
 arms blood dropped on to his hands. He thought 
 that he was embracing her before the eyes of all. 
 
 But she screamed in his embrace and it was 
 not her voice. 
 
 Brigitte freed herself from his arms, she feared 
 for her life. His consciousness returned slowly, 
 and he glanced askance at her from under his 
 shade. White and large she lay there, her hair 
 spread out for his cheek to rest on. 
 
 He clutched at it, hid his face in it, and fell 
 asleep at once. 
 
 Brigitte watched. 
 
 230
 
 THE GOVERNOR 231 
 
 One thing she knew; had her life received new 
 life at that moment she would extinguish it with 
 her own hands. 
 
 Runow gasped for air. The red silk cushion 
 that some one or other had sewed for his dreams 
 lay half under his jaws. 
 
 She drew it carefully away, and in doing so 
 tore the fragile stuff in two so that Kaina's lux- 
 uriant black hair fell over his face and neck. 
 
 And then Brigitte understood much. 
 
 She rose from the couch, shivering with cold 
 down to her heels. The singing in her blood had 
 grown dumb. 
 
 In the hall of justice lay three drunken guests. 
 The wine from overturned jugs soaked their 
 clothes and made their hair and beards sticky. 
 In their sleep they cried aloud and laughed. 
 
 Brigitte sought until she found the record of 
 the trial, and she read it through to the end. 
 Then she went to Jacob and sat down upon the 
 edge of his bed. From him she heard all. 
 
 But Brigitte did not weep, and showed no sor- 
 row. At last Jacob asked her, hesitatingly,
 
 232 THE GOVERNOR 
 
 whether she meant to leave Runow now that she 
 knew. 
 
 She answered, "Not even if he should drive 
 me away!" 
 
 When she returned to their chamber Runow 
 
 was no longer there. 
 
 ******** 
 
 He lay under the great bell, writhing in unrea- 
 soning terror. If his head touched the sounding 
 metal the walls of the bell began to murmur; 
 Kama's screams of agony seemed to dwell within 
 it. Wherever he stretched out his hands they 
 touched the body of his own child. 
 
 But he dared not escape, for here, and here 
 only, could he find peace from inquisitive eyes- 
 peace from Brigitte's greedy lips. 
 
 As he lay, there came to him the memory of his 
 father and Hilleborg. Trembling, he crouched 
 closer together. 
 
 "Our Father Our Father!" He could get 
 no further. 
 
 The children of Arnlys stood round about the 
 bell. With their broad nails they scratched on 
 the metal. It seemed to him that he could hear
 
 THE GOVERNOR 233 
 
 the executioner as at that noontide hour toy- 
 ing impatiently with his instruments. 
 
 Softly the children pressed the bell deeper and 
 deeper into the loose sand. Their bodies covered 
 the opening so that no light could enter. They 
 heard a scratching sound from within, they 
 scratched again, they heard a cry and they cried 
 back, laughing to one another: 
 
 "Now we will smoke the fox out!" 
 
 They pushed a bundle of heather under the 
 opening, set it on fire, and pressed the bell far- 
 ther into the sand. 
 
 Fine smoke-wreaths curled about it, the metal 
 became hot to the touch. 
 
 But the air was warm and pleasant and the sun 
 rose soon after.
 
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 THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN. Translation by 
 Alfred Allinson. 
 
 ***Jean Servien, son of a bookbinder, born in a back-shop in the 
 Rue Notre-Dame des Champs, began at an early age to live a most' 
 interesting life of adventure. As a character-sketch, this is one of 
 Anatole France's masterpieces. 
 
 JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT. Translation by 
 Agnes Farley. 
 
 ***0f the many volumes of fiction written by Anatole France, 
 "Jocasta" is the first novel. In this, as in all his writings, his work is 
 illuminated with style, scholarship, and psychology. 
 
 MY FRIEND'S BOOK. Translation by James L. May. 
 
 ***This volume contains the reminiscences of Pierre Nosierre, the 
 recollections of his childhood's days isolated pictures that stand out in 
 bold relief from the vague, mysterious background that surrounds them. 
 
 THE OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGNARD. Translation by 
 Mrs. Wilfrid Jackson. 
 
 ***The readers of a previous book by Anatole France, "The Merrie 
 Tales of Jacques Tournebroche," will meet a familiar character in this 
 present volume, namely, the former librarian of Monsiegneur de Seez, 
 with his indulgent wisdom and his generous scepticism, so mingled with 
 contempt and kindliness for man. 
 
 ON LIFE AND LETTERS (Second Series). By Anatole 
 France. Translation by A. W. Evans. 
 
 "The brilliant series of essays translated under the title of 'On Life 
 and Letters' shows M. France as a writer of pungent wit, passionate 
 intellectual curiority, superb cultivation, and great sympathy." Provi- 
 dence Journal. 
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 A powerful tale of primitive days, describing life in Den- 
 mark. The passions, motives, and ambitions which actuated 
 the men and women of the time are portrayed in an intense 
 and vivid manner. 
 
 The style of the book is very dramatic. Its episodes are 
 startling, and the descriptions of character are striking. 
 
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 Edmond St. Quin, having seen enough of Oxford to row on 
 the 'Varsity crew, is sent by his father to see the world. 
 He comes back after five years of a wandering, Bohemian life, 
 takes up the fashions of the day in a moment, and marries the 
 beautiful society girl who is chosen for him. They live ac- 
 cording to their rank and station for some time and then 
 Edmond sickens of an immortal disease whose name is Ro- 
 mance. He had caught it in a hill town in Italy. How the 
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 book is most charmingly and whimsically told. 
 
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