The mail-packet came; it brought my uniform; it was to take the Baron
and all his cases of scales and seaweeds on board. Now it was loading
up barrels of herrings and oil at the quay; towards evening it would be
off again.
I took my gun and put a heavy load of powder in each barrel. When I had
done that, I nodded to myself. I went up into the hills and filled my
mine with powder as well; I nodded again. Now everything was ready. I
lay down to wait.
I waited for hours. All the time I could hear the steamer's winches at
work hoisting and lowering. It was already growing dusk. At last the
whistle sounded: the cargo was on board, the ship was putting off. I
still had some minutes to wait. The moon was not up, and I stared like
a madman through the gloom of the evening.
When the first point of the bow thrust out past the islet, I lit my slow
match and stepped hurriedly away. A minute passed. Suddenly there was a
roar--a spurt of stone fragments in the air--the hillside trembled, and
the rock hurtled crashing down the abyss. The hills all round gave echo.
I picked up my gun and fired off one barrel; the echo answered time and
time again. After a moment I fired the second barrel too; the air
trembled at the salute, and the echo flung the noise out into the wide
world; it was as if all the hills had united in a shout for the vessel
sailing away.
A little time passed; the air grew still, the echoes died away in all
the hills, and earth lay silent again. The ship disappeared in the
gloom.
I was still trembling with a strange excitement. I took my drills and
my gun under my arm and set off with slack knees down the hillside. I
took the shortest way, marking the smoking track left by my avalanche.
Æsop followed me, shaking his head all the time and sneezing at the
smell of burning.
When I came down to the shed, I found a sight that filled me with
violent emotion. A boat lay there, crushed by the falling rock. And
Eva--Eva lay beside it, mangled and broken, dashed to pieces by the
shock--torn beyond recognition. Eva--lying there, dead.