Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/128

128THE HALLIG.

convulsive effort, clinging to it more and more, as he be-
came ever more impressed with the delirious fancy, that
he had fallen into the sea, and was holding on to the
last plank of the shattered ship. Tortured by this hor-
rible idea, he had thrice headed the funeral train, and
now stood by the open grave. He gazed down, and
strained his eyes in vain to penetrate the pit at his feet.
Deeper and deeper the bottomless abyss seemed to open
before him. Leaning further and further forward to
measure the grave with his uncertain eye, he would
have fallen in if Mander and Oswald, who saw in him
only a deep mourner for his lost companions, had not
held him back. Just then he heard the pastor, speaking
of the captain's refusal to leave the ship which was in
his charge, say, "There is a blessing for the faithful, if
not in time, in eternity." These words crushed his last
strength. He murmured softly, like, one dying of a
broken heart, "And a curse with the unfaithful, both
in time and eternity." Again he would have fallen,
had he not leaned his trembling frame against the flag-
staff which was thrust into the ground by his side.
Hold was obliged to remind him that he must lower the
flag into the grave. He seized it convulsively and stag-
gered forward. There lay the three coffins ; but though
the vault had looked fathomless before, he now saw
them, as it were, rising toward him ; the black lids
seemed to fly open, and the dead to start up with angry
threatenings. He reeled backward in terror, and the
flag fell from his fainting hands down upon the coffins.