I MET LOUIS WAGNER (continued)

This was about half-past seven in the evening when he slid, with the raving ideas of a demon sweeping his mind, to the off shore of Smutty Nose and under cover of the darkness of the night he slipped onto the shore and made his way towards the blackened house. Maren, Anethe, and Karen, had retired at that time, not having any fear of being alone and being partially guarded by their small dog Ringe. There was a white blanket of snow still left on the Island from the winter's storms lending a softened still about them. Karen was sleeping in the kitchen while Maren and Anethe were sleeping in the room next to it. Suddenly, out of the stillness rose the piercing yelps of the dog ringing through the crisp air with a startling vibration. Karen was the first to hear him and she jumped up out of her bed. At first upon hearing the dog she thought that it was just her husband returning from the mainland so she called out into the pitch blackness: "John, John, is that you?"

With her cry Maren and Anethe awakened, and they became startled into terror when they heard the tearing fall of a chair being hurled at Karen, and the sound of a heavy form of a man dashing at full speed toward her. They heard the clock being struck from the shelf "a clock found later to have stopped at seven minutes after one."

Again they heard blow after blow and Karen cried out: "John kills me! John kills me!" for in the pitch blackness of the night she could think only that her husband was there.

Maren and Anethe rushed out of their bed to find that the door of their room had been in some way wedged. While they were trying to force it open they heard the horrible cries of Karen as she staggered across the floor and went down and loosened the bar that held the door.

As Maren went through the door she tried to seize her sister to drag her into the bedroom but the man looming over them with his huge shape and a chair still swinging high in his hand, uttered no sounds but kept on striking at them.

She dragged her sister into the other room and slammed tight the door. Meanwhile, Anethe climbed out of the window to cry for help from God knows where as the other Islanders were far away and fast asleep. She was in her night gown and bare feet. She tried to yell, but fear paralyzed her throat so that she could not utter a sound. Wagner had seen her leave and he raced out of the house toward her. Upon seeing his full form silhouetted with the dim lighting afforded her by the snow, she found her voice to cry out:

Continue SPRAYS OF SALT