"Do you really mean that? Then," said the man after he had given his hand to the boy emphatically, "we'll take our boat to-morrow evening; you row to Jeverssand; I'll stay on the dike in the meantime." "Yes," replied the boy, "that'll work! I'll take my whip with me." "Do that." Silently they came near the house of their employers, to which they slowly climbed up the high hill. At the same hour on the following night the hired man sat on the big stone in front of the stable door, when the boy came to him, snapping his whip. "What a strange sound!" said the former. "I should say--take care!" returned the boy; "I have stuck nails into the string, too." "Then come," said the other. As on the night before, the moon stood in the eastern sky and looked down with a clear light. Soon both were out on the dike again and looked over to Jevers Island, that looked like a strip of mist in the water. "There it goes again," said the man; "I was here in the afternoon, and then it wasn't there; but I saw the white horse skeleton lying there distinctly!" The boy stretched his neck: "That isn't there now, Iven," he whispered. "Well, Carsten, how is it?" said the man. "Are you still keen on rowing over?" Carsten stopped to think a moment; then he struck the air with his whip: "Go ahead and slip the mooring, Iven." But over yonder it seemed as if the creature moving there were stretching its neck and raising its head toward the mainland. They were not seeing it any more; they were already walking down the dike to the place where the boat was moored. "Now get in," said the man, after he had slipped the mooring. "I'll wait till you are back. You'll have to land on the eastern side; that's where one always could land." And the boy nodded silently and rowed away into the moonlit night with his whip; the man wandered back to the foot of the dike and climbed on to it again at the place where they had stood before. Soon he saw how the boat was moored at a steep, dark place, where a broad creek flowed out, and how a stocky figure leaped ashore. Didn't it seem as if the boy were snapping his whip? But then, too, it might be the sound of the rising flood. Several hundred feet to the north he saw what they had taken for a white horse; and now--yes, the figure of the boy came marching straight up to it. Now it raised its head as if it were startled; and the boy--now one could hear it plainly--snapped his whip. But--what was he doing? He was turning round, he was going back the same way he had come. The creature over there seemed to graze on unceasingly; no sound of neighing could be heard; sometimes it seemed as if strips of water were drawn across the apparition. The man gazed as if spellbound. Then he heard the arrival of the boat at the shore he was on, and soon in the dusk he saw the boy climb toward him up the dike. "Well, Carsten," he asked, "what was it?"