Wienke had run after her father as he was tearing away; but after a hundred steps she stumbled over a mound of earth and fell to the ground. The man Iven Johns brought the crying child back to her mother. She was leaning against the trunk of the ash tree the branches of which were whipping the air above her, and staring absently out into the night where her husband had vanished. When the roaring of the storm and the distant splashing of the sea stopped for a few moments, she started as if in fright; it seemed to her now as if all were seeking to destroy him and would be hushed suddenly when they had seized him. Her knees were trembling, the wind had unloosed and was sporting with her hair. "Here is the child, lady," John cried to her; "hold her fast!" and pressed the little girl into her mother's arms. "The child?--I had forgotten you, Wienke!" she cried. "God forgive me!" Then she lifted her to her heart, as close as only love can hold, and with her fell on her knees. "Lord God and Thou my Jesus, let us not be widow and orphan! Protect him, oh, good God; only Thou and I, we alone know him!" Now the storm had no more pauses; it howled and thundered as if the whole world would pass away in this uproar. "Go into the house, lady!" said John; "come!" and he helped them up and led both into the house and into the room. The dikemaster Hauke Haien sped on his white horse to the dike. The small path seemed to have no bottom, for measureless rain had fallen; nevertheless, the wet, sucking clay did not appear to hold back the hoofs of the animal, for it acted as if it felt the solid ground of summer beneath it. As in a wild chase the clouds wandered in the sky; below lay the marshes like an indistinct desert filled with restless shadows. A muffled roaring rose from the water behind the dike, more and more horrible, as if it had to drown all other sounds. "Get up, horse!" called Hauke, "we are riding our worst ride." Then a scream of death sounded under the hoofs of his horse. He jerked back the reins, and turned round: beside him, close above the ground, half flying, half hurled by the wind, a swarm of white gulls was passing by with derisive cackling; they were seeking shelter on land. One of them--the moon was shining through the clouds for a moment--lay trampled by the way: the rider believed that he saw a red ribbon flutter at its throat. "Claus!" he cried; "poor Claus!"