Black Eric chose not to take offence. “Why, as for that,” he said, “perhaps I did want to see Young Eric. It’s natural enough for a father to want to see his son, isn’t it? But that wasn’t the real reason. I came because I couldn’t sleep. Night after night I lay awake, and always I heard a curious sound, like a tapping, tapping, tapping. I thought if I came back here I could rest again----” “A tapping!” cried Olga. “Then you did take Witch Mary with you!” Black Eric’s face, pale before, lost the last vestige of colour. He wheeled upon her. “What do you mean?” he demanded. “The tapping of her cane!” she answered. “She’s not been seen since you left.” “I hope to God she’s dead!” There was a note of defiant relief in Black Eric’s voice. At the shout of protest that greeted his words he became placating. “Well, she’s done us all harm, hasn’t she? She brought the drought upon us with her curse. She cursed yet again, and the dam broke up the river, and the flood came and drowned many of our cattle. She----” Swarming in through the door came the children, cutting short his speech. They ran, terrified, to their mothers. “I knew it!” sobbed Olga’s girl. “I knew something awful would come!” “But what is it? What’s the matter?” cried the women, alarmed. Kaisa’s boy, the oldest of the children, answered. “The Witch! Witch Mary! She came down the path to the river. Didn’t you hear her clicking her old cane? Didn’t you hear her curse?” “Will she--will she--come in here, I wonder?” faltered one woman. “She said the serpent of the river would get him! She cried it out! She waved her cane and said that!” “No,” protested another child, “she said she would kill him!” “I could not see her--I was so--so scared!” a third added, with chattering teeth. Black Eric stood silent, his face pale and twitching. He was evidently fighting for control. “Where’d she go?” he asked. “Down to the river!” “No, she went back in the woods. She went fast, like the wind!” They crowded to the windows, the children still clinging to their mothers. Beyond the river bank stretched a sandbar, gleaming white in the sun. The river coiled and twisted like sensuous green snakes writhing together. “There she is, Mamma! See her through the willows!” cried Kaisa’s boy excitedly. “O God, yes, there she is! Her clothes are frayed, they blow about her, she waves her cane in the air!” “Where, where?” pleaded a voice. “Red shawl dragging on her shoulder, cloth around her head!” “_Ja käre Gud!_” gasped one. “Can’t you hear her, Mamma?” wailed the little girl. “She’s muttering----” A peculiar moaning broke upon them. “‘Tis but the river, child,” soothed Olga. “Hush, _vännen_, do not cry so!” Her own voice was wavering, full of a nameless fear. “Muttering her curses, of course,” finished Black Eric, laughing hideously. “She’ll bring some awful thing upon us, even now, with our harvests full!” sobbed the old crone. Her pipe fell unheeded to the floor.