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He took the Bible and flung it on the floor. "Satan take you, then!" he shouted, laying about him with the furniture. Pelle lay bathed in sweat, listening to this demoniac struggle; and it was with a feeling of relief that he heard Strom open the window and drive the devils out over the roofs. The diver fought the last part of the battle with a certain humor.

He smiled a shamefaced smile at the confession. With one leap, Strom was out of bed. "No, then you shall have something to eat," he said eagerly, and he fetched some food. "Did one ever see the like such a desperate devil! To take brandy on an empty stomach! Eat now, and then you can drink yourself full elsewhere! Strom has enough on his conscience without that.... He can drink his brandy himself!

He tried to raise his head. Strom stepped forward. "Here we are," he said, his voice stifled with emotion. "But I'd give a good dead to have had us both blown to hell instead of this happening. None of us has wished you any good!" He held out his hand. But the "Great Power" could not raise his; he lay there, staring up through the holes in the thatched roof.

First he gave up Fredrik Ström, who was quickest at saying unpleasant things; then Sivert, because he never said a word, but went on selling; at last he stuck to following his former clerk, and trying to set folk against him wherever he went in. Oh, but Andresen knew his master that was knew him of old, and how little he knew of business and unlawful trading.

I know it's only a little, but I have no more, and there's no need for us to be ashamed of being helped by one another." She put the coin in his jacket pocket and hurried off. Pelle strolled out to the woods. He did not feel inclined to go home, to resume the aimless battle with Strom.

Deveny an' Strom Rogers, an' some more all of them, I reckon. I ought to have got out long ago. But it's too late now, I reckon. "That damned Deveny he's a wolf with women. Handsome as hell, with ways that take with most any woman that meets him. An' he's as smooth an' cold an' heartless as the devil himself. He ain't got no pity for nobody or nothin'. An' Strom Rogers runs him a close second.

"Father's gone out," said the children. Then he slipped home again. He stole a scrap of bread and a drop of brandy from Strom, who was not at home, and threw himself on his bed. As the darkness came on he strolled out and lounged, freezing, about the street corners. He had a vague desire to do something.

With a sudden grip he seized something by the throat, opened the window, and threw it out. "So, that was it!" he said, relieved; "now there's none of the devil's brood left!" He reached after the bottle of brandy. "Leave it alone!" said Pelle, and he took the bottle away from him. His will increased in strength at the sight of the other's misery. Strom crept into bed again.

The 'Great Power' doesn't want to have more than any one else where we have all done an equal amount of work." He raised his hand, painfully, and made a magnanimous gesture. "There he believes he's the engineer of the harbor works!" said Strom. "He's wandering. Wouldn't a cold application do him good?" Emil took the bucket in order to fetch fresh water.

Higher up, things went more slowly, for all that the soil was richer that way. The one who had ventured farthest was Isak, when he settled down at Sellanraa; he was the boldest and the wisest of them all. Later, Axel Ström had come and now there was a new man besides. The new man was to have a big patch of arable land and forest down below Maaneland there was land enough.