transient glimmer of sea. Up here subterranean creatures had their
home; when one trod upon the rock it sounded hollow.

In the southern opening the sea lay silver in the moonlight, but
as Pelle looked again it disappeared, and the low-lying plain was
drowned in white. In every direction the land was disappearing;
Pelle watched in amazement while the sea slowly rose and filled
every hollow. Then it closed above the lesser hills; one by one it
swallowed them, and then it took the long ridge of hills to the east,
until only the crests of the pine-trees lifted themselves above it;
but Pelle did not as yet give himself up for lost; for behind all
his anxiety lay a confused conception of Mount Ararat, which kept
up his courage. But then it became so dreadfully cold that Pelle's
breeches seemed to stick to his body. "That's the water," he thought,
and he looked round in alarm; the rock had become a little island,
and he and it were floating on the ocean.

Pelle was a sturdy little realist, who had already had all manner of
experiences. But now the fear had at last curdled his blood, and he
accepted the supernatural without a protest. The world had evidently
perished, and he himself was drifting--drifting out into space, and
space was terribly cold. Father Lasse, and the workshop, Manna and
the young master's shining eyes--here was an end of them all. He did
not mourn them; he simply felt terribly lonely. What would be the
end of it all--or was this perhaps death? Had he perhaps fallen dead
a little while ago, when he tumbled over the precipice? And was he
now voyaging toward the land of the blessed? Or was this the end of
the world itself, of which he had heard such dreadful things said,
as far back as he could remember? Perhaps he was adrift on the last
scrap of earth, and was the only person still living? It did not in