PELLE THE CONQUEROR

PART III.--THE GREAT STRUGGLE.


BY MARTIN ANDERSON NEXO



TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH
By Bernard Miall.




III. THE GREAT STRUGGLE


I


A swarm of children was playing on the damp floor of the shaft. They
hung from the lower portions of the timber-work, or ran in and out
between the upright supports, humming tunes, with bread-and-dripping in
their hands; or they sat on the ground and pushed themselves forward
across the sticky flagstones. The air hung clammy and raw, as it does in
an old well, and already it had made the little voices husky, and had
marked their faces with the scars of scrofula. Yet out of the tunnel-
like passage which led to the street there blew now and again a warm
breath of air and the fragrance of budding trees--from the world that