gen had come in contact with this, and the
tide had driven him against it with double force. He sank down
fainting with his load; but the next wave lifted him and the young
girl aloft again.

The fishermen grasped them, and lifted them into the boat. The blood
streamed down over Juergen's face; he seemed dead, but he still
clutched the girl so tightly that they were obliged to loosen her by
force from his grasp. And Clara lay pale and lifeless in the boat,
that now made for the shore.

All means were tried to restore Clara to life; but she was dead! For
some time he had been swimming onward with a corpse, and had exerted
himself to exhaustion for one who was dead.

Juergen was still breathing. The fishermen carried him into the nearest
house upon the sand-hills. A kind of surgeon who lived there, and was
at the same time a smith and a general dealer, bound up Juergen's
wounds in a temporary way, till a physician could be got next day from
the nearest town.

The brain of the sick man was affected. In delirium he uttered wild
cries; but on the third day he lay quiet and exhausted on his couch,
and his life seemed to hang by a thread, and the physician said it
would be best if this string snapped.

"Let us pray that God may take him to Himself; he will never be a sane
man again!"

But life would not depart from him--the thread would not snap; but the
thread of memory broke: the thread of all his mental power had been
cut through; and, what was most terrible, a body remained--a living
healthy body--that wandered about like a spectre.

Juergen remained in the house of the merchant Broenne.

"He contracted his illness in his endeavour to save our child," said
the old man, "and now he is our son."

People called Juergen imbecile; but that was not the right expression.
He was like an instrument, in which the strings are loose and will
sound no more; only at times for a few minutes they regained their
power, and then they sounded anew: old melodies were heard, snatches
of song; pictures unrolled themselves, and then disappeared again in
the mist, and once more he sat staring before him, without a thought.
We may believe that he did not suffer, but his dark eyes lost their
brightness, and looked only like black clouded glass.

"Poor imbecile Juergen!" said the people.

He it was whose life was to have been so pleasant that it would be
"presumption and pride" to expect or believe in a higher existence
hereafter. All