Gavrila tried to get up, but could not, and with a vigorous oath, he laughed a meaningless, drunken laugh.

“Quite screwed!” said Chelkash, sitting down again opposite him.

Gavrila still guffawed, staring with dull eyes at his new employer. And the letter gazed at him intently, vigilantly and thoughtfully. He saw before him a man whose life had fallen into his wolfish clutches. He, Chelkash, felt that he had the power to do with it as he pleased. He could rend it like a card, and he could help to set it on a firm footing in its peasant framework. Feeling himself master of another man, he thought that never would this peasant-lad drink of such a cup as destiny had given him, Chelkash, to drink. And he envied this young life and pitied it, sneered at it, and was even troubled over it, picturing to himself how it might again fall into such hands as his.

And all these feelings in the end melted in Chelkash into one—a fatherly sense of proprietorship in him. He felt sorry for the boy, and the boy was necessary to him. Then Chelkash took Gavrila under the arms, and giving him a slight shove behind with his knee, got him out into the yard of the eating-house, where he put him on the ground in the shade of a stack of wood, then he sat down beside him and lighted his pipe. Gavrila shifted about a little, muttered, and dropped asleep.

II

“Come, ready?” Chelkash asked in a low voice of Gavrila, who was busy tinkering with the oars.

“In a minute! The rowlock here’s unsteady, can I just knock it in with the oar?”

“No—no! Not a sound! Push it down harder with your hand, it’ll go in of itself.”

They were both quietly getting out a boat, which was tied to the stern of one of a whole flotilla of barges laden with oaken pegs, and big Turkish feluccas, half unloaded, half still full of palm-oil, sandalwood, and thick trunks of cypress.

The night was dark, thick strata of ragged clouds were moving across the sky, and the sea was quiet, black, and thick as oil. It wafted a damp and salt aroma, and splashed caressingly on the sides of the vessels and the banks, gently rocking Chelkash’s boat. At a long distance from the shore rose from the sea the dark outlines of vessels, thrusting up into the sky their pointed masts with lanterns of various colors at their tops. The sea reflected the lights, and was spotted with masses of yellow, quivering patches. They quivered beautifully on the velvety bosom of the soft, dull, black water. The sea slept the sound, healthy sleep of a workman, tired out by his day’s toil.

“We’re off!” said Gavrila, dropping the oars into the water.

“Yes!” With a vigorous turn of the rudder Chelkash drove the boat into a strip of water between two barges, and they darted rapidly over the smooth surface, that kindled into bluish phosphorescent light under the strokes of the oars. Behind the boat’s stern lay a winding ribbon of this phosphorescence, broad and quivering.

“Well, how’s your head, aching?” asked Chelkash, kindly.

“Awfully! Like iron ringing. I’ll wet it with some water in a minute.”

“Why? You’d better wet your inside, that may get rid of it.” He held out a bottle to Gavrila.

“Eh? God’s blessing on it!”

There was a faint gurgling sound.