Part 12

"Oh!... All right!... No matter. I can work. Only don't let me in for something ... You're so frightfully double-tongued ... you're a dark horse...."

Chelkash began to feel something of the nature of a gangrened wound in his breast, and murmured with cold maliciousness:

"No blabbing, whatever you may think. Look now, I've a good mind to knock your blockhead about till I drive some light into it."

He leaped from his post, and while his left hand still twirled his moustache, he clenched his right into a muscular fist as hard as iron, while his eyes flashed and sparkled.

The rustic was terrified. He quickly looked about him, and timidly blinking his eyes, also leapt from the ground. They both stood there regarding each other in silence.

"Well?" inquired Chelkash sullenly, he was boiling over and tremulous at the insult received from this young bull-calf, whom during the whole course of their conversation he had despised, but whom he now thoroughly hated because he had such clear blue eyes, such a healthy sun-burnt face, such short strong arms. He hated him, moreover, because, somewhere or other, he had his native village, and a house in it, and because he numbered among his relatives a well-to-do peasant farmer; he hated him for all his past life and all his life to come, and, more than all this, he hated him because this creature, a mere child in comparison with himself, Chelkash, dared to love freedom, whose value he knew not, and which was quite unnecessary to him. It is always unpleasant to see a man whom you regard as worse and lower than yourself, love or hate the same thing as you do, and thus become like unto yourself.

The rustic looked at Chelkash, and felt that in him he had found his master.

"Well ..." he began, "I have nothing to say against it. I am glad, in fact.... You see I am out of work. It is all one to me whom I work for, for you or another. I only mean to say that you don't look like a working man ... you're so terribly ragged, you know. Well, I know that may happen to us all. Lord! the topers I've seen in my time! No end to 'em! But I've never seen any like you."

"All right, all right! It is agreed then, eh?" asked Chelkash. His voice was now a little softer.

"With pleasure, so far as I am concerned. What's the pay?"

"I pay according to the amount of work done, and according to the kind of work too. It depends upon the haul. You might get a fifth part--what do you say to that?"

But now it was a matter of money, and therefore the peasant must needs be exact and demand the same exactness from his employer. The rustic had a fresh access of uncertainty and suspicion.

"Nay, brother, 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush----'"

Chelkash fell in with his humour.

"No more gabble! Wait! come to the pub!"

And they walked along the street side by side, Chelkash twisting his moustaches with the impudent air of a master, the rustic with the expression of a complete readiness to buckle under, yet at the same time full of uneasiness and suspicion.

"What do they call you?" inquired Chelkash.

"Gabriel," replied the rustic.

When they came to the filthy and smoke-black inn, Chelkash, going up to the buffet with the familiar tone of an old habitué, ordered a bottle of vodka, cabbage-soup, a roasted joint, tea; and totting up the amount of the items, curtly remarked to the barmaid: "All to my account, eh?" whereupon the barmaid nodded her head in silence. And Gabriel was suddenly filled with a profound respect for his master, who, notwithstanding his hang-dog look, enjoyed such notoriety and credit.

"Well, now we can peck a bit, and have a talk comfortably. You sit here. I'll be back directly."

Out he went. Gabriel looked about him. The inn was on the ground-floor, it was damp and dark, and full of the stifling odour of distilled vodka, tobacco smoke, tar, and a something else of a pungent quality. Opposite Gabriel, at another table, sat a drunken man in sailor's costume, with a red beard, all covered with coal dust and tar. He was growling, in the midst of momentary hiccoughs, a song, or rather the fragmentary and inconsecutive words of a song, his voice now rising to a frightful bellow, now sinking to a throaty gurgle. He was obviously not a Russian.

Behind him sat two young Moldavian girls, ragged, dark-haired, sun-burnt, also screeching some sort of a song with tipsy voices.

Further back other figures projected from the surrounding gloom, all of them strangely unkempt, half-drunk, noisy, and restless....

Gabriel felt uncomfortable sitting there all alone. He wished his master would return sooner. The din of the eating-house blended into a single note, and it seemed to him like the roar of some huge animal. It possessed a hundred different sorts of voices, and was blindly, irritably, soaring away out of this stony prison, as if it wanted to find an outlet for its will and could not.... Gabriel felt as if something bemused and oppressive was sucking away in his body, something which made his head swim, and made his eyes grow dim as they wandered, curious and terrified, about the eating-house.

Chelkash now arrived, and they began to eat and drink and converse at the same time. At the third rummer Gabriel got drunk. He felt merry, and wanted to say something pleasant to his host who--glorious youth!--though nothing to look at, was so tastefully entertaining him. But the words, whole waves of them, pouring into his very throat, for some reason or other wouldn't leave his tongue, which had suddenly grown quite cumbersome.

Chelkash looked at him, and said with a derisive smile: "Why, you're drunk already! What a milksop! And only the fifth glass too! How will you manage to work?"

"My friend," lisped Gabriel, "never fear, I respect you--there you are Let me kiss you. Ah!"

"Well, well--come, chink glasses once more."

Gabriel went on drinking, and arrived at last at that stage when to his eyes everything began to vibrate with a regular spontaneous motion of its own. This was very disagreeable, and made him feel unwell. His face assumed a foolishly-ecstatic expression. He tried to say something, but only made a ridiculous noise with his lips and bellowed. Chelkash continued to gaze fixedly at him as if he was trying to recollect something, and twirled his moustaches, smiling all the time, but now his smile was grim and evil.

The eating-house was a babel of drunken voices. The red-haired sailor had gone to sleep with his elbows resting on the table.

"Come now, let us go," said Chelkash, standing up.

Gabriel tried to rise, but could not, and cursing, loudly, began to laugh the senseless laugh of the drunkard.

"He'll have to be carried," said Chelkash, sitting down again on the chair opposite his comrade.

Gabriel kept on laughing, and looked at his host with lack-lustre eyes. And the latter regarded him fixedly, keenly, and meditatively. He saw before him a man whose life had fallen into his vulpine paws. Chelkash felt that he could twist him round his little finger. He could break him in pieces like a bit of cardboard, or he could make a substantial peasant of him as solid as a picture in its frame. Feeling himself the other man's master, he hugged himself with delight, and reflected that this rustic had never emptied so many glasses as Fate had permitted him, Chelkash, to do. And he had a sort of indignant pity for this young life; he despised and even felt anxious about it, lest it should fall at some other time into such hands as his. And finally, all Chelkash's feelings blended together into one single sentiment--into something paternal and hospitable. He was sorry for the youth, and the youth was necessary to him. Then Chelkash took Gabriel under the armpits, and urging him lightly forward from behind with his knee, led him out of the door of the tavern, where he placed him on the ground in the shadow of a pile of wood, and himself sat down beside him and smoked his pipe. Gabriel rolled about for a bit, bellowed drunkenly, and dozed off.

II.

"Well now, are you ready?" inquired Chelkash in a low voice of Gabriel, who was fumbling about with the oars.

"Wait a moment. The row-locks are all waggly. Can I ship oars for a bit?"

"No, no! Don't make a noise! Press down more firmly with your hands, and they'll fall into place of their own accord."

The pair of them were quietly making off with the skiff attached to the stern of one of a whole flotilla of sailing barques laden with batten rivets and large Turkish feluccas half unloaded and still half-filled with palm, sandal, and thick cypress-wood logs.

The night was dark, across the sky dense layers of ragged cloud were flitting, and the water was still, dark, and as thick as oil. It exhaled a moist, saline aroma, and murmured caressingly as it splashed against the sides of the ships and against the shore, and rocked the skiff of Chelkash to and fro. Stretching a long distance seawards from the shore, rose the dark hulls of many vessels, piercing the sky with their sharp masts which had variegated lanterns in their tops. The sea reflected the lights of these lanterns, and was covered with a mass of yellow patches. They twinkled prettily on its soft, faint-black, velvet bosom, heaving so calmly, so powerfully. The sea was sleeping the sleep of a strong and healthy labourer wearied to death by the day's work.

"Let's be off," said Gabriel, thrusting the oar into the water.

"Go!" Chelkash, with a powerful thrust of his hand, thrust the skiff right into the strip of water behind the barques. The skiff flew swiftly through the smooth water, and the water, beneath the stroke of the oars, burned with a bluish, phosphorescent radiance. A long ribbon of this radiance, faintly gleaming, tapered away from the keel of the skiff.

"Well, how's the head? Aching, eh?" inquired Chelkash jocosely.

"Frightfully. It hums like molten iron. I'll wash it with water presently."

"Why? What you want is something to go inside. Take a pull at that--that will soon put you all right," and he handed Gabriel a flask.

"Oh-ho! Lord bless you!"

A gentle gurgle was audible.

"How now? Feel glad, eh? Stop, that'll do!"

The skiff sped on again, lightly and noiselessly, turning and winding among the vessels. Suddenly it wrenched itself free from them, and the sea--the endless, mighty, glistening; sea--lay extended before them, receding into the blue distance, whence there arose out of its waters mountains of cloud of a dark lilac-blue, with yellowish downy fringes at the corners, and greenish clouds the colour of sea water, and those melancholy leaden clouds which cast abroad such heavy, oppressive shadows, crushing down mind and spirit. They crept so slowly away from one another, and now blending with, now pursuing one another, intermingled their shapes and colours, swallowing each other up and re-emerging in fresh shapes, magnificent and menacing.... And there was something mysterious in the gradual motion of these lifeless masses. There seemed to be an infinite host of them at the verge of the sea-shore, and it seemed as if they must always creep indifferently over the face of Heaven, with the sullen, evil aim of obliterating it, and never allowing it to shine down again upon the sleeping sea with its millions of golden eyes, the many-coloured living stars that sparkle so dreamily, awakening lofty desires in those to whom their pure and holy radiance is so precious.

"The sea's good, ain't it?" inquired Chelkash.

"Rubbish! it's horrible to me," replied Gabriel, as his oars struck the water vigorously and symmetrically. The water plashed and gurgled with a scarcely audible sound beneath the strokes of the long oars--splashing and splashing, and sparkling with its warm blue phosphorescent light.

"Horrible! do you say? Ugh, you fool!" exclaimed Chelkash contemptuously.

He, thief and cynic, loved the sea. His excitable, nervous nature, greedy of new impressions, was never tired of contemplating that dark expanse, limitless, free, and mighty. And it offended him to receive such an answer to his question as to the loveliness of the thing he loved. Sitting in the stern, he cut the water with his oar, and looked calmly in front of him, full of the desire to go long and far in that velvety smoothness.

On the sea there always arose within him a broad, warm feeling embracing his whole soul, and, for a time, purifying him from the filth of earthly life. This feeling he prized, and he loved to see himself better there, in the midst of the water and the air, where thoughts of life and life itself always lost first their keenness and then their value. At night on the sea can be heard the soft murmur of the sea's slumberous breathing, that incomprehensible sound which pours peace into the soul of man, and caressingly taming his evil impulses, awakes within him mighty musings....

"But where's the tackle, eh?" inquired Gabriel suddenly, looking uneasily about the boat.

Chelkash started violently.

"The tackle?--It is with me in the stern of the boat."

"What sort of tackle is that?" Gabriel again inquired, this time with suspicion in his voice.

"What tackle? Why, ground tackle and----"

But Chelkash felt ashamed to lie to this youngster while concealing his real project, and he regretted the thoughts and feelings which the question of this rustic had suddenly annihilated. He grew angry. A familiar, sharp, burning sensation in his breast and throat convulsed him, and he said to Gabriel with suppressed fury:

"Mind your own business, and don't thrust your nose into other folk's affairs. You are hired to row--so row. If your tongue wags again it will be the worse for you. Do you understand?"

For a moment the skiff rocked to and fro, and stood still. The oars remained in the water feathering it, and Gabriel moved uneasily on his bench.

"Row!"

Violent abuse shook the air. Gabriel grasped the oars. The skiff, as if terrified, fared along with quick, nervous jolts, noisily cutting through the water.

"Steadier!"

Chelkash rose a little from his seat in the stern, without letting go his oar, and fixed his cold eyes on the pale face and trembling lips of Gabriel. Bending forward with arched back he resembled a cat about to spring. Perfectly audible was the savage grinding of his teeth, and also a timorous clattering as if of bones.

"Who calls?" resounded a surly shout from the sea.

"Devil take it!--row, can't you? Quiet with the oars! I'll kill you, you hound! Row, I say! One, two! You dare to whisper, that's all!" whispered Chelkash.

"Mother of God! Holy Virgin!" whispered Gabriel, trembling and helpless with terror and over-exertion.

The skiff turned and went lightly back towards the haven, where the lights of the lanterns were jogging together in a parti-coloured group, and the shafts of the masts were visible.

"Hie! who was making that row?" the voice sounded again. This time it was further off than before. Chelkash felt easier.

"You're making all the row yourself, my friend!" he cried in the direction of the voice, and then he turned again to Gabriel, who was still muttering a prayer: "Well, my friend, you're in luck! If those devils had come after us there would have been an end of you! Do you hear? I'd have thrown you to the fishes in a twinkling!"

Now when Chelkash spoke calmly, and even good-naturedly, Gabriel trembled still more with terror and fell to beseeching.

"Listen! Let me go! For Christ's sake let me go! Land me somewhere--oh, oh, oh! I'm ruined altogether. Now, in the name of God, let me go! What am I to you? I'm not up to it. I'm not used to such things. It's the very first time. Oh, Lord! It's all up with me! How could you so deceive me, my friend? It is wilful of you. You have lost your soul. A pretty business."

"What business do you mean?" asked Chelkash surlily. "Ha! What business, eh?"

He was amused at the terror of the rustic, and he took a delight in Gabriel's terror, because it showed what a terrible fellow he, Chelkash, was.

"A dark business, my friend! Let me go, for God's sake. What harm have I done you?... Mercy...!"

"Silence! If you were of no use to me I would not have taken you. Do you understand?--And now be quiet!"

"Oh, Lord!" sighed the sobbing Gabriel.

"Come, come! Don't blubber!" Chelkash rounded on him sternly.

But Gabriel could no longer restrain himself, and sobbing softly, wept and snivelled and fidgeted on his seat, but rowed vigorously, desperately. The skiff sped along like a dart. Again the dark hulls of big vessels stood in their way, and the skiff lost itself among them, turning like a top in the narrow streaks of water between the vessels.

"Hie you! Listen! If anyone asks you anything, hold your tongue, if you want to remain alive! Do you understand?"

"Woe is me!" sighed Gabriel hopelessly in reply to the stern command, adding bitterly: "My accursed luck!"

"Now row!" said Chelkash in an intense curdling whisper.

At this whisper Gabriel lost all capacity for forming any ideas whatsoever, and became more dead than alive, benumbed by a cold presentiment of coming evil. He mechanically lowered his oars into the water, leaned back his uttermost, took a long pull, and set steadily to work again, gazing stolidly all the time at his bast shoes.

The sleepy murmur of the waves had now a sullen sound and became terrible. They were in the haven.... Behind its granite wall could be heard people's voices, the splashing of water, singing, and high-pitched whistling.

"Stop!" whispered Chelkash. "Ship oars! cling close to the wall! Hush, you devil!"

Gabriel, grasping the slippery stones with his hands, drew the skiff up alongside the wall. The skiff moved without any grating, its keel gliding noiselessly over the slimy seaweed growing on the stones.

"Stop! Give me the oars! Give them here! Where's your passport? In your knapsack? Hand over the knapsack! Come, look sharp! It will be a good hostage for your not bolting! You'll not bolt now, I know! Without the oars you might bolt somewhere, but without the passport you'd be afraid to. Wait, and look here, if you whine--to the bottom of the sea you go!"

And suddenly clinging to something with his hands, Chelkash rose in the air and disappeared over the wall.

Gabriel trembled.... It was done so smartly. He began to feel the cursed oppression and terror which he felt in the presence of that evil moustached thief, rolling, creeping off him. Now was the time to run!... With a sigh of relief he looked about him. To the left of him rose a black mastless hull, a sort of immense tomb, unpeopled and desolate. Every stroke of the billows against its side awoke within it a hollow, hollow echo, like a heavy sigh. To the right of him on the water, stretching right away, was the grey stony wall of the mole, like a cold and massive serpent. Behind, some black bodies were also visible, and in front, in the opening between the wall and the hull of the floating tomb, the sea was visible, dumb and dreary with black clouds all over it. Huge and heavy, they were moving slowly along, drawing their horror from the gloom and ready to stifle man beneath their heaviness. Everything was cold, black, and of evil omen. Gabriel felt terrified. This terror was worse than the terror inspired by Chelkash, it grasped the bosom of Gabriel in a strong embrace, made him collapse into a timid lump, and nailed him to the bench of the skiff.

And around him all was silent, not a sound save the sighing of the sea, and it seemed as if this silence were broken upon by something terrible, something insanely loud, by something which shook the sea to its very foundation, tore asunder the heavy flocks of clouds in the sky, and scattered over the wilderness of the sea all those heavy vessels. The clouds crept along the sky just as gradually and wearyingly as before; but more and more of them kept rising from the sea, and, looking at the sky, one might fancy that it also was a sea, but a sea in insurrection against and falling upon the other so slumberous, peaceful, and smooth. The clouds resembled billows pouring upon the earth with grey inwardly-curling crests; they resembled an abyss, from which these billows were torn forth by the wind; they resembled new-born breakers still covered with greenish foam of rage and frenzy.

Gabriel felt himself overwhelmed by this murky silence and beauty; he felt that he would like to see his master again soon. Why was he staying away there? The time passed slowly, more slowly even than the clouds crawling across the sky.... And the silence as time went on became more and more ominous. But now from behind the wall of the mole a splashing, a rustling, and something like a whispering became audible. It seemed to Gabriel as if he must die on the spot.

"Hie! Are you asleep? Catch hold!" sounded the hollow voice of Chelkash cautiously.

Something round and heavy was let down from the wall, Gabriel hauled it into the boat. Another similar thing was let down. Then across the wall stretched the long lean figure of Chelkash, then from somewhither appeared the oars, Gabriel's knapsack plumped down at his feet, and heavily breathing Chelkash was sitting in the stern.

Gabriel looked at him and smiled joyfully and timidly.

"Tired?" he asked.

"A bit, you calf! Come, take the oars and put your whole heart into it. A bit of work will do you no harm, my friend. The work's half done, now we've only got to swim a bit under their very noses, and then you shall have your money and go to your Polly. You have a Polly, haven't you? Eh, baby?"

Gabriel did his very utmost, working with a breast like shaggy fur and with arms like steel springs. The water foamed beneath the skiff, and the blue strip behind the stern now became broader. Gabriel was presently covered with sweat, but kept on rowing with all his might. Experiencing such terror twice in one night, he feared to experience it a third time, and only wished for one thing: to be quite out of this cursed work, land on _terra firma,_ and run away from this man before he killed him downright, or got him locked up in jail. He resolved to hold no conversation with him, to contradict him in nothing, to do all he commanded, and if he were fortunate enough to break away from him, he vowed to offer up a prayer to St. Nicholas, the Wonder Worker, on the morrow. A passionate prayer was ready to pour from his breast.... But he controlled himself, panted like a steam-engine, and was silent, casting sidelong glances at Chelkash from time to time.

And Chelkash, long, lean, leaning forward and resembling a bird ready to take to flight, glared into the gloom in front of the boat with his vulture eyes, and moving his hooked beak from side to side, with one hand held the tiller firmly, while with the other he stroked his moustache, his features convulsed occasionally by the smiles that curled his thin lips. Chelkash was satisfied with his success, with himself, and with this rustic so terribly frightened by him, and now converted into his slave. He was enjoying in anticipation the spacious debauch of to-morrow, and now delighted in his power over this fresh young rustic impounded into his service. He saw how he was exerting himself, and he felt sorry for him, and wished to encourage him.

"Hie!" said he softly, with a smile, "got over your funk, eh?"

"It was nothing!" sighed Gabriel, squirming before him.

"You needn't lean so heavily on your oars now. Take it easy a bit We've only got one more place to pass. Rest a bit."

Gabriel stopped short obediently, wiped the sweat off his face with his shirt-sleeve, and again thrust the oars into the water.

"Row more gently. Don't let the water blab about you! We have only the gates to pass. Softly, softly! We've serious people to deal with here, my friend. They may take it into their heads to joke a bit with their rifles. They might saddle you with such a swelling on your forehead that you wouldn't even be able to sing out: oh!"