here he felt himself a will-less, mechanical wheel in a general
machine consisting of five men and an endless chain of flying
watermelons.

Now he was number two. Bending downward rhythmically, he, without
looking, received with both hands the cold, springy, heavy watermelon;
swung it to the right; and, also almost without looking, or looking
only out of the corner of his eye, tossed it downward, and immediately
once again bent down for the next watermelon. And his ear seized at
this time how smack-smack ...smack-smack...the caught watermelons
slapped in the hands; and immediately bent downwards and again threw,
letting the air out of himself noisily--ghe...ghe...

The present work was very profitable; their gang, consisting of forty
men, had taken on the work, thanks to the great rush, not by the day
but by the amount of work done, by the waggon load. Zavorotny, the
head--an enormous, mighty Poltavian--had succeeded with extreme
deftness in getting around the owner; a young man, and, to boot, in all
probability not very experienced as yet. The owner, it is true, came to
his senses later and wanted to change the stipulations; but experienced
melon growers dissuaded him from it in time: "Drop it. They'll kill
you," they told him simply and firmly. And so, through this very stroke
of good luck every member of the gang was now earning up to four
roubles a day. They all worked with unusual ardour, even with some sort
of vehemence; and if it had been possible to measure with some
apparatus the labour of each one of them, then, in all probability, the
number of units of energy created would have equalled the work of a
large Voronezhian train horse.

However, Zavorotny was not satisfied even with this--he hurried and
hurried his lads on all the time. Professional ambition was speaking
within him; he wanted to bring the daily earnings of every member of
the gang up to five roubles per snout. And gaily, with unusual ease,
twinkled from the harbour to the waggon, twirling and flashing, the wet
green and white watermelons; and their succulent plashing resounded
against accustomed palms.

But now a long blast sounded on the dredging machine in the port. A
second, a third, responded to it on the river; a few more on shore; and
for a long time they roared together in a mighty chorus of different
voices.

"Ba-a-a-st-a-a!" hoarsely and thickly, exactly like a locomotive blast,
Zavorotny started roaring.

And now the last smack-