d with a drunken uproar. The red-haired sailor
was asleep with his elbows on the table.

"Let us get out of here!" said Tchelkache rising.

Gavrilo tried to rise, but not succeeding, uttered a formidable oath
and burst out into an idiotic, drunken laugh.

"See how fresh you are!" said Tchelkache, sitting down again. Gavrilo
continued to laugh, stupidly contemplating his master. The other
looked at him lucidly and penetratingly. He saw before him a man whose
life he held in his hands. He knew that he had it in his power to do
what he would with him. He could bend him like a piece of cardboard,
or help him to develop amid his staid, village environments. Feeling
himself the master and lord of another being, he enjoyed this thought
and said to himself that this lad should never drink of the cup that
destiny had made him, Tchelkache, empty. He at once envied and pitied
this young existence, derided it and was moved to compassion at the
thought that it might again fall into hands like his own. All these
feelings were finally mingled in one--paternal and authoritative. He
took Gavrilo by the arm, led and gently pushed him from the public
house and deposited him in the shade of a pile of cut wood; he sat down
beside him and lighted his pipe. Gavrilo stirred a little, muttered
something and went to sleep.

* * * * *

"Well, is it ready?" asked Tchelkache in a low voice to Gavrilo who was
looking after the oars.

"In a moment! one of the thole-pins is loose; may I pound it down with
an oar?"

"No, no! No noise! Push it down with your hands, it will be firm."

They noiselessly cut loose the boat fastened to the bow of a sailing
vessel. There was here a whole fleet of sailing vessels, loaded with
oak bark, and Turkish feluccas still half full of palma, sandal-wood
and great cypress logs.

The night was dark; the sky was overspread with shreds of heavy clouds,
and the sea was calm, black and thick as oil. It exhaled a humid and
salt aroma, and softly murmured as it beat against the sides of the
vessels and the shore and gently rocked Tchelkache's boat. Far out at
sea rose the black forms of ships; their sharp masts, surmounted with
colored lanterns, were outlined against the sky. The sea reflected the
lights and appeared to be sown with yellow spots, which trembled upon
its soft velvety black bosom, rising and falling regularly. The sea
was sleeping the healthy sound sleep of t