d not recognizing him just at first, gazed
at him vacantly. Tchelkache burst out laughing.

"How you're gotten up! . . ." finally exclaimed Gavrilo, smiling
broadly. "You are a gentleman!"

"We do that quickly here! What a coward you are! Dear, dear! How
many times did you make up your mind to die last night, eh? Say. . ."

"But you see, it's the first time I've ever done anything like this!
One might lose his soul for the rest of his days!"

"Would you be willing to go again?"

"Again? I must know first what there would be in it for me."

"Two hundred."

"Two hundred, you say? Yes I'd go."

"Stop! . . . And your soul?"

"Perhaps I shouldn't lose it!" said Gavrilo, smiling. "And then one
would be a man for the rest of his days!"

Tchelkache burst out laughing. "That's right, but we've joked long
enough! Let us row to the shore. Get ready."

"I? Why I'm ready. . ."

They again took their places in the boat. Tchelkache at the helm,
Gavrilo rowing.

The gray sky was covered with clouds; the troubled, green sea, played
with their craft, tossing it on its still tiny waves that broke over it
in a shower of clear, salt drops. Far off, before the prow of the
boat, appeared the yellow line of the sandy beach; back of the stern
was the free and joyous sea, all furrowed by the troops of waves that
ran up and down, already decked in their superb fringe of foam. In the
far distance, ships were rocking on the bosom of the sea and, on the
left, was a whole forest of masts mingled with the white masses of the
houses of the town. Prom there, a dull murmur is borne out to sea and
blending with the sound of the waves swelled into rapturous music.
Over all stretched a thin veil of mist, widening the distance between
the different objects.

"Eh! It'll be rough to-night!" said Tchelkache, nodding his head in
the direction of the sea.

"A storm?" asked Gavrilo. He was rowing hard. He was drenched from
head to foot by the drops blown by the wind.

"Ehe!" affirmed Tchelkache.

Gavrilo looked at him curiously.

"How much did they give you?" he asked at last, seeing that Tchelkache
was not disposed to talk.

"See!" said Tchelkache. He held out toward Gavrilo something that he
drew from his pocket.

Gavrilo saw the variegated banknotes, and they assumed in his eyes all
the colors of the rainbow.

"Oh! And I thought you were boasting! How much?"

"Five hundred and forty! Isn't that a good haul?"