"What doings?" Chelkash asked grimly. "Eh? Well, what doings?"
He was amused by the youth's terror, and he enjoyed it and the sense that he, Chelkash, was a terrible person.
"Shady doings, mate. Let me go, for God's sake!
What am I to you? eh? Good—dear—!"
"Hold your tongue, do! If you weren't wanted, I shouldn't have taken you. Do you understand? So, shut up!"
"Lord!" Gavrilo sighed, sobbing.
"Come, come! you'd better mind!" Chelkash cut him short.
But Gavrilo by now could not restrain himself, and quietly sobbing, he wept, sniffed, and writhed in his seat, yet rowed vigorously, desperately. The boat shot on like an arrow. Again dark hulks of ships rose up on their way and the boat was again lost among them, winding like a wolf in the narrow lanes of water between them.
"Here, you listen! If anyone asks you anything,—hold your tongue, if you want to get off alive! Do you see?"
"Oh—oh!" Gavrilo sighed hopelessly in answer to the grim advice, and bitterly he added: "I'm a lost man!"
"Don't howl!" Chelkash whispered impressively.