"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——"