And Chelkash, long, lean, leaning forward and resembling a bird ready to take to flight, glared into the gloom in front of the boat with his vulture eyes, and moving his hooked beak from side to side, with one hand held the tiller firmly, while with the other he stroked his moustache, his features convulsed occasionally by the smiles that curled his thin lips. Chelkash was satisfied with his success, with himself, and with this rustic so terribly frightened by him, and now converted into his slave. He was enjoying in anticipation the spacious debauch of to-morrow, and now delighted in his power over this fresh young rustic impounded into his service. He saw how he was exerting himself, and he felt sorry for him, and wished to encourage him.
"Hie!" said he softly, with a smile, "got over your funk, eh?"
"It was nothing!" sighed Gabriel, squirming before him.
"You needn't lean so heavily on your oars now. Take it easy a bit We've only got one more place to pass. Rest a bit."
Gabriel stopped short obediently, wiped the sweat off his face with his shirt-sleeve, and again thrust the oars into the water.
"Row more gently. Don't let the water blab about you! We have only the gates to pass. Softly, softly! We've serious people to deal with here, my friend. They may take it into their heads to joke a bit with their rifles. They might saddle you with such a swelling on your forehead that you wouldn't even be able to sing out: oh!"
The skiff now crept along upon the water almost noiselessly. Only from the oars dripped blue drops and when they fell into the sea, tiny blue spots lingered for an instant on the place where they fell. The night grew even darker and stiller. The sky no longer resembled a sea in insurrection—the clouds had spread all over it and covered it with an even, heavy baldachin, drooping low and motionless over the sea. The sea grew still quieter, blacker, and exhaled a still stronger saline odour, nor did it seem so vast as heretofore.
"Ah! if only the rain would come!" whispered Chelkash, "it would be as good as a curtain for us."
Right and left of them some sort of edifice now rose out of the black water—barges, immovable, sinister, and as black as the water itself. On one of them a fire was twinkling, and someone was going about with a lantern. The sea, washing their sides, sounded supplicatory and muffled, and they responded in a shrill and cold echo, as if quarrelsome and refusing to concede anything to it.
"The cordons!" whispered Chelkash in a scarcely audible voice.