“What do you want?” I cried, firmly squeezing her little hands.
Her fingers crunched, but her serpent-like nature bore up against the torture, and she did not utter a cry.
“You saw us,” she answered. “You will tell on us.”
And, with a supernatural effort, she flung me on to the side of the boat; we both hung half overboard; her hair touched the water. The decisive moment had come. I planted my knee against the bottom of the boat, caught her by the tresses with one hand and by the throat with the other; she let go my clothes, and, in an instant, I had thrown her into the waves.
It was now rather dark; once or twice her head appeared for an instant amidst the sea foam, and I saw no more of her.
I found the half of an old oar at the bottom of the boat, and somehow or other, after lengthy efforts, I made fast to the harbour. Making my way along the shore towards my hut, I involuntarily gazed in the direction of the spot where, on the previous night, the blind boy had awaited the nocturnal mariner. The moon was already rolling through the sky, and it seemed to me that somebody in white was sitting on the shore. Spurred by curiosity, I crept up and crouched down in the grass on the top of the cliff. By thrusting my head out a little way I was able to get a good view of everything that was happening down below, and I was not very much astonished, but almost rejoiced, when I recognised my water-nymph. She was wringing the seafoam from her long hair. Her wet garment outlined her supple figure and her high bosom.
Soon a boat appeared in the distance; it drew near rapidly; and, as on the night before, a man in a Tartar cap stepped out of it, but he now had his hair cropped round in the Cossack fashion, and a large knife was sticking out behind his leather belt.
“Yanko,” the girl said, “all is lost!”
Then their conversation continued, but so softly that I could not catch a word of it.
“But where is the blind boy?” said Yanko at last, raising his voice.