They entered the docks.... From beyond its granite walls came sounds of human voices, the splashing of water, singing and shrill whistling.

“Stop!” whispered Chelkash. “Ship your oars! Hold on to the wall! Quieter, you devil!”

Gavrila clutched at the wall and worked the boat along; the thick coating of slime that covered the masonry deadened the sound of the gunwale as it scraped along its side.

“Stop! ... Give me the oars! Come this way! Where’s your passport? In your knapsack? Give me your knapsack! Look sharp! That’s to prevent your running away, my friend.... You won’t run away now. You might have bolted without the oars, but you’d be afraid to run away without your passport. Wait here! Mind! If you blab—I’ll find you even if you’re at the bottom of the sea!”

Suddenly clutching at something with his hands, Chelkash leaped upwards and vanished over the wall.

Gavrila shuddered.... All this had happened so quickly. He felt the accursed burden of fear which weighed upon him in the presence of this bewhiskered, skinny thief, dropping, slipping off his shoulders.... Here was a chance to get away! ... He breathed a sigh of relief and looked around. On the left towered a black, mastless hull; it looked like an enormous coffin, deserted and empty.... Every wave that struck its side awoke a hollow, muffled echo that sounded like a sigh. On the right, the grey stone wall of the mole stretched above the surface of the water, like a cold, heavy serpent. Behind him loomed some black piles, and in front, in the space between the wall and the coffin, he could see the sea, silent, desolate, and the black clouds floating above it. The clouds moved across the sky slowly, large and ponderous, spreading horror out of the darkness and seeming ready to crush one with their weight. All was cold, black and sinister. Gavrila grew frightened again, and this fright was worse than that with which Chelkash imbued him; it gripped his breast in its powerful embrace, reduced him to a helpless clod and held him fast to the seat of the boat.

Silence reigned all around. Not a sound was heard, except for the sighing of the sea. The clouds still crept across the sky slowly and lazily, but they rose out of the sea in infinite numbers. The sky too looked like a sea, but a restless one, suspended over the calm, smooth and slumbering sea below. The clouds seemed to be descending upon the earth in grey, curly waves, into the chasms from which the wind had torn them, and upon the newly-rising waves, not yet crested with angry greenish foam.

Gavrila felt crushed by this gloomy silence and beauty and yearned to see his master again. Suppose he didn’t come back? ... Time passed slowly, more slowly than the clouds creeping across the sky.... And as time passed the silence became more sinister.... At last the sounds of splashing and rustling and something resembling a whisper came from the other side of the mole. Gavrila thought he would die on the spot.

“P’st! Are you asleep? Hold this.... Careful now!” It was Chelkash’s muffled voice.

Something heavy and cube-shaped dropped from the wall. Gavrila caught it and put it in the bottom of the boat. A second object of the same kind followed.