The clouds crawled over
the sky as slowly and as wearily as before, but the sea gradually
emerged from under them, and one might fancy, looking at the sky, that
it was also a sea, but an angry sea overhanging a peaceful, sleeping
one. The clouds resembled waves whose gray crests touched the earth;
they resembled abysses hollowed by the wind between the waves and
nascent billows not yet covered with the green foam of fury.
Gavrilo was oppressed by this dark calm and beauty; he realized that he
desired his master's return. But he did not come! The time passed
slowly, more slowly than crawled the clouds up in the sky. . . And the
length of time augmented the agony of the silence. But just now behind
the wall, the plashing of water was heard, then a rustling, and
something like a whisper. Gavrilo was half dead from fright.
"Hey, there! Are you asleep? Take this! Softly!" said Tchelkache's
hoarse voice.
From the wall descended a solid, square, heavy object. Gavrilo put it
in the boat, then another one like it. Across the wall stretched
Tchelkache's long figure. The oars reappeared mysteriously, then
Gavrilo's bag fell at his feet and Tchelkache out of breath seated
himself at the tiller.
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