her wide-open grey eyes full of
terror, I perceived that it was a girl of my own age, with a very
pleasant face embellished unfortunately by three large blue marks.
This spoilt her, although these blue marks had been distributed with a
remarkable sense of proportion, one at a time, and all were of equal
size--two under the eyes, and one a little bigger on the forehead just
over the bridge of the nose. This symmetry was evidently the work of
an artist well inured to the business of spoiling the human
physiognomy.

The girl looked at me, and the terror in her eyes gradually died
out... She shook the sand from her hands, adjusted her cotton
head-gear, cowered down, and said:

"I suppose you too want something to eat? Dig away then! My hands are
tired. Over there"--she nodded her head in the direction of a
booth--"there is bread for certain ... and sausages too... That booth
is still carrying on business."

I began to dig. She, after waiting a little and looking at me, sat
down beside me and began to help me.

We worked in silence. I cannot say now whether I thought at that
moment of the criminal code, of morality, of proprietorship, and all
the other things about which, in the opinion of many experienced
persons, one ought to think every moment of one's life. Wishing to
keep as close to the truth as possible, I must confess that apparently
I was so deeply engaged in digging under the crate that I completely
forgot about everything else except this one thing: What could be
inside that crate?

The evening drew on. The grey, mouldy, cold fog grew thicker and
thicker around us. The waves roared with a hollower sound than before,
and the rain pattered down on the boards of that crate more loudly and
more frequently. Somewhere or other the night-watchman began springing
his rattle.

"Has it got a bottom or not?" softly inquired my assistant. I did not
understand what she was talking about, and I kept silence.

"I say, has the crate got a bottom? If it has we shall try in vain to
break into it. Here we are digging a trench, and we may, after all,
come upon nothing but solid boards. How shall we take them off? Better
smash the lock; it is a wretched lock."

Good ideas rarely visit the heads of women, but, as you see, they do
visit them sometimes. I have always valued good ideas, and have always
tried to utilise them as far as possible.

Having found the lock, I tugged at it and wrenched off the whole
thing. My accomp