rds Sukhum; and, as it held on its course, it
put me in mind of a certain pompous engineer of the town who had been
wont to inflate his fat cheeks and say: "Be quiet, you, or I will have
you locked up!" This man had, for some reason or another, an
extraordinary weakness for causing arrests to be made; and, exceedingly
do I rejoice to think that by now the worms of the graveyard must have
consumed him down to the very marrow of his bones. Would that certain
other acquaintances of mine were similarly receiving beneficent
attention!

Walking proved an easy enough task, for I seemed to be borne on air,
while a chorus of pleasant thoughts, of many-coloured recollections,
kept singing gently in my breast--a chorus resembling, indeed, the
white-maned billows in the regularity with which now it rose, and now
it fell, to reveal in, as it were, soft, peaceful depths the bright,
supple hopes of youth, like so many silver fish cradled in the bosom of
the ocean.

Suddenly, as it trended seawards, the road executed a half-turn, and
skirted a strip of the sandy margin to which the waves kept rolling in
such haste. And in that spot even the bushes seemed to have a mind to
look the waves in the eyes--so strenuously did they lean across the
riband-like path, and nod in the direction of the blue, watery waste,
while from the hills a wind was blowing that presaged rain.

* * * * *

But hark! From some point among the bushes a low moan arose--the sound
which never fails to thrill the soul and move it to responsive quivers!

Thrusting aside the foliage, I beheld before me the woman in the yellow
scarf. Seated with her back resting against the stem of a hazel-bush,
she had her head sunken deeply between her shoulders, her mouth
hideously agape, her eyes staring vaguely before her, her hands pressed
to her swollen stomach, her breath issuing with unnatural vehemence,
and her abdomen convulsively, spasmodically rising and falling.
Meanwhile from her throat were issuing moans which at times caused her
yellow teeth to show bare like those of a wolf.

"What is the matter?" I said as I bent over her. "Has anyone assaulted
you?"

The only result was that, shuffling bare feet in the sand like a fly,
she shook her nerveless hand, and gasped:

"Away, villain! Away with you!"

Then I understood what was the matter, for I had seen a similar case
before. Yet for the moment a certain feeling of shyness made me edge
awa