nd bawl as though he
were minded to challenge the whole world to combat.

"Come, now!" at length I said. "You must have done, or your very head
will drop off."

Yet no sooner did he feel the touch of the ocean spray, and begin to be
sprinkled With its joyous caresses, than he lamented more loudly and
vigorously than ever, and so continued throughout the process of being
slapped on the back and breast as, frowning and struggling, he vented
squall after squall while the waves laved his tiny limbs.

"Shout, young Orlovian!" said I encouragingly. "Let fly with all the
power of your lungs!"

And with that, I took him back to his mother. I found her with eyes
closed and lips drawn between her teeth as she writhed in the torment
of expelling the after-birth. But presently I detected through the
sighs and groans a whispered:

"Give him to me! Give him to me!"

"You had better wait a little," I urged.

"Oh no! Give him to me now!"

And with tremulous, unsteady hands she unhooked the bosom of her
bodice, and, freeing (with my assistance) the breast which nature had
prepared for at least a dozen children, applied the mutinous young
Orlovian to the nipple. As for him, he at once understood the matter,
and ceased to send forth further lamentation.

"O pure and holy Mother of God!" she gasped in a long-drawn, quivering
sigh as she bent a dishevelled head over the little one, and, between
intervals of silence, fell to uttering soft, abrupt exclamations. Then,
opening her ineffably beautiful blue eyes, the hallowed eyes of a
mother, she raised them towards the azure heavens, while in their
depths there was coming and going a flame of joy and gratitude. Lastly,
lifting a languid hand, she with a slow movement made the sign of the
cross over both herself and her babe.

"Thanks to thee O purest Mother of God!" she murmured. "Thanks indeed
to thee!"

Then her eyes grew dim and vague again, and after a pause (during which
she seemed to be scarcely breathing) she said in a hard and
matter-of-fact tone:

"Young fellow, unfasten my satchel."

And whilst I was so engaged she continued to regard me with a steady
gaze; but, when the task was completed she smiled shamefacedly, and on
her sunken cheeks and sweat-flecked temples there dawned the ghost of a
blush.

"Now," said she, "do you, for the present, go away."

"And if I do so, see that in the meanwhile you do not move about too
much."

"No, I will not. But please go awa