er in the buff pea-jacket was sitting huddled up
against a coil of rope, with his hands thrust into his sleeves, and his
chin resting upon his arms. As the moon was shining straight into his
face, I could see that the latter was as livid as that of a corpse, and
had its brows drawn down over its narrow, insignificant eyes.

Beside him, and close to my head, there was lying stretched on the top
of the coil of rope a broad-shouldered peasant in a short smock and a
pair of patched boots of white felt. The ringlets of the wearer's curly
beard were thrust upwards, and his hands clasped behind his head, and
with ox-like eyes he stared at the zenith where a few stars were
shining, and the moon was beginning to sink.

At length, in a trumpet-like voice (though he seemed to do his best to
soften it) the peasant asked:

"Your uncle is on that barge, I suppose?"

"He is. And so is my brother."

"Yet you are here! How strange!"

The dark barge, towed against the steamer's blue-silver wash of foam,
was cleaving it like a plough, while under the moon the lights of the
barge showed white, and the hull and the prisoners' cage stood raised
high out of the water as to our right the black, indentated bank glided
past in sinuous convolutions.

From the whole, soft, liquescent fluid scene, the impression which I
derived was melancholy. It evoked in my spirit a sense of instability,
a lack of restfulness.

"Why are you travelling?"

"Because I wish to have a word with him."

"With your uncle?"

"Yes."

"About the property?"

"What else?"

"Then look here, my young fellow. Drop it all--both your uncle and the
property, and betake yourself to a monastery, and there live and pray.
For if you have shed blood, and especially if you have shed the blood
of a kinsman, you will stand for ever estranged from all, while,
moreover, bloodshed is a dangerous thing--it may at any time come back
upon you."

"But the property?" the young fellow asked with a lift of his head.

"Let it go," the peasant vouchsafed as he closed his eyes.

On the younger man's face the down twitched as though a wind had
stirred it. He yawned, and looked about him for a moment. Then,
descrying myself, he cried in a tone of resentment:

"What are you looking at? And why do you keep following me about?"

Here the big peasant opened his eyes, and, with a glance first at the
man, and then at myself, growled:

"Less noise there, you mitten-face!"

*