gaze into the distance.

"You are raving!" she said. "I cannot see anything."

I confess that, much as I tried to make out in the distance something
resembling a boat, my efforts were unsuccessful. About ten minutes
passed thus, when a black speck appeared between the mountains of the
waves! At one time it grew larger, at another smaller. Slowly rising
upon the crests of the waves and swiftly descending from them, the boat
drew near to the shore.

"He must be a brave sailor," I thought, "to have determined to cross
the twenty versts of strait on a night like this, and he must have had a
weighty reason for doing so."

Reflecting thus, I gazed with an involuntary beating of the heart at
the poor boat. It dived like a duck, and then, with rapidly swinging
oars--like wings--it sprang forth from the abyss amid the splashes of
the foam. "Ah!" I thought, "it will be dashed against the shore with all
its force and broken to pieces!" But it turned aside adroitly and leaped
unharmed into a little creek. Out of it stepped a man of medium height,
wearing a Tartar sheepskin cap. He waved his hand, and all three set to
work to drag something out of the boat. The cargo was so large that, to
this day, I cannot understand how it was that the boat did not sink.

Each of them shouldered a bundle, and they set off along the shore, and
I soon lost sight of them. I had to return home; but I confess I was
rendered uneasy by all these strange happenings, and I found it hard to
await the morning.

My Cossack was very much astonished when, on waking up, he saw me fully
dressed. I did not, however, tell him the reason. For some time I stood
at the window, gazing admiringly at the blue sky all studded with wisps
of cloud, and at the distant shore of the Crimea, stretching out in a
lilac-coloured streak and ending in a cliff, on the summit of which the
white tower of the lighthouse was gleaming. Then I betook myself to the
fortress, Phanagoriya, in order to ascertain from the Commandant at what
hour I should depart for Gelenjik.

But the Commandant, alas! could not give me any definite information.
The vessels lying in the harbour were all either guard-ships or
merchant-vessels which had not yet even begun to take in lading.

"Maybe in about three or four days' time a mail-boat will come in," said
the Commandant, "and then we shall see."

I returned home sulky and wrathful. My Cossack met me at the door with a
frightened countenance.