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As he reached one of the groups of ragged dockers, reclining in the shade of a stack of coal baskets, there rose to meet him a thick-set young man, with purple blotches on his dull face and scratches on his neck, unmistakable traces of a recent thrashing. He got up and walked beside Chelkash, saying, in an undertone: "The dock officers have got wind of the two cases of goods.
They're on the look-out. D'ye hear, Grishka?" "What then?" queried Chelkash, cooly measuring him with his eyes. "How 'what then? They're on the look-out, I say. That's all." "Did they ask for me to help them look?" And with an acrid smile Chelkash looked toward the storehouse of the Volunteer Fleet. "You go to the devil!" His companion turned away. "Ha, wait a bit!
They fish more for drowned men, old anchors, sunk ships everything! There are hooks on purpose for all that." "Go on! That sort of fishermen, maybe, that sing of themselves: "We cast our nets Over banks that are dry, Over storerooms and pantries!" "Why, have you seen any of that sort?" inquired Chelkash, looking scoffingly at him and thinking that this nice youth was very stupid.
He barred the way for Chelkash, standing before him in a challenging attitude, his left hand clutching the hilt of his dirk, while with his right he tried to seize Chelkash by the collar. "Stop! Where are you going?" Chelkash drew back a step, raised his eyes, looked at the official, and smiled dryly.
Like a bird he flew up to Chelkash, dropped down beside him, and began to turn him over on the ground. His hand dipped into a warm, red stickiness. He shuddered and staggered back with a face pale and distraught. "Brother, get up!" he whispered through the patter of the lain into Chelkash's ear.
Mawkish devil! They turn the reflector this way and that way, and light up the sea, so as to see if there are folks like you and me afloat. "To catch smugglers, they do it.They won't get us, they've sailed too far off. Don't be frightened, lad, they won't catch us. Now we " Chelkash looked triumphantly round. "It's over, we've rowed out of reach! Foo o! Come, you're in luck."
And this thought and feeling, filling him with a sense of his own independence and reckless daring, kept him beside Gavrilo on the desolate sea shore. "You've made me happy!" shrieked Gavrilo, and snatching Chelkash's hand, he pressed it to his face. Chelkash did not speak; he grinned like a wolf. Gavrilo still went on pouring out his heart: "Do you know what I was thinking about?
Chelkash felt a rush of the softening, caressing air of home, bringing back to him the tender words of his mother and the weighty utterances of the venerable peasant, his father; many a forgotten sound and many a lush smell of mother-earth, freshly thawing, freshly ploughed, and freshly covered with the emerald silk of the corn.
Meekly Gavrilo wiped his face with his sleeve, and murmured: "Do as you will. I won't say a word. For Christ's sake, forgive me!" "Snivelling idiot! Even stealing's more than you can do!" Chelkash cried scornfully, tearing a piece of his shirt under his jacket, and without a word, clenching his teeth now and then, he began binding up his head.
Mechanically Gavrilo changed places. When Chelkash, as he changed places with him, glanced into his face, and noticed that he was staggering on his shaking legs, he felt still sorrier for the lad. He clapped him on the shoulder. "Come, come, don't be scared! You've earned a good sum for it. I'll pay you richly, mate. Would you like twenty-five roubles, eh?" "I don't want anything.
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