II

“Ready?” whispered Chelkash to Gavrilla, who was fussing with the oars.

“In a minute. The rowlock’s loose. Can I give it a bang with the oar?”

“No! Not a sound! Push it down with your hands; it’ll slip into place.”

Both of them were noiselessly busy with a boat tied to the stern of one of a whole fleet of barges-loaded with oaken staves and of Turkish feluccas carrying palm and sandal wood and thick Cyprus logs.

The night was dark, heavy banks of tattered clouds floated across the sky, the sea was calm and black and as heavy as oil. It gave off a moist saline odour and made tender little noises as it lapped at the shore and the sides of ships, causing Chelkash’s boat to rock gently. At some distance from shore could be seen the dark outlines of ships against the sky, their masts tipped by varicoloured lights. The sea reflected these lights and was strewn with innumerable yellow spots that looked very beautiful quivering upon the background of black velvet. The sea was sleeping as soundly as a workman who has been worn out by the day’s labour.

“Let’s go,” said Gavrilla, dipping an oar into the water.

“Let’s.” Chelkash pushed off hard with the steering oar, sending the boat into the lanes between the barges. It glided swiftly over the water, which gave off a blue phosphorescent glow wherever the oars struck it and formed a glowing ribbon in the wake of the boat.

“How’s your head? Ache?” asked Chelkash solicitously.

“Something fierce. And it’s heavy as lead. Here, I’ll wet it.”

“What for? Wet your insides; that’ll bring you round quicker,” said Chelkash, holding out a bottle.

“Ah, God be thanked.”

There was a gurgling sound.

“Hey! That’s enough!” interrupted Chelkash.

Once more the boat darted forward, weaving its way among the other craft swiftly and soundlessly. Suddenly it was beyond them, and the sea – the mighty boundless sea – stretched far away to the dark-blue horizon, from which sprang billowing clouds: grey-and-mauve with fluffy yellow edges; greenish, the colour of sea water; leaden-hued, throwing dark and dreary shadows. Slowly moved the clouds across the sky, now overtaking each other, merging in colour and form, annihilating each other only to appear again in new aspects, grimly magnificent. There was something fatal in the slow movement of these inanimate forms. It seemed as if there were endless numbers of them at the rim of the sea, and as if they would go on crawling across the sky for ever, impelled by a vicious desire to keep the sky from gazing down upon the slumbering sea with its millions of golden orbs, the many-hued stars, that hung there alive and pensively radiant, inspiring lofty aspirations in the hearts of men to whom their pure shine was a precious thing.

“Nice, the sea, isn’t it?” asked Chelkash.

“I suppose so, but it makes me afraid,” said Gavrilla as he pulled hard and evenly on the oars. The water let out a faint ring and splash as the oars struck it, and it still gave off that blue phosphorescent glow.

“Afraid! You are a boob,” grunted Chelkash.

He, a thief, loved the sea. His nervous, restive nature, always thirsting for new impressions, never had enough of contemplating its dark expanses, so free, so powerful, so boundless. And he resented such a tepid response to his question about the beauty of the thing he loved. As he sat there in the stern of the boat letting his steering oar cut through the water while he gazed calmly ahead, he was filled with the one desire to travel as long and as far as he could over that velvety surface.

He always had a warm expansive feeling when he was on the sea. It filled his whole being, purging it of the dross of daily life. He appreciated this and liked to see himself a better man hero among the waves and in the open air, where thoughts about life lose their poignancy and life itself loses its value. At night the soft breathing of the slumbering sea is wafted gently over the waters, and this unencompassing sound fills the heart of man with peace, crams away its evil impulses, and gives birth to great dreams.

“Where’s the fishing tackle?” asked Gavrilla suddenly, glancing anxiously about the boat.

Chelkash gave a start.

“The tackle? I’ve got it here in the stern.”

He did not wish to lie to this green youth and he regretted having his thoughts and feelings dispelled in this abrupt way. It made him angry. Again ho had that burning sensation in his throat and chest and said to Gavrilla in a hard and impressive voice:

“Listen, sit where you are and mind your own business. I hired you to row, so you row; and if you start wagging your tongue it will go hard with you. Understand?”

The boat gave a little jerk and came to a halt, the oars dragging and stirring up the water. Gavrilla shifted uneasily on his seat.

“Row!”

A fierce oath shook the air. Gavrilla lifted the oars and the boat, as if frightened, leaped ahead in quick nervous spurts that made the water splash.

“Steady!”

Chelkash half rose without letting go of the steering oar and fastened cold eyes on Gavrilla’s white face. He was like a cat about to spring as he stood there bent forward. The grinding of his teeth could be heard, as could the chattering of Gavrilla’s teeth.

“Who’s shouting there?” came a stern cry from out at sea.

“Row, you bastard! Row! Shhh! I’ll kill you, damn your hide! Row, I tell you! One, two! Just you dare to make a sound! I’ll rip you to pieces!” hissed Chelkash.

“Holy Virgin, Mother of God!” murmured Gavrilla, trembling with fear and exertion.

The boat swung round and went back to the harbour where the ships’ lanterns formed clusters of coloured lights and their masts stood out distinctly.

“Hi! Who’s shouting?” came the cry again.

But it came from a distance now. Chelkash was reassured.

“It’s you who’s shouting!” he called back, then turned to Gavrilla who was still muttering a prayer.

“Luck’s with you this time, lad. If those devils had chased us it would have been all over with you. I’d have fed you to the fishes first thing.”

Seeing that Chelkash had calmed down and was in a good humour, the trembling Gavrilla pleaded with him:

“Let me go; for the love of Christ, let me go. Set me down somewheres. Oi, oi, oi, I’ve been trapped! For God’s sake, let me go. What do you want of me? I can’t do this. I’ve never been mixed up in such business. It’s the first time. God, I’m lost for sure. Why have you done this to me? It’s a sin. You’ll pay for it with your soul. Oh, what a business!”

“Business?” asked Chelkash sharply. “What business? “

He was amused by the boy’s terror; he took pleasure in contemplating it and in thinking what a ferocious fellow he himself was.

“Bad business, brother. Let me go, for the love of God. What do you need me for? Come, be a good chap —“

“Hold your tongue! If I didn’t need you I wouldn’t have brought you, understand? So shut up!”

“Dear God,” murmured Gavrilla.

“Stop blubbering,” Chelkash cut him off sharply.

But Gavrilla could no longer control himself; he whimpered softly, coughed, sniffled, wriggled, but rowed with a strength born of despair. The boat flew ahead like an arrow. Once more they found themselves surrounded by the dark forms of ships. Their boat became lost among them as it turned and twisted through the narrow lanes of water.

“Listen, you! If you get asked any questions, keep your mouth shut if you value your life, understand?”

“God!” breathed Gavrilla, adding bitterly: “It must be my fate.”

“Stop blubbering,” whispered Chelkash again.

This whisper robbed Gavrilla of his mental power; he was benumbed by a chill premonition of disaster. Like one in a trance he dropped his oars into the water, threw himself backwards as he pulled, lifted them and dropped them again, his eyes fixed steadily on his bast sandals.

The sleepy plash of the waves was dreary and terrifying. But now they were in the docks. From the other side of a stone wall came the sound of human voices, of singing and whistling and a splashing of water.

“Stop,” whispered Chelkash. “Put down your oars. Push with your hands against the wall. Shhh, damn you!”

Gavrilla guided the boat along the wall by holding on to the slippery masonry. The boat moved without a sound, the slime on the stones deadening the sound of its bumping.

“Stop. Give me the oars; give them to me, I say. Where’s your passport? In your knapsack? Let’s have it. Hurry up. That’s to keep you from running away, pal. No danger of that now. You might have run away without the oars, but not without your passport. Wait here. And mind, if you blab, I’ll find you even if it’s at the bottom of the sea!”

And then, pulling himself up by his hands, Chelkash disappeared over the wall.

It happened so quickly that Gavrilla gave a little gasp. And then the heaviness in his heart and the fear inspired by that lean bewhiskered thief fell from him like a garment. Now he would run away! Drawing a free breath, he glanced round. To his left rose a black hull without a mast, a sort of gigantic coffin, empty and abandoned. Every time the waves struck it, it let out a hollow sound that might have been a groan. To the left was the slimy wall of the breakwater, a cold heavy serpent uncoiled upon the sea. Behind him loomed other dark forms, while ahead, in the opening between the wall and the coffin, he got a glimpse of the empty sea with black clouds banked above it. Ponderous, enormous, they moved slowly across the sky, spreading horror in the darkness, threatening to crush human beings with their great weight. Everything was cold, black, sinister. Gavrilla was frightened. And his present fear was greater than that inspired by Chelkash. It clamped him tightly round the chest, squeezing all resistance out of him and pinning him to his seat.

Everything was quiet. Not a sound was to be heard but the sighing of the sea. The clouds moved as slowly and drearily as ever, and so many of them rose out of the sea that the sky was like a sea itself, an agitated sea turned upside down over this smooth, slumbering one. The clouds were like waves whose foamy crests were rushing down upon the earth, rushing back into the chasms out of which they had sprung, rushing upon the new-born billows which had not yet broken into the greenish foam of savage fury.

So oppressed was Gavrilla by the austere silence and beauty about him that he was anxious to have his master come back. What if he should not come? Time dragged slowly – slower than the movement of the clouds across the sky. Arid the longer he waited, the more menacing grew the silence. But at last a splash, a rustle, and something like a whisper came from the other side of the breakwater. Gavrilla felt that he would die in another minute.

“Hullo! Sleeping? Here, catch this. Careful,” came the muffled voice of Chelkash.

Something square and heavy was let down over the wall. Gavrilla put it in the boat. A similar bundle followed. Then the lanky form of Chelkash slid down, the oars appeared, Gavrilla’s knapsack fell at his feet, and Chelkash, breathing hard, took his seat in the stern.

Gavrilla gave a diffident smile of joy.

“Tired?” he asked.

“Ra-ther! Well, lay on the oars. Pull with all your might. You’ve earned a neat little sum. Half the job’s over; all you’ve got to do now is slip past those bastards and then – collect and go back to your Masha. I s’pose you’ve got a Mashka, haven’t you?”

“N-no.” Gavrilla was putting forth his best effort, his lungs working like bellows, his arms like steel springs. The water gurgled under the boat and the blue ribbon in its wake was wider than before. Gavrilla became drenched in sweat but he did not let up on the oars. Twice that night he had a great fright; he did not wish to have a third one. The only thing he wanted was to get this accursed job over as quickly as possible, set foot on dry land and escape from that man while he was still alive and out of jail. He resolved not to talk to him, not to oppose him in any way, to do everything he ordered him to, and if he managed to get away safely, to say a prayer to St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker on the very next day. An impassioned prayer was ready on his tongue, but he held it back, panting like a locomotive and glancing up at Chelkash from under drawn brows.

Chelkash, long and lean, was crouching like a bird about to take wing, his hawklike eyes piercing the darkness ahead, his hooked nose sniffing the air, one hand clutching the steering oar, the other pulling at his moustache, which twitched as his thin lips spread in a smile. Chelkash was pleased with his haul, with himself, and with this youth whom he had terrorized and converted into his slave. As he watched Gavrilla exerting himself, he felt sorry for him and thought he would offer him a word of encouragement.

“Ekh!” he said softly, with a little laugh, “got a good scare, did you?”

“Not so bad,” grunted Gavrilla.

“You can take it easier now. The danger’s over. There’s just one place more we’ve got to slip past. Take a rest.”

Gavrilla obediently stopped rowing, and dropped his oars into the water again.

“Row softly. Keep the water from talking. There’s a gate we’ve got to get past. Shhh. The men here can’t take a joke. Always ready with their guns. You’ll have a hole in your head before you know what’s struck you.”

Now the boat was gliding through the water almost without sound. The only sign of its movement was the blue shine of the water dripping off the oars and the blue flare of the sea as the drops struck it. The night grew darker and stiller. The sky no longer resembled an agitated sea – the clouds had spread out to form a heavy blanket that hung low and immobile over the water. The sea was even more calm and black, its warm saline odour was stronger than ever, and it no longer seemed so boundless.

“If only it would rain!” murmured Chelkash. “It would hide us like a curtain.”

Great forms rose out of the water to right and left of the boat. They were barges – dark and dreary and motionless. On one of them a light could be seen moving: someone was walking about with a lantern in his hand. The sea made little pleading sounds as it patted the sides of the barges, and they gave chill and hollow answers, as if unwilling to grant the favours asked of them.

“A cordon!” said Chelkash in a scarcely audible voice.

Ever since he had told Gavrilla to row softly, the latter had again been gripped by a feeling of tense expectation. As he strained ahead into the darkness it seemed to him that he was growing – his bones and sinews ached as they stretched and his head ached, too, filled as it was with a single thought. The skin of his back quivered and he had a sensation of pins-and-needles in his feet, His eyes felt as if they would burst from straining so hard into the darkness, out of which he expected someone to rise up any minute and shout at them: “Stop, thieves!”

Gavrilla shuddered on hearing Chelkash say “A cordon.” A dreadful thought flashed through his mind and struck upon his taut nerves: he thought of calling out for help. He even opened his mouth, pressed his chest against the side of the boat and took a deep breath, but horror of what he was about to do struck him like a lash; he closed his eyes and fell off the seat.

From out of the black waters rose a flaming blue sword of light; rose and cleaved the darkness of night; cut through the clouds in the sky and came to rest on the bosom of the sea in a broad blue ribbon of light. There it lay, its rays picking the forms of ships, hitherto unseen, out of the darkness – black silent forms, shrouded in the gloom of night. It was as if these ships had lain for long at the bottom of the sea, to which they had been consigned by the forces of the storm, and now, at the will of this flaming sword born of the sea, they had been raised, that they might gaze on the sky and on all things that exist above water. The rigging of their masts was like clinging seaweed that had been brought up from the bottom of the sea along with the gigantic black forms it enmeshed as in a net. Then once again this fearsome blue sword rose, flashing, off the bosom of the sea, and once again it cleaved the night and lay down again, this time in another spot. And again the forms of ships which had not been seen before were illuminated by its light.

Chelkash’s boat stopped and rocked on the water as if deliberating what to do. Gavrilla was lying in the bottom of the boat, his hands over his face, while Chelkash poked him with his foot and whispered savagely:

“That’s the customs cruiser, you fool! And that’s its spotlight. Get up. They’ll have it pointed at us in a minute. You’ll be the ruin of me and yourself as well, you idiot. Get up!”

A particularly effective kick in the back brought Gavrilla to his feet. Still afraid to open his eyes, he sat down, felt for the oars, and began to row.

“Easy! Easy, damn you! God, what a fool I picked up! What you afraid of, snout-face? A lantern – that’s all it is. Easy with those oars, God damn you! They’re searching for smugglers. But they won’t catch us. They’re too far out. Oh, no, they won’t catch us. Now we’re —” Chelkash looked about triumphantly “ – we’re out of danger. Phew! Well, you’re a lucky devil, even if you are a blockhead.”

Gavrilla rowed on, saying nothing, breathing heavily, stealing sidelong glances at the flaming sword that kept rising and falling. Chelkash said it was only a lantern, but he could not believe it. There was something uncanny about this cold blue light cleaving the darkness, giving the sea a silver shimmer, and once more Gavrilla was gripped by fear. He rowed mechanically, all his muscles taut as in expectation of a blow from above, and there was nothing he wanted now; he was empty and inanimate. The excitement of that night had drained everything human out of him.

But Chelkash was jubilant. His nerves, used to strain, quickly relaxed. His moustache twitched with gratification and his eyes sparkled. Never had he been in better humour; he whistled through his teeth, drew in deep breaths of the moist sea air, looked about him, smiled good-naturedly when his eyes came to rest on Gavrilla.

A wind sprang up, rousing the sea and covering it with little ripples. The clouds grew thinner and more transparent but the whole sky was still covered with them. The wind rushed lightly back and forth across the sea, but the clouds hung motionless, as if deeply engrossed in drab, uninteresting thoughts.

“Come, snap out of it, brother. You look as if you’d had all the spirit knocked out of you; nothing but a bag of bones left. As if it was the end of the world.”

Gavrilla was glad to hear a human voice, even if it was Chelkash’s.

“I’m all right,” he murmured.

“You look it! Got no stuffings in you. Here, take the steering oar and let me row. You must be tired.”

Gavrilla got up mechanically and changed places with him. In passing, Chelkash got a look at the boy’s white face and noticed that his knees were trembling so that they could hardly hold him. This made him more sorry than ever for him, and he gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“Come, chin up! You did a good job. I’ll reward you well for it. What would you think if I handed you a twenty-five rouble note, eh?”

“I don’t want anything. Nothing but to get on shore.”

Chelkash gave a wave of his hand, spat, and began to row, swinging the oars far back with his long arms.

The sea was quite awake now. It amused itself by making little waves, ornamenting them with fringes of foam, and running them into each other so that they broke in showers of spray. The foam hissed and sighed as it dissolved, and the air was filled with musical sounds. The darkness seemed to have waked up, too.”

“So now,” said Chelkash, “you’ll go back to your village, get married, start working the land, raise corn, your wife will bear children, there won’t be enough to eat, and all your life you’ll work yourself to the bone. What fun is there in that?”

“Fun?” echoed Gavrilla faintly and with a little shudder.

Here and there the wind tore rifts in the clouds, revealing patches of blue sky set with one or two stars. The reflection of these stars danced on the water, now disappearing, now gleaming again.

“Bear more to the right,” said Chelkash. “We’re almost there. Hm, the job’s over. A big job. Just think, five hundred roubles in a single night!”

“Five hundred?” repeated Gavrilla incredulously. Frightened by the words, he gave the bundles a little kick and said, “What’s in them?”

“Things that are worth a lot of money. They’d bring in a thousand if I got the right price, but I can’t be bothered. Slick, eh?”

“Good Lord!” said Gavrilla unbelievingly. “If only I had as much!” He sighed as he thought of his village, his wretched farm, his mother, and all those dear and distant things for whose sake he had set out in search of work; for whose sake he had undergone the tortures of that night. He was caught up in a wave of memories – his little village on the side of a hill running down to the river, and the woods above the river with its birches, willows, rowans, and bird-cherry.

“How I need it!” he sighed mournfully.

“You don’t say. I s’pose you’d jump straight on a train and make a dash for home. And wouldn’t the girls be mad on you! Why, you could have any one of them you liked. And you’d build yourself a new house; although the money’s hardly enough for a house.”

“No, not for a house. Timber’s dear up our way.”

“At least you’d repair the old one. And what about a horse? Have you got a horse?”

“Yes, but it’s a feeble old thing.”

“So you’ll need to buy a new horse. A first-rate horse. And a cow… And some sheep. And some poultry, eh?”

“Ekh, don’t mention it! Couldn’t I set myself up fine!”

“You could, brother. And life would be like a song. I know a thing or two about such things myself. I had a nest of my own once. My father was one of the richest men in the village.”

Chelkash was scarcely rowing. The boat was tossed by the waves splashing mischievously against its sides, and it made almost no progress through the dark waters, now growing more and more playful. The two men sat there rocking and looking about them, each absorbed in his own dreams. Chelkash had reminded Gavrilla of his village in the hope of quieting the boy’s nerves and cheering him up. He had done so with his tongue in his cheek, but as he taunted his companion with reminders of the joys of peasant life, joys which he himself had long since ceased to value and had quite forgotten until this moment, he gradually let himself be carried away, and before he knew it he himself was expounding on the subject instead of questioning the boy about the village and its affairs.

“The best thing about peasant life is that a man’s free, he’s his own boss. He’s got his own house, even if it’s a poor one. And he’s got his own land – maybe only a little patch, but it’s his. He’s a king, once he’s got his own land. He’s a man to be reckoned with. He can demand respect from anybody, can’t he?” he ended up with animation.

Gavrilla looked at him curiously, and he, too, became animated. In the course of their talk he had forgotten who this man was; he saw in him only another peasant like himself, glued fast to the land by the sweat of many generations of forefathers, bound to it by memories of childhood; a peasant who of his own free choice had severed connections with the land and with labour on the land, for which he had been duly punished.

“True, brother. How very true! Look at you, now; what are you without any land? The land, brother, is like your mother; there’s no forgetting it.”

Chelkash came back to his surroundings. Again he felt that burning sensation in his chest that always troubled him when his pride – the pride of a reckless dare-devil – was injured, especially if injured by someone he considered a nonentity.

“Trying to teach me!” he said fiercely.

“Did you think I meant what I said? Know your place, upstart!”

“You’re a funny one,” said Gavrilla with his former timidity. “I didn’t mean you. There’s lots of others like you. God, how many miserable people there are in the world! Homeless tramps.”

“Here, take over the oars,” snapped Chelkash, holding back the flood of oaths that surged in his throat.

Once more they exchanged places, and as Chelkash climbed over the bundles he had an irresistible desire to give Gavrilla a push that would send him flying into the water.

They did no more talking, but Gavrilla emanated the breath of the village even when he was silent. Chelkash became so engrossed in thoughts of the past that he forgot to steer, and the current turned the boat out to sea. The waves seemed to sense that this boat was without a pilot, and they played with it gleefully, tossing it on their crests and leaping in little blue flames about the oars. In front of Chelkash’s eyes passed a kaleidoscope of the past, of the distant past, separated from the present by the gulf of eleven years of vagrancy. He saw himself as a child, saw his native village, saw his mother, a stout red-cheeked woman with kindly grey eyes, and his father, a stern-faced, red-bearded giant. He saw himself as a bridegroom, and he saw his bride, the plump black-eyed Anfisa with a mild, cheerful disposition and a long plait hanging down her back. Again he saw himself, this time as a handsome Guardsman; again his father, now grey-haired and stooped with labour; and his mother, wrinkled and bent to earth. He saw the reception the village gave him when his army service was over, and he recalled how proud his father had been to show off this healthy, handsome, bewhiskered soldier-son to the neighbours. Memory is the bane of those who have come to misfortune; it brings to life the very stones of the past, and adds a drop of honey even to the bitterest portion drunk at some far time.

It was as if a gentle stream of native air were wafted over Chelkash, bringing to his ears his mother’s tender words, his father’s earnest peasant speech and many other forgotten sounds; bringing to his nostrils the fragrance of mother-earth as it thawed, as it was new-ploughed, as it drew on an emerald coverlet of springing rye. He felt lonely, uprooted, thrown once and for all beyond the pale of that way of life which had produced the blood flowing in his veins.

“Hey, where are we going?” cried Gavrilla.

Chelkash started and glanced about with the alertness of a bird of prey.

“Look where we’ve drifted, damn it all. Row harder.”

“Daydreaming?” smiled Gavrilla.

“Tired.”

“No danger of getting caught with them things?” asked Gavrilla, giving the bundles a little kick.

“No, have no fear. I’ll turn them in now and get my money.”

“Five hundred?”

“At least.”

“God, what a pile! If only I had it! Wouldn’t I play a pretty tune with it, just!”

“A peasant tune?”

“What else? I’d…“

And Gavrilla soared on the wings of his imagination. Chelkash said nothing. His moustache drooped, his right side had been drenched by a wave, his eyes were sunken and lustreless. All the hawkishness had gone out of him, had been wrung out of him by a humiliating introspection that even glanced out of the folds of his filthy shirt.

He turned the boat sharply about and steered it towards a black form rising out of the water.

Once more the sky was veiled in clouds and a fine warm rain set in, making cheerful little plopping sounds as its drops struck the water.

“Stop! Hold it!” ordered Chelkash.

The nose of the boat ran into the side of a barge.

“Are they asleep or what, the bastards?” growled Chelkash as he slipped a boat-hook into some ropes hanging over the side. “Throw down the ladder! And the rain had to wait till this minute to come down! Hey, you sponges! Hey!”

“Selkash?” purred someone on deck.

“Where’s the ladder?”

“Kalimera, Selkash.”

“The ladder, God damn you!”

“Oo, what a temper he’s in tonight! Eloy!”

“Climb up, Gavrilla,” said Chelkash to his companion.

The next minute they were on deck, where three bearded, dark-skinned fellows were talking animatedly in a lisping tongue as they stared over the gunwale into Chelkash’s boat. A fourth, wrapped in a long chlamys, went over to Chelkash and shook his hand without a word, then threw Gavrilla a questioning look.

“Have the money ready in the morning,” Chelkash said to him briefly. “I’m going to take a snooze now. Come along, Gavrilla. Are you hungry?”

“I’m sleepy,” said Gavrilla. Five minutes later he was snoring loudly while Chelkash sat beside him trying on somebody else’s boots, spitting off to one side and whistling a sad tune through his teeth. Presently he stretched out beside Gavrilla with his hands behind his head and lay there with his moustache twitching.

The barge rolled on the waves, a board creaked plaintively, the rain beat on the deck and the waves against the sides of the barge. It was all very mournful and reminded one of the cradle-song of a mother who has little hope of seeing her child happy.

Chelkash bared his teeth, raised his head, glanced about him, muttered something to himself and lay down again with his legs spread wide apart, making him look like a pair of giant scissors.