As for me, I will wrap myself in my rug and lie down in a corner of the deck, and sleep like a sailor during his watch below.

It is only eight o’clock.  I light my cigar, and with my legs wide apart, to assure my stability as the ship rolled, I begin to walk up and down the deck.  The deck is already abandoned by the first-class passengers, and I am almost alone.  On the bridge is the mate, pacing backward and forward, and watching the course he has given to the man at the wheel, who is close to him.  The paddles are impetuously beating into the sea, and now and then breaking into thunder, as one or the other of the wheels runs wild, as the rolling lifts it clear of the water.  A thick smoke rises from the funnel, which occasionally belches forth a shower of sparks.

At nine o’clock the night is very dark.  I try to make out some steamer’s lights in the distance, but in vain, for the Caspian has not many ships on it.  I can hear only the cry of the sea birds, gulls and scoters, who are abandoning themselves to the caprices of the wind.

During my promenade, one thought besets me:  is the voyage to end without my getting anything out of it as copy for my journal?  My instructions made me responsible for producing something, and surely not without reason.  What?  Not an adventure from Tiflis to Pekin?  Evidently that could only be my fault!  And I resolved to do everything to avoid such a misfortune.

It is half-past ten when I sit down on one of the seats in the stern of the Astara.  But with this increasing wind it is impossible for me to remain there.  I rise, therefore, and make my way forward.  Under the bridge, between the paddle boxes, the wind is so strong that I seek shelter among the packages covered by the tarpaulin.  Stretched on one of the boxes, wrapped in my rug, with my head resting against the tarpaulin, I shall soon be asleep.

After some time, I do not exactly know how much, I am awakened by a curious noise.  Whence comes this noise?  I listen more attentively.  It seems as though some one is snoring close to my ear.

“That is some steerage passenger,” I think.  “He has got under the tarpaulin between the cases, and he will not do so badly in his improvised cabin.”

By the light which filters down from the lower part of the binnacle, I see nothing.

I listen again.  The noise has ceased.

I look about.  There is no one on this part of the deck, for the second-class passengers are all forward.

Then I must have been dreaming, and I resume my position and try again to sleep.

This time there is no mistake.  The snoring has begun again, and I am sure it is coming from the case against which I am leaning my head.

“Goodness!” I say.  “There must be an animal in here!”

An animal?  What?  A dog?  A cat?  Why have they hidden a domestic animal in this case?  Is it a wild animal?  A panther, a tiger, a lion?