“Who is it you are talking about?”

“Pavel Ivanitch.”

“He will be... he suffered so long.  And there is another thing, he belonged to the clergy, and the priests always have a lot of relations.  Their prayers will save him.”

The soldier with the sling sat down on a hammock near Gusev and said in an undertone: 

“And you, Gusev, are not long for this world.  You will never get to Russia.”

“Did the doctor or his assistant say so?” asked Gusev.

“It isn’t that they said so, but one can see it....  One can see directly when a man’s going to die.  You don’t eat, you don’t drink; it’s dreadful to see how thin you’ve got.  It’s consumption, in fact.  I say it, not to upset you, but because maybe you would like to have the sacrament and extreme unction.  And if you have any money you had better give it to the senior officer.”

“I haven’t written home...”  Gusev sighed.  “I shall die and they won’t know.”

“They’ll hear of it,” the sick sailor brought out in a bass voice.  “When you die they will put it down in the Gazette, at Odessa they will send in a report to the commanding officer there and he will send it to the parish or somewhere....”

Gusev began to be uneasy after such a conversation and to feel a vague yearning.  He drank water—­it was not that; he dragged himself to the window and breathed the hot, moist air—­it was not that; he tried to think of home, of the frost—­it was not that....  At last it seemed to him one minute longer in the ward and he would certainly expire.

“It’s stifling, mates...” he said.  “I’ll go on deck.  Help me up, for Christ’s sake.”

“All right,” assented the soldier with the sling.  “I’ll carry you, you can’t walk, hold on to my neck.”

Gusev put his arm round the soldier’s neck, the latter put his unhurt arm round him and carried him up.  On the deck sailors and time-expired soldiers were lying asleep side by side; there were so many of them it was difficult to pass.

“Stand down,” the soldier with the sling said softly.  “Follow me quietly, hold on to my shirt....”

It was dark.  There was no light on deck, nor on the masts, nor anywhere on the sea around.  At the furthest end of the ship the man on watch was standing perfectly still like a statue, and it looked as though he were asleep.  It seemed as though the steamer were abandoned to itself and were going at its own will.

“Now they will throw Pavel Ivanitch into the sea,” said the soldier with the sling.  “In a sack and then into the water.”

“Yes, that’s the rule.”

“But it’s better to lie at home in the earth.  Anyway, your mother comes to the grave and weeps.”

“Of course.”

There was a smell of hay and of dung.  There were oxen standing with drooping heads by the ship’s rail.  One, two, three; eight of them!  And there was a little horse.  Gusev put out his hand to stroke it, but it shook its head, showed its teeth, and tried to bite his sleeve.