The Captain rose with his lighted pipe, and together they went up on
deck again. The Prince saw nothing more of the tall sentinel who had
been his guard the night before, so without asking permission he took
it for granted that his movements, now they were in the open sea, were
unrestricted, therefore he walked up and down the deck smoking
cigarettes. At the stroke of a bell the Captain mounted the bridge and
the mate came down.
Suddenly out of the thickness ahead loomed up a great black British
freighter making for St. Petersburg, as the Prince supposed. The two
steamers, big and little, were so close that each was compelled to
sheer off a bit; then the Captain turned on the bridge and seemed for
a moment uncertain what to do with his prisoner. A number of men were
leaning over the bulwarks of the British ship, and it would have been
quite possible for the person on one boat to give a message to those
on the other. The Prince, understanding the Captain's quandary, looked
up at him and smiled, but made no attempt to take advantage of his
predicament. Some one on board the English ship shouted and fluttered
a handkerchief, whereupon the Prince waved his cigarette in the air,
and the big boat disappeared in the thickness of the east.
Lermontoff walked the deck, thinking very seriously about his
situation, and wondering where they intended to take him. If he were
to be put in prison, it must be in some place of detention on the
coast of Finland, which seemed strange, because he understood that the
fortresses there were already filled with dissatisfied inhabitants of
that disaffected land.
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