he take his place in the ferry, and cross the Strait of Yenikale.
Seigneur Kéraban directed his steps towards the boat. Van Mitten and the rest followed him, not wishing to afford him any pretext for the discussion which was threatening.
Kéraban paused for fully a minute upon the quay, looking round him. His companions also stopped.
Kéraban entered the ferry-barge. So did his friends.
Kéraban mounted into the chaise. The others did likewise. Then the boat was cast off, and the current impelled it towards the opposite side.
Kéraban never spoke. His friends were equally silent.
Fortunately the water was calm and the boatmen had no trouble to guide the ferry-boat with their long "gaffs" or poles according to the exigencies of the transit. Nevertheless there was a moment when an accident seemed imminent.
A gentle current, turned by the southern point of the Bay of Taman, had caught the boat obliquely, and instead of landing at that point, it seemed as if the boat would be carried out into the bay, and have to traverse five leagues instead of one. In that case probably Kéraban would have given orders to return.
But the boatmen, to whom Ahmet had said some encouraging words in which the term "rouble" was of frequent occurrence, manœuvred the ferry-boat well, and escaped the current. Thus in an hour after quitting the quay of Yenikale, travellers, horses, carriage, all were landed at the extreme point of the southern side of the bay which is by the Russians called Ioujnaïa-Kossa. There was no difficulty in disembarking, and the men were liberally remunerated.
In former times the strip of land had formed two islands and a peninsula; that is to say, it was cut in two places by a channel, and it would have been impossible to cross it in a carriage. But the channels are now filled up. So the chaise had no difficulty in passing over the four versts which separate the point from the village of Taman.
An hour after disembarkation the travellers entered Taman, and Seigneur Kéraban, looking hard at his nephew, merely said,—
