Staring fixedly into the darkness, until his eyes hurt, the boy discerned black piles and small lights dimly burning high above them.

He knew that those were barges, but this knowledge did not calm him and his heart throbbed unevenly, and, in his imagination, terrifying dark images arose.
"O-o-o," a drawling cry came from the distance and ended like a wail.
Someone crossed the deck and went up to the side of the steamer.
"O-o-o," was heard again, but nearer this time.
"Yefim!" some one called in a low voice on the deck.

"Yefimka!" "Well ?" "Devil! Get up! Take the boat-hook." "O-o-o," someone moaned near by, and Foma, shuddering, stepped back from the window.
The queer sound came nearer and nearer and grew in strength, sobbed and died out in the darkness.

While on the deck they whispered with alarm: "Yefimka! Get up! A guest is floating!" "Where ?" came a hasty question, then bare feet began to patter about the deck, a bustle was heard, and two boat-hooks slipped down past the boy's face and almost noiselessly plunged into the water.
"A gue-e-est!" Some began to sob near by, and a quiet, but very queer splash resounded.
The boy trembled with fright at this mournful cry, but he could not tear his hands from the window nor his eyes from the water.
"Light the lantern.

You can't see anything." "Directly." And then a spot of dim light fell over the water.