The contractor, a small-sized peasant with a small pointed gray
beard, and with narrow little eyes on his gray wrinkled face,
came up to him and said, not loud, but pronouncing his words with
a certain m the bottom of the river. He wished that they might
not succeed, that they might feel embarrassed in his presence,
and a wicked thought flashed through his mind:
"Perhaps the chains will break."
"Boys! Attention!" shouted the contractor. "Start all together.
God bless us!" And suddenly, clasping his hands in the air, he
cried in a shrill voice:
"Let--her--go-o-o!"
The labourers took up his shout, and all cried out in one voice,
with excitement and exertion:
"Let her go! She moves."
The pulleys squeaked and creaked, the chains clanked, strained
under the heavy weight that suddenly fell upon them; and the
labourers, bracing their chests against the handle of the
windlasses, roared and tramped heavily. The waves splashed
noisily between the barges as though unwilling to give up their
prize to the men. Everywhere about Foma, chains and ropes were
stretched and they quivered from the strain--they were creeping
somewhere across the deck, past his feet, like huge gray worms;
they were lifted upward, link after link, falling back with a
rattling noise, and all these sounds were drowned by the
deafening roaring of the labourers.
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