The paddles are impetuously beating into the sea, and now and then breaking into thunder, as one or the other of the wheels runs wild, as the rolling lifts it clear of the water.

A thick smoke rises from the funnel, which occasionally belches forth a shower of sparks.
At nine o'clock the night is very dark.

I try to make out some steamer's lights in the distance, but in vain, for the Caspian has not many ships on it.

I can hear only the cry of the sea birds, gulls and scoters, who are abandoning themselves to the caprices of the wind.
During my promenade, one thought besets me: is the voyage to end without my getting anything out of it as copy for my journal?
My instructions made me responsible for producing something, and surely not without reason.

What?
Not an adventure from Tiflis to Pekin?
Evidently that could only be my fault! And I resolved to do everything to avoid such a misfortune.
It is half-past ten when I sit down on one of the seats in the stern of the _Astara_.