THE LAMP OF ST. NICHOLAS 363 
But they tried all ways. They tackled Hyland when 
he was alone on the deck, as he told me. They told him 
he could get it if he liked. Of course Hyland was as 
staunch as a rock—he only laughed at them and said he 
knew nothing of it. 
I nearly lost it once. I was feeling for something in 
my long tin case, the lid open, when something made me 
turn suddenly, and there, close over my shoulder, was 
the face of Yakoff, the flicker of the lamp playing on his 
features, and his eyes fixed on the contents of the box. 
He couldn’t have seen the bolvan (for it was in a little 
skin bag), or he would have snatched it. At the same 
moment some one went out through the door in the 
darkness behind him. I knew it was Alexander. 
Now the following had happened earlier in the evening 
before it grew dark. Hyland, who constantly had his gun 
on the deck for chance shots, had brought it down to the 
cabin, saying that Alexander had forbidden him to have 
it there. This he considered very hard lines, as all the 
Samoyeds had their loaded rifles. It was very unlike 
Alexander, who took much interest in this deck-shooting 
at seals. Well, my first impulse was to go and ex- 
postulate, but after all, I reflected, he is master of his 
own ship, so, though I thought it unfriendly, I let it go. 
But I had been turning it over in my mind, and though 
I could not see it clearly I understood intuitively that it 
was somehow connected with the contra-bolvan spirit. 
Now it flashed on me in a moment. They knew well 
