THE MAINLAND 367 
would not be here. I wasn’t so sure of that. It struck 
me they would gladly have come without me had they 
seen their way. 
‘Yes,’ says Alexander, ‘Kolguev is an island, and 
your England is an island. Very much sea. So you 
understand all ships and all islands, and that is why your 
Queen Victoria—your woman king—rules all the islands 
of the world.’ 
So we were friends again. Only once was there any 
reference to the bolvan after that. Just before they went 
to sleep Alexander and Yakoff came to me, and smiling 
said, ‘Look in your box. Your bolvan is not there. 
The Holy Nicholas there ; your bolvan not there. Look 
and see.’ What on earth they were driving at I never 
could guess. Perhaps they had been exorcising it. 
They had expected an indignant denial, but were dis- 
appointed. For my little bolvans were all safe in my 
pocket, so that I could honestly answer, ‘I needn’t look, 
I know it. Quite right, the bolvans are not there.’ It 
took the wind out of their sails, and much astonished, 
while it flattered them in some way, for they beamed 
with delight and went to sleep. 
In the distance we could see a choom on the river 
bank, and a man walking along. 
Hyland was in high spirits at our safe arrival. He 
looked forward with great delight to his return to the 
little business which he had started in England a few 
months before he came away. Other and more tender 
