Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/307

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Three Old Men

as he had taught them to pray, and then he sat him down in the skiff and they rowed him to the ship.

So the Archbishop was rowed to the ship, and all the time he kept on listening to the voices of the three old men sonorously repeating the Lord's Prayer. They were now drawing nigh to the ship, the voices of the old men could no longer be heard, they themselves were only visible by the light of the moon: there on the shore in the same place stood the three old men—one of them, the smallest of all, in the middle, the tall one on the right, and the middling-sized one on the left hand. The Archbishop got to the ship, he ascended to the deck, they raised the anchor, unfurled the sails, the sails bulged out in the wind, the ship began to move, and they went on further. The Archbishop returned to the stern, sat down there, and kept gazing at the island. At first the old men were visible, presently they were lost to sight, and only the island was visible, and the lonely sea played in the moonlight.

The pilgrims had laid them down to sleep, and on the deck all was silent. But sleep would not come to the Archbishop; he sat all alone in the stern, looked out upon the sea at the point where the island had disappeared, and fell a-thinking of the good old men. He thought of how joyful they had been when he had taught them to pray, and he thanked God for sending him to the help of these godly old men to teach them the Words of the Lord.

So the Archbishop sat there thinking and gazing out upon the sea in the direction where the island had disappeared. Something flickered before his

257