III
No one at Balaklava believed in the success of this undertaking. In the first place, of course, a mysterious spell lay on the sea treasure. Hoary, white old men, all bent with age, said that attempts to get the English gold from the bottom had already been made: Englishmen and also some fabulous Americans had come, wasted heaps of money, and had left Balaklava with empty hands. What, indeed, could such people as Englishmen or Americans do if the legendary Balaklava heroes of yore had failed here? Naturally, in those days the weather, the catch, the longboats, the sails, and the people were quite different from the small fry of today. In former days there lived the mythical Spiro. He was able to dive to any depth and stay under water a quarter of an hour. This very Spiro, holding between his feet a stone three pounds in weight, went down to the bottom, to a depth of a hundred yards, where the remnants of the sunken squadron had found their grave. And Spiro saw everything: the ship, the gold, but he could not take anything … it will not let you.
“Sashka the Messenger ought to try,” one of the listeners would remark slyly. “He is our best diver.”
Everybody laughed, and loudest of all—displaying his beautiful, proud mouth—laughed Sashka Argiridi, alias Sashka the Messenger.
This worthy—a superb, blue-eyed man, with a hard classic profile—is the greatest lazybones, cheat, and buffoon on the entire Crimean seacoast. He was nicknamed “the Messenger” because sometimes, at the very height of the summer season, he would sew a pair of gold stripes on the band of his cap and would seat himself on a chair in the street very near to the hotel. And if some giddy tourists had the misfortune of addressing a question to the self-styled commissionaire, no earthly power could save them from becoming Sashka’s victims. He would drag them over hills, through courtyards, vineyards, cemeteries, and regale them with all kinds of impossible stories. He would run into somebody’s courtyard, break into pieces a fragment of an old pot, and then coax the tourists into buying the potsherds—the remnants, he would swear, of an ancient Greek vase dating to the time before Christ. At other times he would hold up in front of their noses an ordinary, thin, oval-shaped, and grooved pebble which the fishermen use as plummets for their nets, trying to persuade the poor tourists that no Greek fisherman ever goes to sea without such a talisman, which is hallowed at the shrine of St. Nicholas, and which saves them from storms.
But his most remarkable trick is diving. While accompanying a boating party of simple-minded tourists whom he bores with the inevitable “Our sea is deserted,” “Down Mother Volga,” and similar songs, he would skilfully and imperceptibly turn the conversation to the sunken squadron, the mythical Spiro, and the subject of diving in general. A quarter of an hour under water—even to the credulous members of the boating party this sounded like a lie, like a specifically Greek lie. Two or three minutes, well, that may be possible. … But fifteen! Of course, Sashka is cut to the quick. … He frowns, offended. … Well, if people don’t believe him, he will personally and on the spot, this very minute, prove that he, Sashka, will dive and stay under water all of ten minutes.
“It is true that the job is not an easy one,” he says rather gloomily. “In the evening blood will come out of my ears and eyes. … But I will not let anybody say that Sashka Argiridi is a braggart.”
The tourists try to make him listen to reason and to dissuade from such a reckless undertaking, but to no avail, since the man is insulted in his tenderest spot. Quickly and angrily he takes off his coat and trousers, in a twinkling strips off the rest of his clothes, making the ladies turn away and screen themselves with umbrellas, and then with a noise and a splash he throws himself into the water, head first, without forgetting, however, to measure with his eye the distance between the boat and the nearby public baths for men.
Sashka is really an excellent swimmer and diver. Deep down in the water he turns about under the keel of the boat and heads straight for the baths. And while the holiday makers in the boat are greatly alarmed—reproach one another and, in general, make much and noisy ado—Sashka sits on one of the steps of the baths and hurriedly finishes smoking someone’s cigarette end. He returns in the same manner, and quite unexpectedly bobs up out of the water—to everybody’s relief and delight—close to the boat, trying his best to make his eyes bulge and his chest pant from the exertion.
Of course, all this hocus-pocus is for Sashka a source of income. But it must be recognized that what guides him in his tricks is not at all greed, but rather the imp of gay, boyish mischief that lives in him.