“...These creatures were everywhere. Their pupils phosphorescent in the darkness. Abe was lying on a wooden box, hidden from prying eyes by a pile of sacks. Adam dragged a couple of barrels towards him and, straining, placed one on top of the other. The air smelled strongly of spoiled fish. Now even the most attentive passenger of the Catherine would not have noticed a motionless human body stretched out on the boards in the pile of cargo. And if he did notice, he silently hurried away, deciding that the poor fellow had already moved to a happier and more cheerful place, where there were no greedy rats, no gray dust, shaggy like tufts of cotton wool...”