He said: “Wait a moment till I remember it properly! What happened then? He rolled around the deck seven or eight times and then got to his feet again with the marlin spike still in his belly …”

“Ah!” said the listeners.

“Yes,” said August, himself overcome. He shook his head. Perhaps he had exceeded his own expectations.

“But did you kill him?” the lads asked in horror.

August drew back. Mattea was standing there listening. He didn’t want to seem a monster and a murderer. “I didn’t kill him,” he said. “A Malay and a Mohammedan like him—he doesn’t die from a piece of iron in his belly. No, he continued on with the marlin spike in him till we reached harbor and a doctor.”

“Why didn’t he pull it out?”

“Don’t you realize he would have bled to death …”

Many more stories and a great deal of crazy talk followed throughout the afternoon. Time passed. Edevart began thinking about practical matters and asked: “Have you written home about the boat?”

“No,” replied August. “I shan’t write. I’ll just send a telegram, express and reply paid and all that sort of thing. Ah, yes!” he added. “Those of us who know the ways of the world use the telegraph. Mattea, let’s have some coffee!”

But before the coffee arrived, August began to feel unwell. His face turned deathly pale and he had to go out. Our good August was by no means a practiced drinker. Not at all. He couldn’t take spirits. What happened was that when a suitable occasion offered he would go out on the loose. Given a chance, the carefree lad’s head would be swimming. He had plowed and harrowed the seas and reaped its harvests; and with every shore leave he had sown his seed anew. That’s the way it was. He said it himself often enough, made no attempt to conceal it.

He managed to mumble: “I’ll be back soon!” And went.

Edevart followed him out and said: “You should come aboard and lie down for a while.”

He answered: “Lie down? What do you mean? No!”

“If you lie down, it will soon pass.”

August, innocently and stubbornly: “What is there to pass? I’m not drunk. It was that cigar …”

Edevart: “But if only you were to sleep for a little while. I wish you would!”

August, stubbornly: “Sleep! In the middle of the day? Not likely!”

No, August was not receptive to new ideas of this kind. And, like drunk people everywhere, he was definitely not drunk. He was completely sober, utterly sober. It was just that wretched cigar …

Anyway, he recovered quickly outside, got some color back into his cheeks, and stood firm again on his feet. They both went in again.

What a sight met them! That damned young man and Mattea standing in the corner openly embracing each other!

The immediate result of this vision was that a stool suddenly hit the ceiling and fell back again on the table, smashing cups and glasses.