ow it had been manufactured--some native concoction
most likely. But it was hot as fire, pale as water, and quick as death
with its kick. It had been filled into empty "square-face" bottles which
had once contained Holland gin, and which still bore the fitting legend
"Anchor Brand." It certainly anchored us. We never got out of the town.
We never went fishing in the sampan. And though we were there ten days,
we never trod that wild path along the lava cliffs and among the flowers.

We met old acquaintances from other schooners, fellows we had met in the
saloons of San Francisco before we sailed. And each meeting meant a
drink; and there was much to talk about; and more drinks; and songs to be
sung; and pranks and antics to be performed, until the maggots of
imagination began to crawl, and it all seemed great and wonderful to me,
these lusty hard-bitten sea-rovers, of whom I made one, gathered in
wassail on a coral strand. Old lines about knights at table in the great
banquet halls, and of those above the salt and below the salt, and of
Vikings feasting fresh from sea and ripe for battle, came to me; and I
knew that the old times were not dead and that we belonged to that
selfsame ancient breed.

By mid-afternoon Victor went mad with drink, and wanted to fight
everybody and everything. I have since seen lunatics in the violent
wards of asylums that seemed to behave in no wise different from Victor's
way, save that perhaps he was more violent. Axel and I interfered as
peacemakers, were roughed and jostled in the mix-ups, and finally, with
infinite precaution and intoxicated cunning, succeeded in inveigling our
chum down to the boat and in rowing him aboard our schooner.

But no sooner did Victor's feet touch the deck than he began to clean up
the ship. He had the strength of several men, and he ran amuck with it.
I remember especially one man whom he got into the chain-boxes but failed
to damage through inability to hit him. The man dodged and ducked, and
Victor broke all the knuckles of both his fists against the huge links of
the anchor chain. By the time we dragged him out of that, his madness
had shifted to the belief that he was a great swimmer, and the next
moment he was overboard and demonstrating his ability by floundering like
a sick porpoise and swallowing much salt water.

We rescued him, and by the time we got him below, undressed, and into his
bunk, we were wrecks ourselves. But Axel and I wante