When Toni, from the deck of the vessel, saw the lad coming along the wharf the following morning, he was greatly tempted to hide himself....  “If Dona Cinta should call me again in order to question me!...”  But he calmed himself with the thought that the boy was probably coming of his own free will to pass a few hours on the Mare Nostrum.  Even so, he wished to avoid his presence as though he feared some slip in talking with him, and so pretended that he had work in the hold.  Then he left the boat going to visit a friend on a steamer some distance off.

Esteban entered the galley, calling gayly to Uncle Caragol.  He wasn’t the same, either.  His humid and reddish eyes were looking at the child with an extraordinary tenderness.  Suddenly he stopped his talk with an expression of uneasiness on his face.  He looked uncertainly around him, as though fearing that a precipice might open at his feet.

Never forgetful of the respect due to every visitor in his dominion, he prepared two “refrescos.”  He was going to treat Esteban for the first time on this return trip.  On former days, incredible as it may seem, he had not thought of making even one of his delicious beverages.  The return from Naples to Barcelona had been a sad one:  the vessel had a funereal air without its master.

For all these reasons, Caragol’s hand lavishly measured out the rum until the liquid took on a tobacco tone.

They drank....  The young Telemachus began to talk about his father when the glasses were only half empty, and the cook waved both hands in the air, giving a grunt which signified that he had no wish to bother about the captain’s absence.

“Your father will return, Esteban,” he added.  “He will return but I don’t know when.  Certainly later than Toni says.”

And not wishing to say more, he gulped down the rest of the glass, devoting himself hastily to the confection of the second “refresco” in order to make up for lost time.

Little by little he slipped away from the prudent barrier that was hedging in his verbosity and spoke with his old time abandon; but his flow of words did not exactly convey news.

Caragol preached morality to Ferragut’s son,—­morality from his standpoint, interrupted by frequent caresses of the glass.

“Esteban, my son, respect your father greatly.  Imitate him as a seaman.  Be good and just toward the men that you command....  But avoid the females!”

The women!...  There was no better theme for his piously drunken eloquence.  The world inspired his pity.  It was all governed by the infernal attraction exercised by the female of the species.  The men were working, struggling, and trying to grow rich and celebrated, all in order to possess one of these creatures.

“Believe me, my son, and do not imitate your father in this respect.”

The old man had said too much to back out now and he had to go on, letting out the rest of it, bit by bit.  Thus Esteban learned that the captain was enamored with a lady in Naples and that he had remained there pretending business matters, but in reality dominated by this woman’s influence.