“All right,” I acquiesced, “in the form of a letter. Here goes! Get a light!”
“And the apology,” he said, folding up the letter.
“All right,” I said; “Apology.”
My hand shook with anger as I wrote, and afterwards I could not sleep for hate of him. At last I got up. I suffered, I found, from an unusual clumsiness. I struck my toe against my cabin door, and cut myself as I shaved. I found myself at last pacing the deck under the dawn in a mood of extreme exasperation. The sun rose abruptly and splashed light blindingly into my eyes and I swore at the sun. I found myself imagining fresh obstacles with the men and talking aloud in anticipatory rehearsal of the consequent row.
The malaria of the quap was already in my blood.
V
Sooner or later the ridiculous embargo that now lies upon all
