What he is, brain
and sinew, character and desire, is all that counts. He saw this because
he had left the old life behind beyond the fog. Back there, marriage was
a contrivance for the hamstringing and debasing of men, a mere device
for the legal comfort and security of women who were too lazy or
incompetent or too undesirable to secure it for themselves. Ahead he had
a strange premonition that he was going to have a novel experience.

He was.

He was aroused by the helmsman reaching out and striking four soft blows
on the little bronze bell hanging by the awning-spar over the binnacle.
Six o'clock. And the young Jew, in a huge apron and a high astrakhan cap
he had picked up somewhere, came slowly up the bridge ladder.

"Captain," said Mr. Spokesly, making a number of motions to signify
knocking at a door and calling somebody out. "Savvy?"

The frightened creature, who was quite unable to comprehend the
extraordinary phenomenon of the fog on the sea, and who regarded Mr.
Spokesly, moreover, as a species of demi-god, raised his remarkable face
as though in supplication, and backed down again. It was evident to him
that his employer had consigned him to some distant place of torment
from which he could never return. Yet even in his timid heart there was
hope. Already he had given his allegiance to that beautiful and haughty
creature whose cabin it was his trembling joy and pride to put in order.
His ears were alert at all times to catch the sharp clapping sound of
her hands when she needed him, and then he flew below. She would speak
to him in his native tongue, which was Spanish, and ravish his soul with
words he could understand, instead of the terrifying gutturals of those
powerful Franks who walked to and fro on the top of the tower above them
and gave incomprehensible commands.

"Fear not," she assured him. "When the ship reaches the port, thou shalt
go with me as my servant. The lieutenant shall give thee money as wages
when he is my husband."

"Merciful Madama, what port? Whither do we go? Is it beyond the clouds?"

"Ah," she retorted, leaning back on the cushions of the settee, and
blowing cigarette-smoke from her beautiful lips. "I would like to know
that myself. Beyond the clouds? You mean this fog. Yes, far beyond the
clouds. Did you not hear anything at all in the Rue Voulgaroktono?"

"Nothing, Madama, except that once I heard Senor Dainopoulos tell Senor
Malleotis that they, someone, had reached Aid