all the while the sailors had sat silent, cross-legged in a crescent upon
the deck, eagerly watching the bargain, and now a murmur of satisfaction
arose among them, and they began to compare it among themselves with other
bargains that they had known. And I found out from them that there are
seven merchants in Perdondaris, and that they had all come to the captain
one by one before the bargaining began, and each had warned him privately
against the others. And to all the merchants the captain had offered the
wine of his own country, that they make in fair Belzoond, but could in no
wise persuade them to it. But now that the bargain was over, and the
sailors were seated at the first meal of the day, the captain appeared
among them with a cask of that wine, and we broached it with care and all
made merry together. And the captain was glad in his heart because he knew
that he had much honour in the eyes of his men because of the bargain that
he had made. So the sailors drank the wine of their native land, and soon
their thoughts were back in fair Belzoond and the little neighbouring
cities of Durl and Duz.

But for me the captain poured into a little jar some heavy yellow wine
from a small jar which he kept apart among his sacred things. Thick and
sweet it was, even like honey, yet there was in its heart a mighty, ardent
fire which had authority over souls of men. It was made, the captain told
me, with great subtlety by the secret craft of a family of six who lived
in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Once in these mountains, he said,
he followed the spoor of a bear, and he came suddenly on a man of that
family who had hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow way
with precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in the bear, and
the wound was not fatal, and he had no other weapon. And the bear was
walking towards the man, very slowly because his wound irked him--yet he
was now very close. And what he captain did he would not say, but every
year as soon as the snows are hard, and travelling is easy on the Hian