He stood in the waiting-room a little after the train had gone, warming himself by the stove. Then he shook his head and staggered off homewards.
Again and again he tried to reckon up how he stood.
“No hope of getting to work on the boat now,” he muttered. But, to his surprise, he found his thoughts refused to dwell on this disaster, which should by rights have overshadowed all else.
No; he could think of one thing—he was hungry.
For months past he had not had a decent meal, and, though he had not realised it himself, his looking forward to that gift from the Brotherhood had been associated with an indomitable desire for food.
Outside his own door he stopped. The scent of the clove tea came to greet him, and revolted him for the first time. He turned round and walked away again, out over the sandhills, along the quay, and down between the warehouses.
The group of fishermen sighted his thin, fluttering figure in the gloom, shook themselves, and pressed their backs closer against the wall of the shed.
But Egholm found at last an old green rowing boat among those drawn up on the beach. He struck a match, and made sure it was the one.
Then he clambered up on to it, and knelt down on the boards.
The wind tore his plaintive prayer to shreds, and strewed a shower of broken, unmeaning sounds out over the harbour and the town.