“They are all liars.”
“No!” exclaims Haggart angrily. “Not all. There are some who tell the truth there, too. I shall cut your ears off if you will slander honest people. Do you hear?”
“Yes.”
They are silent; they listen to the wild music of the sea. The wind has evidently grown mad. Having taken into its embrace a multitude of instruments with which human beings produce their music—harps, reed-pipes, priceless violins, heavy drums and brass trumpets—it breaks them all, together with a wave, against the sharp rocks. It dashes them and bursts into laughter—only thus does the wind understand music—each time in the death of an instrument, each time in the breaking of strings, in the snapping of the clanging brass. Thus does the mad musician understand music. Haggart heaves a deep sigh and with some amazement, like a man just awakened from sleep, looks around on all sides. Then he commands shortly:
“Give me my pipe.”
“Here it is.”
Both commence to smoke.
“Don’t be angry, Noni,” says the sailor. “You have become so angry that one can’t come near you at all. May I chat with you?”
“There are some who do tell the truth there, too,” says Haggart sternly, emitting rings of smoke.
“How shall I say it you, Noni?” answers the sailor cautiously but stubbornly. “There are no truthful people there. It has been so ever since the deluge. At that time all the honest people went out to sea, and only the cowards and liars remained upon the solid earth.”