“Lower your hands,” said the man carrying the lantern.

Fermín screwed up his eyes. It was the same person he’d seen watching him from the bridge a few hours earlier. Fermín looked him in the eye and nodded as he accepted his hand and jumped onto the boat. The man at the oars handed him a blanket, and the exhausted castaway wrapped himself up in it.

“I’m Captain Arráez,” the man with the lantern said, “and this is my first mate, Bermejo.”

Fermín tried to stammer something, but Arráez stopped him. “Don’t tell us your name. It’s none of our business.”

The captain reached out for a Thermos flask and poured Fermín a cupful of warm wine. He clutched the tin cup with both hands and drank until he’d drained the last drop. Three more times Arráez filled the cup, and Fermín felt the warmth return to his body.

“Are you feeling better?” asked the captain.

Fermín nodded.

“I’m not going to ask you what you were doing on my ship, or what’s between you and that skunk Fumero, but you’d better be careful.”

“I do try, believe me. But fate doesn’t seem inclined to collaborate.”

Arráez handed him a bag. Fermín had a quick look inside. It contained a handful of dry clothes, at least six sizes too large for him, and some money.

“Why are you doing this, Captain?” he asked. “I’m just a stowaway who’s got you into big trouble.”

“I’m doing this because I damn well want to,” replied Arráez, to which Bermejo mumbled his agreement.

“I don’t know how to thank you for—”

“Just don’t sneak onto my ship as a stowaway again. Go on, change your clothes.”

Arráez and Bermejo watched him take off those sodden rags and helped him put on his new outfit, an old sailor’s uniform. Before abandoning his threadbare jacket forever, Fermín searched the pockets and pulled out the letter he’d been guarding for weeks. The sea water had rubbed out the ink and the envelope was just a piece of wet paper that fell apart in his hands. Fermín closed his eyes and burst into tears.

Arráez and Bermejo looked at one another anxiously. The captain put his hand on Fermín’s shoulder. “Don’t be upset, man, the worst is over.”

Fermín shook his head. “It’s not that . . . it’s not that.”

He got dressed slowly and kept what was left of the letter in the pocket of his new short coat. When he noticed the dismay on the faces of his two benefactors, he dried his tears and smiled at them. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re all skin and bones,” remarked Bermejo.

“It’s this transient war interval,” said Fermín apologetically, trying to adopt a livelier, more optimistic tone. “But now that my luck is changing, I foresee a cornucopia of fine foods in my future and a life of contemplation during which I’ll fatten up with sausages while I reread the Bard’s best sonnets. A couple of days of vigorously ingesting black pudding and cinnamon biscuits, and I’ll look as round as a beach ball. Believe it or not, left to my own devices I put on weight faster than a Wagnerian soprano.”