It had been filled into empty "square-face" bottles which had once contained Holland gin, and which still bore the fitting legend "Anchor Brand." It certainly anchored us.

We never got out of the town.
We never went fishing in the sampan.

And though we were there ten days, we never trod that wild path along the lava cliffs and among the flowers.
We met old acquaintances from other schooners, fellows we had met in the saloons of San Francisco before we sailed.

And each meeting meant a drink; and there was much to talk about; and more drinks; and songs to be sung; and pranks and antics to be performed, until the maggots of imagination began to crawl, and it all seemed great and wonderful to me, these lusty hard-bitten sea-rovers, of whom I made one, gathered in wassail on a coral strand.

Old lines about knights at table in the great banquet halls, and of those above the salt and below the salt, and of Vikings feasting fresh from sea and ripe for battle, came to me; and I knew that the old times were not dead and that we belonged to that selfsame ancient breed.
By mid-afternoon Victor went mad with drink, and wanted to fight everybody and everything.