They had just arrived at Teneriffe with maize and bales of dry alfalfa from Argentina.
When Toni returned aboard after having cleared the vessel, he shouted in Valencian, the language of intimacy, "War, _Che_!" Ulysses, who was pacing the bridge, received the news with indifference.

"War ?...

What war is that ?..." But upon learning that Germany and Austria had begun hostilities with France and Russia, and that England was just intervening in behalf of Belgium, the captain began quickly to calculate the political consequences of this conflagration.

He could see nothing else.
Toni, less disinterested, spoke of the future of the vessel....

Their misery was at last at an end! Freightage at thirteen shillings a ton was going to be henceforth but a disgraceful memory.