Even those who were not temperate avoided getting frankly drunk like the sailors of other seas, dissimulating the strength of their alcoholic beverage with coffee and sugar.
Caragol was the understudy charged with drinking all which the captain refused, together with certain others which he dedicated to himself in the mystery of the galley.

On warm days he manufactured _refresquets_, and these refreshments were enormous glasses, half of water and half of rum upon a great bed of sugar,--a mixture that made one pass like a lightning flash, without any gradations, from vulgar serenity to most angelic intoxication.
The captain would scold him upon seeing his inflamed and reddened eyes.
He was going to make himself blind....

But the guilty one was not moved by this threat.

He had to celebrate the prosperity of the vessel in his own way.

And of this prosperity the most interesting thing for him was his ability to use oil and brandy lavishly without any fear of recriminations when the accounts were settled.