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behind with the barrel of his carbine. Ramon fell and rolled round on the stone floor with both arms round his head. Then he lay still on his side, curled up, his arms and legs jerking like a dying animal.
    The other civil guard had raised his carbine over the Finn, but stopped when he saw that he was a foreigner. He lowered his weapon and contented himself with poking the barrel into the Finn’s chest. The Finn looked contemptuously at the carbine, then straightened up and relaxed.
    ‘I’ll say one thing. The North is always the North,’ said the conciliatory gentleman at the bar, raising his glass, as if he were saluting some sportive success.
    Calm was once again restored to Jacinto’s bar.
    Dan Pedersen got up. He was bleeding from a scratch on his cheek.
    The tall Swede was still sitting, groaning and holding his stomach.
    Ramon lay stretched out unconscious. His brother had knelt beside him and was carefully lifting his head off the stone floor.
    The fight was over. It had lasted at the most two or three minutes.
    Dan Pedersen had not got his money.

4
    Two hours later Dan Pedersen, Willi Mohr and Santiago Alemany were standing leaning against a whitewashed wall inside the civil guard’s cuartel, just behind the church. They were smoking cigarettes and looking unconcernedly at the corporal, who for the moment was the puerto’s most senior police official. There was also a wooden counter in the room, and a basket chair, in whichthe guard on duty usually sat and slept with his collar unbuttoned and his carbine across his knees. For the moment, Siglinde Pedersen was sitting in it, her skirt modestly pulled down and her brown legs crossed. She had taken off her sandals and was impatiently swinging one foot up and down.
    The cabo was quite a young man in an elegant uniform and black leather boots. His forehead was beaded with sweat and he was walking irritably up and down in front of the men leaning against the wall. Now and again he glanced timidly down at Siglinde’s sunburnt feet.
    ‘This will have to be the last time now,’ he said. ‘We’re friendly people, but we don’t tolerate anything. We’ve tolerated a great deal from you already, drunkenness, blasphemy, indecency …’
    ‘Indecency?’ said Dan Pedersen, stiffening.
    ‘Yes, we call it that,’ said the cabo hastily. ‘I know that they are said to look at things differently in your country. But that is as maybe, and this is something quite different. Provocation without precedent, almost assault …’
    ‘It wasn’t really our fault,’ said Dan Pedersen.
    ‘Don’t try that on,’ said the cabo, shaking his forefinger. ‘Don’t try telling us we’ve got it wrong. We know our job. I’ve heard what Jacinto and the abuela and even those drunks had to say. There’s nothing to argue about. You started it. And don’t try saying that this isn’t a proper investigation. I knew you’d say that, but this time it won’t work. I’ve had six men on this.’
    ‘In my country,’ said Dan Pedersen, ‘one policeman or at the most one and a half is enough for a place this size. And you’ve got fifteen.’
    ‘Seventeen,’ said the cabo. ‘And there’s no such thing as half a policeman. But this isn’t a nice little chat. You must leave now, and at once.’
    ‘And my wife?’
    ‘She too,’ said the cabo, without looking at Siglinde.
    ‘Do look at her,’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘She’s alive and won’t bite. Do look. You aren’t allowed to do that very often, you poor bastard.’
    The cabo stopped abruptly in front of him.
    ‘Be very careful now,’ he said slowly. ‘Be very careful, if youdon’t want to spend the rest of your time in this country in a very small room. I’m able to …’
    ‘All right, when must we move?’
    ‘At once.’
    ‘Where to?’
    ‘Wherever you like. Out of the district.’
    ‘Up into the town, for example?’
    The cabo shrugged his shoulders.
    ‘But then we can come here every day if we want to?’
    The