Chapter VII: The Sin of Ulysses (2)

"Ah, Captain!... How much she loves you!... Do not disappoint her; obey her in every respect.... She adores you."

Frequently she returned from her trips in evident bad humor. Ulysses surmised that she had been in Rome. At other times she would appear very gay, with an ironic and tedious gayety. "The mandolin-strummers appear to be coming to their senses. Germany is constantly receiving more support from their ranks. In Rome the 'German propaganda' is distributed among millions."

One night emotion overcame her rugged sensibilities. She had brought back from her trip a portrait which she pressed lovingly against her vast bosom before showing it.

"Look at it," she said to the two. "It is the hero whose name brings tears of enthusiasm to all Germans.... What an honor for our family!"

Pride made her hasty, snatching the photograph from Freya's hand in order to pass it on to Ulysses. He saw a naval official rather mature, surrounded by a numerous family. Two children with long blonde hair were seated on his knees. Five youngsters, chubby and tow-headed, appeared at his feet with crossed legs, lined up in the order of their ages. Near his shoulder extended a double line of brawny young girls with coronal braids imitating the coiffures of empresses and grand duchesses.... Behind these, proudly erect, was his virtuous and prolific companion, aged by too continuous maternity.

Ferragut contemplated this patriotic warrior very deliberately. He had the face of a kindly person with clear eyes and grayish, pointed beard. He almost inspired a tender compassion by his overwhelming duties as a father.

Meanwhile the doctor's voice was chanting the glories of her relative.

"A hero!... Our gracious Kaiser has decorated him with the Iron Cross. They have given him honorary citizenship in various capitals.... May God punish England!"

And she extolled this patriarch's unheard-of exploit. He was the commandant of the submarine that had torpedoed one of the greatest English transatlantic steamers. Out of the twelve hundred passengers from New York more than eight hundred were drowned.... Women and children had gone down in the general destruction.

Freya, more quick-witted than the doctor, read Ulysses' thoughts in his eyes.... He was now surveying with astonishment the photograph of this official surrounded with his biblical progeny, like a good-natured burgher. And a man who appeared so complacent had committed such butchery without encountering any danger whatever!--hidden in the water with his eye glued to the periscope, he had coldly ordered the sending of a torpedo against this floating and defenseless city?...

"Such is war," said Freya.

"Of course it is war!" retorted the doctor as if offended at the propitiatory tone of her friend. "And it is our right also. They blockade us, and they wish our women and children to die of hunger, and so we kill theirs."

The captain felt obliged to protest, in spite of the hidden nudges and gestures of his mistress. The doctor had many times told him that, thanks to her organization, Germany could never know hunger, and that she could exist years and years on the consumption of her own product.

"That is so," replied the dame, "but war has to make itself ferocious, implacable, in order that it may not last so long. It is our human duty to terrify the enemy with a cruelty beyond what they are able to imagine."

The sailor slept badly that night, evidently greatly troubled. Freya guessed the presence of something beyond the influence of her caresses. The following day his pensive reserve continued and she, well knowing the cause, tried to dissipate it with her words....

The torpedoing of defenseless steamers was only made on the coast of England. They had to cut short, cost what it might, the source of supplies for that hated island.

"In the Mediterranean nothing of that kind will ever occur. I can assure you of that.... The submarines will attack battleships only."

And, as if fearing a reappearance of Ulysses' scruples, she redoubled her seductions on their afternoons of voluptuous imprisonment. She was constantly devising new fascinations, that her lover might never be surfeited. He, on his part, came to believe that he was living with several women at the same time, like an Oriental personage. Freya upon multiplying her charms, had to do no more than to swing around on herself, showing a new facet of her past existence.

The sentiment of jealousy, the bitterness of not having been the first and only one, rejuvenated the sailor's passion, alleviating the tedium of satiety, yet at the same time giving to her caresses an acrid, desperate and attractive relish due to his enforced fraternity with unknown predecessors.

Desisting from her enchantments, she came and went through the salon, sure of her beauty, proud of her firm and superb physique, which had not yielded in the slightest degree to the passing of the years. A couple of colored shawls served as her transparent clothing. Waving them as rainbow shafts around her marble-white body, she used to interpret the priestess dances to the terrible Siva that she had learned in Java.

Suddenly the chill of the room would begin biting in awaking her from her tropical dream. With a final bound, she sought refuge in his arms.

"Oh, my beloved Argonaut!... My shark!"

She threw herself on the sailor's breast, stroking his beard, and pushing him so as to edge in on the divan which was too narrow for the two.

She guessed at once the cause of his furrowed brow, the listlessness with which he responded to her caresses, the gloomy fire that was smouldering in his eyes. The exotic dance had made him recall her past and in order to regain her sway over him, subjecting him in sweet passivity, she sprang up from the divan, running about the room.

"What shall I give to my bad little man, in order to make him smile a bit?... What shall I do in order to make him forget his wrong ideas?..."

Perfumes were her pet fad. As she herself used to say, it was possible for her to do without eating but never without the richest and most expensive essences. In that scantily furnished room, like the interior of an army and navy supply store, the cut glass flasks with gold and nickel stoppers, protruded among the clothing and papers, and stood up in the corners denouncing the forgetfulness of their enchanting breath.

"Take it! Take it!"

And she sprinkled the precious perfumes as though they were water on Ferragut's hair, over his curled beard, advising the sailor to close his eyes in order not to be blinded by this crazy baptism.

Anointed and fragrant as an Asiatic despot, the strong Ulysses would sometimes revolt against this effeminateness. At others, he would accept it with the delight of a new pleasure.

Suddenly a window-shutter would seem to swing open in his imagination, and, passing by this luminous square, he would see the melancholy Cinta, his son Esteban, the bridge of his vessel and Toni at the helm.

"Forget!" cried the voice of his evil counselor, blotting out the vision. "Enjoy the present!... There is plenty of time to go in search of them."

And again he would sink himself in his refined and artificial luxurious state with the selfishness of the satrap who, after ordering various cruelties, locks himself in his harem.

The very finest linens, scattered by chance, enveloped his body or served as cushions. They were her lingerie, stray petals of her beauty, that still kept the warmth and perfume of her body. If Ferragut needed any object belonging to him, he had to hunt for it through sheaves of skirts, silk petticoats, white negligees, perfumes and portraits, all scattered over the furniture or tossed in the corners. When Freya, tired of dancing in the center of the salon, was not curling herself up in his arms she took delight in opening a box of sandalwood. In this she used to keep all her jewels, taking them out again and again with a nervous restlessness, as though she feared they might have evaporated in their enclosure. Her lover had to listen to the gravest explanations accompanying the display of her treasures.

"Kiss it," she said, offering him the string of pearls almost always on her neck.

These grains of moonlight splendor were to her little living beings, little creatures that she needed in contact with her skin. She was impregnated with the essence of all that she wore; she drank their life.

"They have slept upon me so many nights," she would murmur, contemplating them amorously. "This light amber tone I have given them with the warmth of my body."

They were no longer a piece of jewelry, they formed a part of her organism. They might grow pale and die if they were to pass many days forgotten in the depths of her casket.

After that she kept on ransacking the perfumed jewel-box for all the gems that were her great pride,--earrings and finger-rings of great price, mixed with other exotic jewels of bizarre form and slight value, picked up on her voyages.

"Look carefully at this," she said gravely to Ferragut, while she rubbed against her bare arm an enormous diamond in one of her rings.

Warmed by the friction, the precious stone became converted into a magnet. A bit of paper placed a few inches away was attracted to it with an irresistible fluttering.

She then rubbed one of the barbaric imitation-jewels of thick cut glass, and the scrap of paper remained motionless without the slightest evidence of attraction.

Satisfied with these experiments, she replaced her treasures in the casket and set herself to beguiling the passing monotony, again devoting herself to Ulysses.

These long imprisonments in an atmosphere charged with perfumes, Oriental tobaccos, and feminine seduction were gradually disordering Ferragut's mind. Besides this, he was drinking heavily in order to give new vigor to his organism which was beginning to break down under the excesses of his voluptuous seclusion. At the slightest sign of weariness, Freya would fall upon him with her dominating lips. If she freed herself from his embraces, it was to offer him a glass full of the strongest liquor.

When the spell of intoxication overcame him, weighing down his eyes, he always recalled the same dream. In his maudlin siestas, satiated and happy, there would always reappear another Freya who was not Freya, but Doña Constanza, the Empress of Byzantium. He could see her dressed as a peasant girl, just as she was portrayed in the picture in the church of Valencia, and at the same time completely undressed, like the other houri, who was dancing in the salon.

This double image, which disappeared and reappeared capriciously with the arbitrariness of dreams, was always telling him the same thing. Freya was Doña Constanza perpetuated across the centuries, taking on a new form. She was born of the union of a German and an Italian, just like this other one.... But the chaste empress was now smiling in her nudeness, satisfied with being simply Freya. Marital infidelity, persecution and poverty had been the result of her first existence when she was tranquil and virtuous.

"Now I know the truth," Doña Constanza would say with a sweetly immodest smile. "Only love exists; all the rest is illusion. Kiss me, Ferragut!... I have returned to life in order to recompense you. You gave me the first of your childish affection; you longed for me before you became a man."

And her kiss was like that of the spy--an absorbing kiss throughout his entire person, making him awake.... Upon opening his eyes he saw Freya with her mouth close to his.

"Arise, my sea-wolf!... It is already night. We are going to dine."

Outside the house, Ulysses would breathe in the twilight breeze and look at the first stars that were beginning to sparkle above the roofs. He felt the fresh delight and trembling limbs of the odalisque coming out of retreat.

The dinner finished, they would stroll through the darkest street or the promenades along the shore, avoiding the people. One night they stopped in the gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_, near the bench that had witnessed their struggle when returning from Posilipo.

"You wished to kill me, you little rascal!... You threatened me with your revolver, my bandit!..."

Ulysses protested. What a way to remember things! But she refuted his correction with a bold and lying authority.

"It was you!... It way you! I say so, and that is enough. You must become accustomed to accepting whatever I may affirm."

In the beer garden, where they used to dine almost every night--an imitation medieval saloon, with paneled beams made by machinery, plaster walls imitating oak, and neo-Gothic crystals--the proprietor used to exhibit as a great curiosity a jar of grotesque little figures among the porcelain steins that adorned the brackets of the pedestals.

Ferragut recognized it immediately; it was an ancient Peruvian jar.

"Yes, it is a _huaca_," she said. "I have been in that, too.... We were engaged in manufacturing antiques."

Freya misunderstood the gesture that her lover made. She thought that he was astonished at the audacity of this manufacture of souvenirs. "Germany is great; nothing can resist the adaptive powers of her industries...."

And her eyes burned with a proud light as she enumerated these exploits of false historical resurrection. They had filled museums and private collections with Egyptian and Phoenician statuettes recently reproduced. Then, on German soil, they had manufactured Peruvian antiquities in order to sell them to the tourists who visit the ancient realm of the Incas. Some of the inhabitants received wages for disinterring these things opportunely with a great deal of publicity. Now the fad of the moment was the black art, and collectors were hunting horrible wooden idols carved by tribes in the interior of Africa.

But what had really impressed Ferragut was the plural which she had employed in speaking of such industries. Who had fabricated these Peruvian antiquities?... Was it her husband, the sage?...

"No," replied Freya tranquilly. "It was another one--an artist from Munich. He had hardly any talent for painting, but great intelligence in business matters. We returned from Peru with the mummy of an Inca which we exhibited in almost all the museums of Europe without finding a purchaser. Bad business! We had to keep the Inca in our room in the hotel, and ..."

Ferragut was not interested in the wanderings of the poor Indian monarch, snatched from the repose of his tomb.... One more! Each of Freya's confidences evoked a new predecessor from the haze of her past.

Coming out of the beer-garden, the captain stalked along with a gloomy aspect. She, on the other hand, was laughing at her memories surveying across the years, with a flattering optimism, this far-away adventure of her Bohemian days, and growing very merry on recalling the remains of the Inca on his passage from hotel to hotel.

Suddenly Ulysses' wrath blazed forth.... The Dutch, officer, the natural history sage, the singer who killed himself in one shot and now the fabricator of antiquities.... How many more men had there been in her existence? How many were there still to be told of? Why had she not brought them all out at once?...

Freya was astounded at his abrupt violence. The sailor's wrath was terrifying. Then she laughed, leaning heavily on his arm, and putting her face close to his.

"You are jealous!... My shark is jealous! Go on talking. You don't know how much I like to hear you. Complain away!... Beat me!... It's the first time that I've seen a jealous man. Ah, you Southerners!... Meridionals!... With good reason the women adore you."

And she was telling the truth. She was experiencing a new sensation before this manly wrath, provoked by amorous indignation. Ulysses appeared to her a very different man from all the others she had known in her former life,--cold, compliant and selfish.

"My Ferragut!... My Mediterranean hero! How I love you! Come ... come.... I must reward you!"

They were in a central street, near the corner of a sloping little alley with stairs. She pushed him toward it, and at the first step in the narrow and dark passageway embraced him, turning her back on the movement and light in the great street, in order to kiss him with that kiss which always made the captain's knees tremble.

Although his temper was soothed, he continued complaining during the rest of the stroll. How many had preceded him?... He must know. He wished to know, no matter how horrible the knowledge might be. It was the delight of the jealous who persist in scratching open the wound.

"I want to know you," he repeated. "I ought to know you, since you belong to me. I have the right!..."

This right recalled with childish obstinacy made Freya smile dolorously. Long centuries of experience appeared to peep out from the melancholy curl of her lips. In her gleamed the wisdom of the woman, more cautious and foresighted than that of the man, since love was her only preoccupation.

"Why do you wish to know?" she asked discouragingly. "How much further could you go on that?... Would you perchance be any happier when you did know?..."

She was silent for some steps and then said as though disclosing a secret:

"In order to love, it is not necessary for us to know one another. Quite the contrary. A little bit of mystery keeps up the illusion and dispells monotony.... He who wishes to know is never happy."

She continued talking. Truth perhaps was a good thing in other phases of existence, but it was fatal to love. It was too strong, too crude. Love was like certain women, beautiful as goddesses under a discreet and artificial light, but horrible as monsters under the burning splendors of the sun.

"Believe me; put away these bugbears of the past. Is not the present enough for you?... Are you not happy?"

And, trying to convince him that he was, she redoubled her exertions, chaining Ulysses in bonds which were sweet yet weighed heavily upon him. Strongly convinced of his vileness, he nevertheless adored and detested this woman, with her tireless sensuality.... And it was impossible to separate himself from her!...

Anxious to find some excuse, he recalled the image of his cook philosophizing in his culinary dominion. Whenever he had wished to call down the greatest of evils upon an enemy, the astute fellow had always uttered this anathema:

"May God send you a female to your taste!..."

Ferragut had found the "female to his taste" and was forever slave of his destiny. It would follow him through every form of debasement which she might desire, and each time would leave him with less energy to protest, accepting the most disgraceful situations in exchange for love.... And it would always be so! And he who but a few months before used to consider himself a hard and overbearing man, would end by pleading and weeping if she should go away!... Ah, misery!...

In hours of tranquillity, when satiety made them converse placidly like two friends of the same sex, Ulysses would avoid allusions to the past, questioning her only about her actual life. These questions were chiefly concerned with the doctor's mysterious work; he wished to know with the interest that the slightest actions of a beloved person always inspire, the part that Freya was playing in them. Did he not belong now to the same association since he was obeying its orders?...

The responses were very incomplete. She had limited herself to obeying the doctor, who knew everything.... Then she hesitated and corrected herself. No, her friend could not know everything, because above her were the count and other personages who used to come from time to time to visit her like passing tourists. And the chain of agents, from the lowest to the highest, were lost in mysterious heights that made Freya turn pale, imposing on her eyes and voice an expression of superstitious respect.

She was free to speak only of her work, and she did this very cautiously, relating the measures she had employed, but without mentioning her co-workers nor stating what her final aim was to be. The most of the time she had been moved about without knowing toward what her efforts were converging, like a whirling wheel which knows only its immediate environments and is ignorant of the machinery as a whole and the class of production to which it contributes.

Ulysses marveled at the grotesque and dubious proceedings employed by the agents of the spy system.

"But that is like the paper novels! They are ridiculous and worn-out measures that any one can learn from books and melodramas."

Freya assented. For that very reason they were employing them. The surest way of bewildering the enemy was to avail themselves of obvious methods; thus the modern world, so intelligent and subtle, would refuse to believe in them. By simply telling the truth, Bismarck had deceived all European diplomacy, for the very reason that nobody was expecting the truth from his lips.

German espionage was comporting itself like the personages in a political novel, and people consequently could not seem to believe in it,--although it was taking place right under their eyes,--just because its methods appeared too exaggerated and antiquated.

"Therefore," she continued, "every time that France uncovers a part of our maneuvers, the opinion of the world which believes only in ingenious and difficult things ridicules it, considering it attacked with a delirium of persecution."

Women for some time past had been deeply involved in the service of espionage. There were many as wise as the doctor, as elegant as Freya, and many venerable ones with famous names, winning the confidence that illustrious dowagers inspire. They were very numerous, but they did not know each other. Sometimes they met out in the world and were suspicious of each other, but each continued on her special mission, pushed in different directions by an omnipotent and hidden force.

She showed him some portraits that were taken a few years before. Ulysses was slow to recognize her as a slim Japanese young girl, clad in a dark kimono.

"It is I when I was over there. It was to our interest to know the real force of that nation of little men with rat-like eyes."

In another portrait she appeared in short skirt, riding boots, a man's shirt, and a felt cowboy hat.

"That was from the Transvaal."

She had gone to South Africa in company with other German women of the "service" in order to sound the state of mind of the Boers under English domination.

"I've been everywhere," she affirmed proudly.

"In Paris, too?" questioned the sailor.

She hesitated before answering, but finally nodded her head.... She had been in Paris many times. The outbreak of the war had found her living in the Grand Hotel. Fortunately, two days before the rupture of hostilities, she had received news enabling her to avoid being made prisoner in a concentration camp.... And she did not wish to say more. She was verbose and frank in the relation of her far-distant experiences, but the memory of the more recent ones enshrouded her in a restless and frightened reserve.

To change the course of conversation, she spoke of the dangers that had threatened her on her journeys.

"We have to be very courageous.... The doctor, just as you see her, is a heroine.... You laugh, but if you should know her arsenal, perhaps it might strike fear to your heart. She is a scientist."

The grave lady had an invincible repugnance for vulgar weapons, and Freya referred freely to a portable medicine case full of anesthetics and poisons.

"Besides this she carries on her person a little bag full of certain powders of her own invention,--tobacco, red pepper.... Perfect little devils! Whoever gets them in the eyes is blinded for life. It is as though she were throwing flames."

She herself was less complicated in her measures of defense. She had her revolver, a species of firearms which she managed to keep hidden just as certain insects hide their sting, without knowing certainly when it might be necessary to draw it forth. And if she could not avail herself of that, she always relied on her hatpin.

"Just look at it!... With what gusto I could pierce the heart of many a person!..."

And she showed him a kind of hidden poniard, a keen, triangular stiletto of genuine steel, capped by a large glass pearl that served as its hilt.

"Among what kind of people are you living!" murmured the practical voice in Ferragut's interior. "What have you mixed yourself up with, my son!" But his tendency to discount danger, not to live like other people, made him find a deep enchantment in this novel-like existence.

The doctor no longer went on excursions, but her visitors were increasing in number. Sometimes, when Ulysses was starting toward her room, Freya would stop him.

"Don't go.... They're having a consultation."

Upon opening the door of the landing that corresponded to his quarters he saw, on various occasions, the green screened door of the office closing behind many men, all of them of Teutonic aspect, travelers who had just disembarked in Naples with a certain precipitation, neighbors from the city who used to receive orders from the doctor.

She appeared much more preoccupied than usual. Her eyes would pass over Freya and the sailor as though she did not see them.

"Bad news from Rome," Ferragut's companion told him. "Those accursed mandolin-strummers are getting away from us."

Ulysses began to feel a certain boredom in these monotonously voluptuous days. His senses were becoming blunted with so many indulgences mechanically repeated. Besides, a monstrous debilitation was making him think in self-defense of the tranquil life of the hearth. He timidly began calculating the time of his seclusion. How long had he been living with her?... His confused and crowded memory besought her aid.

"Fifteen days," replied Freya.

Again he persisted in his calculations, and she affirmed that only three weeks had passed by since his steamer had left Naples.

"I shall have to go," said Ulysses hesitatingly. "They will be expecting me in Barcelona; I have no news.... What will become of my vessel?..."

She who generally listened to these inquiries with a distraught air, not wishing to understand his timid insinuations, responded one afternoon unequivocally:

"The time is approaching when you are going to fulfill your word of honor in regard to sacrificing yourself for me. Soon you will be able to go to Barcelona, and I--I shall join you there. If I am not able to go, we shall meet again.... The world is very small."

Her thought did not go beyond this sacrifice exacted of Ferragut. After that, who could tell where she would stop?...

Two afternoons later, the doctor and the count summoned the sailor. The lady's voice, always so good-natured and protecting, now assumed a slight accent of command.

"Everything is all ready, Captain." As she had not been able to avail herself of his steamer, she had prepared another boat for him. He was merely to follow the instructions of the count who would show him the bark of which he was going to take command.

The two men went away together. It was the first time that Ulysses had gone out in the street without Freya, and in spite of his enamored enthusiasm, he felt an agreeable sensation of freedom.

They went down to the shore and in the little harbor of the _Castello dell' Ovo_ passed over the plank that served as a bridge between the dock and a little schooner with a greenish hull. Ferragut, who had taken in its exterior with a single glance, ran his eye over its deck.... "Eighty tons." Then he examined the apparatus and the auxiliary machinery,--a petroleum motor which permitted it to make seven miles an hour whenever the sails did not find a breeze.

He had seen on the poop the name of the boat and its destination, guessing at once the class of navigation to which it was dedicated. It was a Sicilian schooner from Trapani, built for fishing. An artistic calker had sculptured a wooden cray-fish climbing over the rudder. From the two sides of the prow dangled a double row of cray-fish carved with the innocent prolixity of medieval imagination.

Coming out of the hatchway, Ferragut saw half of the hold full of boxes. He recognized this cargo; each one of these boxes contained two cans of gasoline.

"Very well," he said to the count, who had remained silent behind him, following him in all his evolutions. "Where is the crew?..."

Kaledine pointed out to him three old sailors huddled on the prow and a ragged boy. They were veterans of the Mediterranean, silent and self-centered, accustomed to obey orders mechanically, without troubling themselves as to where they were going, nor who was commanding them.

"Are there no more?" Ferragut asked.

The count assured him that other men would come to reënforce the crew at the moment of its departure. This would be just as soon as the loading was finished. They had to take certain precautions in order not to attract attention.

"In any case, you will be ready to embark quickly, Captain. Perhaps you may be advised with only a couple of hours' notice."

Talking it over with Freya at night, Ulysses was astonished at the promptness with which the doctor had found a boat, the discretion with which she had had it loaded,--with all the details of this business that had been developing so easily and mysteriously right in the very mouth of a great harbor without any one's taking any notice of it.

His companion affirmed proudly that Germany well understood how to conduct such affairs. It was not the doctor only who was working such miracles. All the German merchants of Naples and Sicily had been giving aid.... And convinced that the captain might be sent for at any moment, she arranged his baggage, packing the little suit-case that always accompanied him on short trips.

The next day at twilight the count came in search of him. All was ready; the boat was awaiting its captain.

The doctor bade Ulysses farewell with a certain solemnity. They were in the salon, and in a low voice she gave an order to Freya, who went out, returning immediately with a tall, thin bottle. It was mellow Rhine wine, the gift of a merchant of Naples, that the doctor was saving for an extraordinary occasion. She filled four glasses, and, raising hers, looked around her uncertainly.

"Where is the North?..."

The count pointed it out silently. Then the lady continued raising her glass, with solemn slowness, as though offering a religious libation to the mysterious power hidden in the North, far, far away. Kaledine imitated her with the same fervid manner.

Ulysses was going to raise the glass to his lips, wishing to hide a ripple of laughter provoked by the imposing lady's gravity.

"Do like the others," murmured Freya in his ear.

And the two quietly drank to his health with their eyes turned toward the North.

"Good luck to you, Captain!" said the doctor. "You will return promptly and with all happiness, since you are working for such a just cause. We shall never forget your services."

Freya wished to accompany him, even to the boat. The count began a protest, but stopped on seeing the good-natured gesture of the sentimental lady.

"They love each other so much!... Something must be conceded to love...."

The three went down the sloping streets of Chiaja to the shore of S. Lucia. In spite of his preoccupation, Ferragut could not but look attentively at the count's appearance. He was now dressed in blue, with a yachts-man's black cap, as though prepared to take part in a regatta. He had undoubtedly adopted this attire in order to make the farewell more solemn.

In the gardens of the _Villa Nazionale_ Kaledine stopped, giving an order to Freya. He could not permit her to go any further. She would attract attention in the little harbor _dell' Ovo_ frequented only by fishermen. As the tone of his order was sharp and imperious, she obeyed without protest, as though accustomed to such superiority.

"Good-bye!... Good-bye."

Forgetting the presence of the haughty witness, she embraced Ulysses ardently; then she burst out weeping with a nervous sobbing. It seemed to him that she had never been so sincere as in that moment. And he had to make a great effort to disentangle himself from her embrace.

"Good-bye!... Good-bye!..."

Then he followed the count without daring to turn his head, suspecting that her eyes were still upon him.

On the shores of S. Lucia, he saw in the distance his old hotel with its illuminated windows. The porter was preceding a young man who was just descending from a carriage, carrying a suit-case. Ferragut was instantly reminded of his son Esteban. The young tourist bore a certain resemblance to him.... And Ferragut continued on, smiling rather bitterly at this inopportune recollection.

On entering the schooner he encountered Karl, the doctor's factotum, who had brought his little baggage and had just installed it in his cabin. "He could retire."... Then he looked over the crew. In addition to the three old Sicilians he now saw seven husky young fellows, blonde and stout, with rolled-up sleeves. They were talking Italian, but the captain had no doubt as, to their real nationality.

As some of them were already beginning to weigh anchor, Ferragut looked at the count as though inviting him to depart. The boat was gradually detaching itself from the dock. They were going to draw in the gangplank which had served as a bridge.

"I'm going, too," said Kaledine. This trip interests Ulysses, who was disposed not to be surprised at anything in this extraordinary voyage, merely exclaimed courteously, "So much the better!" He was no longer concerned with him, and devoted all his efforts to conducting the boat out of the little harbor, directing its course through the gulf. The glass windows on the shore of S. Lucia trembled with the vibration of the motor of the decrepit steamer--an old and scandalous piece of machinery imitating the paddling of a tired dog. Meanwhile the sails were unfurled and swelling under the first gusts of the wind.

The trip lasted three days. The first night, the captain enjoyed the selfish delights of resting alone. He was living among men.... And he appreciated the satisfaction chastity offered with all the enchantments of novelty.

The second night, in the narrow and noisome cabin of the skipper, he felt wakeful because of the memories that were again springing up. Oh, Freya!... When would he ever see her again?

The count and he conversed little, but passed long hours together, seated at the side of the wheel looking out on the sea. They were more friendly than on land, although they exchanged very few words. The common life lessened the haughtiness of the pretended diplomat and enabled the captain to discover new merits in his personality. The freedom with which he was going through the boat, and certain technical words employed against his will, left no doubt in Ferragut's mind regarding his true profession.

"You are in the navy," he said suddenly.

And the count assented, judging dissimulation useless.

Yes, he was a naval officer.

"Then what am I doing here? Why have you given the command to me?..." So Ferragut was thinking without discovering why this man should seek his assistance when he could direct a boat himself, without any outside aid.

Undoubtedly he was a naval officer, and all the blonde sailors that were working like automatons must also have come from some fleet. Discipline was making them respect Ferragut's orders, but the captain suspected that for them he was merely a proxy, the true chief on board being the count.

The schooner passed within sight of the Liparian archipelago; then, twisting its course toward the west, followed the coast of Sicily, from Cape Gallo to the Cape of Vito. From there it turned its prow to the southeast, heading toward the Aegadian Islands.

It had to wait in the waters where the Mediterranean was beginning to narrow between Tunis and Sicily, where the volcanic peak of the Pantellarian Island rises up in the middle of the immense strait.

Brief indications from the count were sufficient to make the course followed by Ferragut in accordance with his desire. He finally could not hide his admiration for the Spaniard's mastery of navigation.

"You know your sea well," said the count.

The captain shrugged his shoulders, smiling. It truly was his. He could call it "_mare nostrum_" just as the Romans and their former rulers had done.

As though divining the subsea depths by a simple glance, he kept his boat within the limits of the extensive ledge of the Aventura. He was navigating slowly with only a few sails, crossing and recrossing the same water.

Kaledine, after two days had passed by, began to grow uneasy. Several times it sounded to Ferragut as though he were muttering the name of Gibraltar. The passage from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean was the greatest danger for those that he was expecting.

From the deck of the schooner he was able to see only a short distance, and the count clambered up the rigging in order that his eyes might take in a more extensive sweep.

One morning up aloft he called something to the captain, pointing out a speck on the horizon. He must steer in that very direction. What he was seeking was over there.

Ferragut obeyed him, and half an hour later there appeared, one after the other, two long, low boats, moving with great velocity. They were like destroyers, but without mastheads, without smokestacks, skimming along almost on a level with the water, painted in a gray that made them seem a short distance away of the same color as the sea. They came around on both sides of the sailboat as though they were going to crush it with the meeting of their hulls. Various metallic cables came up from their decks and were thrown over the bitts of the schooner, fastening it to them, and forming the three vessels into a solid mass that, united, followed the slow undulation of the sea.

Ulysses examined curiously his two companions in this improvised float. Were these the famous submarines?... He saw on their steel decks round and protruding hatchways like chimneys through which groups of heads were sticking out. The officers and crews were dressed like fishermen from the northern coast with waterproof suits of one piece and oilskin hats. Many of them were swinging their tarpaulins over their heads, and the count replied to them by waving his cap. The blonde sailors of the schooner shouted in reply to the acclamations of their comrades on the submersibles, "_Deutchsland über alles_!..."

But this enthusiasm, equivalent to a song of triumph in the midst of the solitude of the sea, lasted but a very short time. Whistles sounded, men ran over the steel decks and Ferragut saw his vessel invaded by two files of seamen. In a moment the hatchways were opened; there sounded the crash of breaking pieces of wood, and the cases of petrol began to be carried off on both sides. The water all around the sailboat was filled with broken cases that were gently floating away.

The count on the poop deck was listening to an officer dressed in waterproof garments.

He was recounting their passage through the Strait of Gibraltar, completely submerged, seeing through the periscope the English torpedo-chasers on patrol.

"Nothing, Commandant," continued the officer. "Not even the slightest incident.... A magnificent voyage!"

"May God punish England!" said the count now called Commandant.

"May God punish her!" replied the official as though he were saying "Amen."

Ferragut saw himself forgotten, ignored, by all the men aboard the schooner. Some of the sailors even pushed him to one side in the haste of their work. He was the mere master of a sailing vessel who counted for nothing in this hierarchy of warlike men.

He now began to understand why they had given him the command of the little vessel. The count was in possession of the situation. Ferragut saw him approaching as though he had suddenly recollected him, stretching out his right hand with the affability of a comrade.

"Many thanks, Captain. This service is of the kind that is not easily forgotten. Perhaps we shall never see each other again.... But if at any time you need me, you may know who I am."

And, as though presenting him to another person, he gave his name and titles ceremoniously:--Archibald von Kramer, Naval Lieutenant of the Imperial Navy.... His diplomatic rôle had not been entirely false.... He had served as Naval Attaché in various embassies.

He then gave instructions for the return trip. Ferragut was to wait opposite Palermo where a boat would come out after him and take him ashore. Everything had been foreseen.... He must deliver the command to the true owner of the schooner, a timorous man who had made them pay very high for the hire of the boat without venturing to jeopardize his own person. In the cabin were the customary papers for clearing the vessel.

"Salute the ladies in my name. Tell them that they will soon have news of us. We are going to make ourselves lords of the Mediterranean."

The unloading of combustibles still continued. Ferragut saw von Kramer slipping through the openings of one of the submarines. Then he thought he recognized on the submersible two of the sailors of the crew of the schooner who, after being received with shouts and embraces by their comrades, disappeared through a tubular hatchway.

The unloading lasted until mid-afternoon. Ulysses had not imagined that the little boat could carry so many cases. When the hold was empty, the last German sailors disappeared and with them the cables that had lashed them to the sailboat. An officer shouted to him that he could get under way.

The two submersibles with their cargo of oil and gasoline were nearer the level of the sea than on their arrival and now began to disappear in the distance.

Finding himself alone in the stern of the schooner, the Spaniard felt a sudden disquietude.

"What have you done!... What have you done!" clamored a voice in his brain.

But contemplating the three old men and the boy who had remained as the only crew, he forgot his remorse. He would have to bestir himself greatly in order to supply the lack of men. For two nights and a day he scarcely rested, managing almost at the same time both helm and motor, since he did not dare to let out all his sails with this scarcity of sailors.

When he found himself opposite the port of Palermo, just as it was beginning to extinguish its night lights, Ferragut was able to sleep for the first time, leaving the watch of the boat in charge of one of the seamen, who maintained it with sails furled. In the middle of the morning he was awakened by some voices shouting from the sea:

"Where is the captain?"

He saw a skiff and various men leaping aboard the schooner. It was the owner who had come to claim, his boat in order to bring it into port in the customary legal form. The skiff was commissioned to take Ulysses ashore with his little suitcase. He was accompanied by a red-faced, fat gentleman who appeared to have great authority over the skipper.

"I suppose you are already informed of what is happening," he said to Ferragut while the two oarsmen made the skiff glide over the waves. "Those bandits!... Those mandolin-players!..."

Ulysses, without knowing why, made an affirmative gesture. This indignant burgher was a German, one of those that were useful to the doctor.... It was enough just to listen to him.

A half hour later Ferragut leaped on the dock without any one's opposing his disembarking, as though the protection of his obese companion had made all the guards drowsy. The good gentleman showed, notwithstanding, a fervent desire to separate himself from his charge--to hurry away, attending to his own affairs.

He smiled upon learning that Ulysses wished to go immediately to Naples. "You do well.... The train leaves in two hours." And putting him in a vacant hack, he disappeared with precipitation.

Finding himself alone, the captain almost believed that he had dreamed of those two preceding days.

He was again seeing Palermo after an absence of long years: and he experienced the joy of an exiled Sicilian on meeting the various carts of the countryside, drawn by broken-down horses with plumes, whose badly-painted wagon bodies represented scenes from "Jerusalem Delivered." He recalled the names of the principal roads,--the roads of the old Spanish viceroys. In one square he saw the statue of four kings of Spain.... But all these souvenirs only inspired in him a fleeting interest. What he particularly noticed was the extraordinary movement in the streets, the people grouping themselves together in order to listen to the reading of the daily papers. Many windows displayed the national flag, interlaced with those of France, England, and Belgium.

Upon arriving at the station he learned the truth,--was informed of the event to which the merchant had alluded while they were in the skiff. It was war!... Italy had broken her relations the day before with the Central Powers.

Ulysses felt very uneasy on remembering what he had done out on the Mediterranean. He feared that the popular groups, thronging past him and giving cheers behind their flags, were going to guess his exploit and fall upon him. It was necessary to get away from this patriotic enthusiasm, and he breathed more freely when he found himself in one of the coaches of a train.... Besides, he was going to see Freya. And it was enough for him merely to evoke her image to make all his remorse vanish.

The short journey proved long and difficult. The necessities of war had made themselves felt from the very first moment, absorbing all means of communication. The train would remain immovable for hours together in order to give the right of way to other trains loaded with men and military materials.... In all the stations were soldiers in campaign uniform, banners and cheering crowds.

When Ferragut arrived at Naples, fatigued by a journey of forty-eight hours, it seemed to him that the coachman was going too slowly toward the old palace of Chiaja.

Upon crossing the vestibule with his little suit-case, the portress,--a fat old crone with dusty, frizzled hair whom he had sometimes caught a glimpse of in the depths of her hall cavern,--stopped his passage.

"The ladies are no longer living in the house.... The ladies have suddenly left with Karl, their employee." And she explained the rest of their flight with a hostile and malignant smile.

Ferragut saw that he must not insist. The slovenly old wife was furious over the flight of the German ladies, and was examining the sailor as a probable spy fit for patriotic denunciation. Nevertheless, through professional honor, she told him that the blonde _signora_, the younger and more attractive one, had thought of him on going away, leaving his baggage in the porter's room.

Ulysses hastened to disappear. He would soon send some one to collect those valises. And taking another carriage, he betook himself to the _albergo_ of S. Lucia.... What an unexpected blow!

The porter made a gesture of surprise and astonishment upon seeing him enter. Before Ferragut could inquire for Freya, with the vague hope that she might have taken refuge in the hotel, this man gave him some news.

"Captain, your son has been here waiting for you."

The captain stuttered in dismay, "What son?..."

The man with the embroidered keys brought the register, showing him one line, "Esteban Ferragut, Barcelona." Ulysses recognized his son's handwriting, and at the same time his heart was oppressed with indefinable anguish.

Surprise made him speechless, and the porter took advantage of his silence to continue speaking. He was such a charming and intelligent lad!... Some mornings he had accompanied him in order to point out to him the best things in the city. He had inquired among the consignees of the _Mare Nostrum_, hunting everywhere for news of his father. Finally convinced that the captain must already be returning to Barcelona, he also had gone the day before.

"If you had only come twelve hours sooner, you would have found him still here."

The porter knew nothing more. Occupied in doing errands for some South American ladies, he had been unable to say good-bye to the young man when he left the hotel, undecided whether to make the trip in an English steamer to Marseilles or to go by railroad to Genoa, where he would find boats direct to Barcelona.

Ferragut wished to know when he had arrived. And the porter, rolling his eyes, gave himself up to long mental calculation.... Finally he reached a date and the sailor, in his turn, concentrated his powers of recollection.

He struck himself on the forehead with his clenched hand. It must have been his son then, that youth whom he had seen entering the _albergo_ the very day that he was going to take charge of the schooner, to carry combustibles to the German submarines!