Hidden between two rocks like the hunting crustaceans was the rascaza,—­the scorpion of the Valencian sea that Ferragut had known in his childhood, the animal beloved by his uncle, the Triton, because of its substantial flesh which thickened the seamen’s soup, the precious component sought by Uncle Caragol for the broth of his succulent rice dishes.  The enormous head had a pair of eyes entirely red.  Its great swimming bladders stung venomously.  The heavy body with its dark bands and stripes was covered with singular appendages in the form of leaves and could easily take the color of the deep where, in the semi-obscurity, it looked like a stone covered with plants.  With this mimicry it was accustomed to escape its enemies and could better detect its prey.

A gloomy creature, in Ferragut’s opinion like a beadle of the Holy Office, was parading through the upper part of the tanks, passing from glass to glass, reflected like a double animal when it approached the surface.  It was the ray-fish with a flat head, ferocious eyes, and thong-like tail, moving the black mantle of its fleshy wings with a deliberation that rippled the edges.

From the sandy bottom was struggling forth a convex shield that, when floating, showed its lower face smooth and yellow.  The four wrinkled paws and the serpent-like head of the turtle were emerging from its cuirass of tortoise-shell.  The little sea horses, slender and graceful as chess-pieces, were rising and descending in the bluish environment, wiggling their tails and twisting themselves in the form of interrogation points.

When the captain approached the end of the four galleries of the Aquarium without having seen more than the maritime animals behind the glistening glasses and a few uninteresting people in the greenish semi-light, he felt all the discouragement of a day lost.

“She won’t come now!...”

In passing from this damp, cellar-like atmosphere to the sunlit garden, the report of the midday gun struck him like an atmospheric blow.  Lunch hour!...  And surely Freya was not going to lunch in the hotel!

During the afternoon his footsteps strayed instinctively toward the hill streets of the district of Chiaja.  All old buildings of manorial aspect invariably attracted his attention.  These were great, reddish houses of the time of the Spanish viceroys, or palaces of the reign of Charles III.  Their broad staircases were adorned with polychrome busts brought from the first excavations in Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Ulysses had faint hopes of running across the widow while passing in front of one of these mansions, now rented in floors and displaying little metal door-plates indicative of office and warehouse.  In one of these undoubtedly must be living the family that was so friendly to Freya.

Then, noticing the whiteness of the showy constructions rising up around the old districts, he became dubious.  The doctor would dwell only in a modern and hygienic edifice.  But not daring to ask questions, he passed on, fearing to be seen from a window.