Upon treading the deck of the Mare Nostrum, his enforced satisfaction became immeasurably increased.  Here only could he live far from the complications and illusions of terrestrial life.

All those aboard who in previous weeks had feared the arrival of the ill-humored captain, now smiled as though they saw the sun coming out after a tempest.  He distributed kindly words and affectionate grasps of the hand.  The repairs were going to be finished the following day....  Very good!  He was entirely content.  Soon they would be on the sea again.

In the galley he greeted Uncle Caragol....  That man was a philosopher.  All the women in the world were not in his estimation worth a good dish of rice.  Ah, the great man!...  He surely was going to live to be a hundred!  And the cook flattered by such praises, whose origin he did not happen to comprehend, responded as always,—­“That is so, my captain.”

Toni, silent, disciplined and familiar, inspired him with no less admiration.  His life was an upright life, firm and plain, as the road of duty.  When the young officials used to talk in his presence of boisterous suppers on shore with women from distant countries, the pilot had always shrugged his shoulders.  “Money and pleasure ought to be kept for the home,” he would say sententiously.

Ferragut had laughed many times at the virtue of his mate who, timid and torpid, used to pass over a great part of the planet without permitting himself any distraction whatever, but would awake with an overpowering tension whenever the chances of their voyage brought him the opportunity of a few days’ stay in his home in the Marina.

And with the tranquil grossness of the virtuous stay-at-home, he was accustomed to calculate the dates of his voyages by the age of his eight children.  “This one was on returning from the Philippines....  This other one after I was in the coast trade in the Gulf of California....”

His methodical serenity, incapable of being perturbed by frivolous adventures, made him guess from the very first the secret of the captain’s enthusiasm and wrath.  “It must be a woman,” he said to himself, upon seeing him installed in a hotel in Naples, and after feeling the effects of his bad humor in the fleeting appearances that he made on board.

Now, listening to Ferragut’s jovial comments on his mate’s tranquil life and philosophic sagacity, Toni again ejaculated mentally, without the captain’s suspecting anything from his impassive countenance:  “Now he has quarreled with the woman.  He has tired of her.  But better so!”

He was more than ever confirmed in this belief on hearing Ferragut’s plans.  As soon as the boat could be made ready, they were going to anchor in the commercial port.  He had been told of a certain cargo for Barcelona,—­some cheap freight,—­but that was better than going empty....  If the cargo should be delayed, they would set sail merely with ballast.  More than anything else, he wished to renew his trips.  Boats were scarcer and more in demand all the time.  It was high time to stop this enforced inertia.