“Ah, these females!...  The devil always follows after petticoats like a lap-dog....  They are the ruination of our life.”

And the wrathful chastity of the cook continued hurling against womankind insults and curses equal to those of the first fathers of the church.

One morning the men washing down the deck sent a cry passing from stem to stern,—­“The captain!” They saw him approaching in a launch, and the word was passed along through staterooms and corridors, giving new force to their arms, and lighting up their sluggish countenances.  The mate came up on deck and Caragol stuck his head out through the door of his kitchen.

At the very first glance, Toni foresaw that something important was about to happen.  The captain had a lively, happy air.  At the same time, he saw in the exaggerated amiability of his smile a desire to conciliate them, to bring sweetly before them something which he considered of doubtful acceptation.

“Now you’ll be satisfied,” said Ferragut, giving his hand, “we are going to weigh anchor soon.”

They entered the saloon.  Ulysses looked around his boat with a certain strangeness as though returning to it after a long voyage.  It looked different to him; certain details rose up before his eyes that had never attracted his attention before.

He recapitulated in a lightning cerebral flash all that had occurred in less than two weeks.  For the first time he realized the great change in his life since Freya had come to the steamer in search of him.

He saw himself in his room in the hotel opposite her, dressed like a man, and looking out over the gulf while smoking.

“I am a German woman, and ...”

Her mysterious life, even its most incomprehensible details, was soon to be explained.

She was a German woman in the service of her country.  Modern war had aroused the nations en masse; it was not as in other centuries, a clash of diminutive, professional minorities that have to fight as a business.  All vigorous men were now going to the battlefield, and the others were working in industrial centers which had been converted into workshops of war.  And this general activity was also taking in the women who were devoting their labor to factories and hospitals, or their intelligence on the other side of the frontiers, to the service of their country.

Ferragut, surprised by this outright revelation, remained silent, but finally ventured to formulate his thought.

“According to that, you are a spy?"...

She heard the word with contempt.  That was an antiquated term which had lost its primitive significance.  Spies were those who in other times,—­when only the professional soldiers took part in war,—­had mixed themselves in the operations voluntarily or for money, surprising the preparations of the enemy.  Nowadays, with the mobilization of the nations en masse, the old official spy—­a contemptible and villainous creature, daring death for money—­had practically disappeared.  Nowadays there only existed patriots—­anxious to work for their country, some with weapons in their hands, others availing themselves of their astuteness, or exploiting the qualities of their sex.