Poor Toni!...  He did not know how to express himself properly, but the very possibility that his beloved sea might witness such crimes gave new vehemence to his indignation.  The soul of Doctor Ferragut appeared to be reviving in this rude Mediterranean sailor.  He had never seen the white Amphitrite, but he trembled for her with a religious fervor, without even knowing her.  Was the luminous blue from which had arisen the early gods to be dishonored by the oily spot that would disclose assassination en masse!...  Were the rosy strands from whose foam Venus had sprung to receive clusters of corpses, impelled by the waves!...  Were the sea-gull wings of the fishing-boats to flee panic-stricken before those gray sharks of steel!...  Were his family and neighbors to be terrified, on awakening, by this floating cemetery washed to their doors during the night!...

He was thinking all this, he was seeing it; but not succeeding in expressing it, so he limited himself to insisting upon his protest: 

“No!...  I won’t tolerate it in our sea!”

Ferragut, in spite of his impetuous character, now adopted a conciliatory tone like that of a father who wishes to convince his scowling and stubborn son.

The German submersibles would confine themselves, in the Mediterranean, to military actions only.  There was no danger of their attacking defenseless barks as in the northern seas.  Their drastic exploits there had been imposed by circumstances, by the sincere desire of terminating the war as quickly as possible, by giving terrifying and unheard-of blows.

“I assure you that in our sea there will be nothing of that sort.  People who ought to know have told me so....  If that had not been the case, I should not have promised to give them aid.”

He affirmed this several times in good faith, with absolute confidence in the people who had given him their promise.

“They will sink, if they can, the ships of the Allies that are in the Dardanelles.  But what does that matter to us?...  That is war!  When we were carrying cannons and guns to the revolutionists in South America we did not trouble ourselves about the use which they might make of them, did we?”

Toni persisted in his negative.

“It is not the same thing....  I don’t know how to express myself, but it is not the same.  There, cannon can be answered by cannon.  He who strikes also receives blows....  But to aid the submarines is a very different thing.  They attack, hidden, without danger....  And I, for my part, do not like treachery.”

Finally his mate’s insistence exasperated Ferragut, exhausting his enforced good nature.

“We will say no more about it,” he said haughtily.  “I am the captain and I command as I see fit....  I have given my promise, and I am not going to break it just to please you....  We have finished.”

Toni staggered as though he had just received a blow on the breast.  His eyes shone again, becoming moist.  After a long period of reflection, he held out his shaggy right hand to the captain.