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 reenforce 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.