“Salute the ladies in my name.  Tell them that they will soon have news of us.  We are going to make ourselves lords of the Mediterranean.”

The unloading of combustibles still continued.  Ferragut saw von Kramer slipping through the openings of one of the submarines.  Then he thought he recognized on the submersible two of the sailors of the crew of the schooner who, after being received with shouts and embraces by their comrades, disappeared through a tubular hatchway.

The unloading lasted until mid-afternoon.  Ulysses had not imagined that the little boat could carry so many cases.  When the hold was empty, the last German sailors disappeared and with them the cables that had lashed them to the sailboat.  An officer shouted to him that he could get under way.

The two submersibles with their cargo of oil and gasoline were nearer the level of the sea than on their arrival and now began to disappear in the distance.

Finding himself alone in the stern of the schooner, the Spaniard felt a sudden disquietude.

“What have you done!...  What have you done!” clamored a voice in his brain.

But contemplating the three old men and the boy who had remained as the only crew, he forgot his remorse.  He would have to bestir himself greatly in order to supply the lack of men.  For two nights and a day he scarcely rested, managing almost at the same time both helm and motor, since he did not dare to let out all his sails with this scarcity of sailors.

When he found himself opposite the port of Palermo, just as it was beginning to extinguish its night lights, Ferragut was able to sleep for the first time, leaving the watch of the boat in charge of one of the seamen, who maintained it with sails furled.  In the middle of the morning he was awakened by some voices shouting from the sea: 

“Where is the captain?”

He saw a skiff and various men leaping aboard the schooner.  It was the owner who had come to claim, his boat in order to bring it into port in the customary legal form.  The skiff was commissioned to take Ulysses ashore with his little suitcase.  He was accompanied by a red-faced, fat gentleman who appeared to have great authority over the skipper.

“I suppose you are already informed of what is happening,” he said to Ferragut while the two oarsmen made the skiff glide over the waves.  “Those bandits!...  Those mandolin-players!...”

Ulysses, without knowing why, made an affirmative gesture.  This indignant burgher was a German, one of those that were useful to the doctor....  It was enough just to listen to him.

A half hour later Ferragut leaped on the dock without any one’s opposing his disembarking, as though the protection of his obese companion had made all the guards drowsy.  The good gentleman showed, notwithstanding, a fervent desire to separate himself from his charge—­to hurry away, attending to his own affairs.