With a threatening voice, he recalled a classic passage well known to the professor.  His namesake, old Ulysses, upon returning to his palace, had found Penelope surrounded with suitors and had ended by hanging them on tenterhooks.

“Wasn’t that the way of it, Professor?...  I do not find here more than one suitor, but this Ulysses swears to you that he will hang him in the same way if he finds him again in his home.”

Don Pedro fled.  He had always found the rude heroes of the Odyssey very interesting, but in verse and on paper.  In reality they now seemed to him most dangerous brutes, and he wrote a letter to Cinta telling her that he would suspend his visits until her husband should have returned to sea.

This insult increased the wife’s distant bearing.  She resented it as an offense against herself.  After having made her lose her son, Ulysses was terrifying her only friend.

The captain felt obliged to go.  By staying in that hostile atmosphere, which was only sharpening his remorse, he would pile one error upon another.  Nothing but action could make him forget.

One day he announced to Toni that in a few hours he was going to weigh anchor.  He had offered his services to the allied navies in order to carry food to the fleet in the Dardanelles.  The Mare Nostrum would transport eatables, arms, munitions, aeroplanes.

Toni attempted objection.  It would be easy to find trips equally productive and much less dangerous; they might go to America....

“And my revenge?” interrupted Ferragut.  “I am going to dedicate the rest of my life to doing all the evil that I can to the assassins of my son.  The Allies need boats, I’m going to give them mine and my person.”

Knowing what was troubling his mate, he added, “Besides, they pay well.  These trips are very remunerative....  They will give me whatever I ask.”

For the first time in his existence on board the Mare Nostrum, the mate made a scornful gesture regarding the value of the cargo.

“I almost forgot,” continued Ulysses, smiling in spite of his sadness.  “This trip flatters your ideals....  We are going to work for the Republic.”

They went to England and, taking on their cargo, set forth for the Dardanelles.  Ferragut wished to sail alone without the protection of the destroyers that were escorting the convoys.

He knew the Mediterranean well.  Besides, he was from a neutral country and the Spanish flag was flying from the poop of his vessel.  This abuse of his flag did not produce the slightest remorse, nor did it appear as disloyal to him.  The German corsairs were coming closer to their prey, displaying neutral flags, in order to deceive.  The submarines were remaining hidden behind pacific sailing ships in order to rise up suddenly near defenseless vessels.  The most felonious proceedings of the ancient pirates had been resuscitated by the German fleet.