He also saw his uncle, the Triton, just as when a little chap he used to listen to him in the harbor of Valencia.  He recalled his story of a certain night of Egyptian orgy in a low cafe in Alexandria where he had had to “sting” a man with his dagger in order to force his way.

Instinct made him carry his hand to his belt.  Nothing!...  He cursed modern life and its uncertain securities, which permit men to go from one side of the world to the other confident, disarmed, without means of attack.  In other ports he would have come ashore with a revolver in the pocket of his trousers....  But in Marseilles!  He was not even carrying a penknife; he had only his fists....  At that moment he would have given his entire vessel, his life even, for an instrument that would enable him to kill ... kill with one blow!...

The bloodthirsty vehemence of the Mediterranean was overwhelming him.  To kill!...  He did not know how he was going to do it, but he must kill.

The first thing was to prevent the escape of his enemy.  He was going to fall upon him with his fists, with his teeth, staging a prehistoric struggle,—­the animal fight before mankind had invented the club.  Perhaps that other man was hiding firearms and might kill him; but he, in his superb vengeance, could see only the death of the enemy, repelling all fear.

In order that his victim might not get out of his sight, he ran toward him without any dissimulation whatever, as though he might have been in the desert, at full speed.  The instinct of attack made him stoop, grasp a piece of wood lying on the ground,—­a kind of rustic handspike,—­and armed in this primitive fashion he continued his race.

All this had lasted but a few seconds.  The other one, perceiving the hostile pursuit, was also running frankly, disappearing among the hills of packages.

The captain saw confusedly that some shadows were leaping around him, preventing his progress.  His eyes that were seeing everything red finally managed to distinguish a few black faces and some white ones....  They were the soldiers and civilian stevedores, alarmed by the aspect of this man who was running like a lunatic.

He uttered a curse upon finding himself stopped.  With the instinct of the multitude, these people were only concerned with the aggressor, letting the one who was fleeing go free.  Ferragut could not keep his wrath bottled up on that account.  He had to reveal his secret.

“He is a spy!...  A Boche spy!...”

He said this in a dull, disjointed voice and never did his word of command obtain such a noisy echo.

“A spy!...”

The cry made men rise up as though vomited forth by the earth; from mouth to mouth it leaped, repeating itself incessantly, penetrating through the docks and the boats, vibrating even beyond the reach of the eye, permeating everywhere with the confusion and rapidity of sound waves.  “A spy!...”  Men came running with redoubled agility; the stevedores were abandoning their loads in order to join the pursuit; people were leaping from the steamers in order to unite in the human hunt.