“The women!...  Ah, the women!” murmured the French chief with the melancholy smile of a magistrate who does not lose sight of human weaknesses and has participated in them.

Nevertheless Ferragut’s transgression was of gravest importance.  He had aided in staging the submarine attack in the Mediterranean....  But when the Spanish captain related how he had been one of the first victims, how his son had died in the torpedoing of the Californian, the judge appeared touched, looking at him less severely.

Then Ferragut related his encounter with the spy in the harbor of Marseilles.

“I have sworn,” he said finally, “to devote my ship and my life to causing all the harm possible to the murderers of my son....  That man is denouncing me in order to avenge himself.  I realize that my headlong blindness dragged me to a crime that I shall never forget.  I am sufficiently punished in the death of my son....  But that does not matter; let them sentence me, too.”

The chief remained sunk in deep reflection, forehead in hand and elbow on the table.  Ferragut recognized here military justice, expeditious, intuitive, passional, attentive to the sentiments that have scarcely any weight in other tribunals, judging by the action of conscience more than by the letter of the law, and capable of shooting a man with the same dispatch that he would employ in setting him at liberty.

When the eyes of the judge again fixed themselves upon him, they had an indulgent light.  He had been guilty, not on account of money nor treason, but crazed by a woman.  Who has not something like this in his own history?...  “Ah, the women!” repeated the Frenchman, as though lamenting the most terrible form of enslavement....  But the victim had already suffered enough in the loss of his son.  Besides, they owed to him the discovery and arrest of an important spy.

“Your hand, Captain,” he concluded, holding out his own.  “All that we have said will be just between ourselves.  It is a sacred, confessional secret.  I will arrange it with the Council of War....  You may continue lending your services to our cause.”

And Ferragut was not annoyed further about the affair of Marseilles.  Perhaps they were watching him discreetly and keeping sight of him in order to convince themselves of his entire innocence; but this suspected vigilance never made itself felt nor occasioned him any trouble.

On the third trip to Salonica the French captain saw him once at a distance, greeting him with a grave smile which showed that he no longer was thinking of him as a possible spy.

Upon its return, the Mare Nostrum anchored at Barcelona to take on cloth for the army service, and other industrial articles of which the troops of the Orient stood in need.  Ferragut did not make this trip for mercantile reasons.  An affectionate interest was drawing him there....  He needed to see Cinta, feeling that in his soul the past was again coming to life.