Ferragut recognized them at once upon passing them in the Rambla.  Some were dealers, traders established for a long time in the country, bragging of their Catalan connections with that lying facility of adaptability peculiar to their race.  Others came from South America and were associated with those in Barcelona by the free-masonry of comradeship and patriotic interest.  But they were all Germans, and that was enough to make the captain immediately recall his son, planning bloody vengeance.  He sometimes wished to have in his arm all the blind forces of Nature in order to blot out his enemies with one blow.  It annoyed him to see them established in his country, to have to pass them daily without protest and without aggression, respecting them because the laws demanded it.

He used to like to stroll among the flower stands of the Rambla, between the two walls of recently-cut flowers that were still guarding in their corollas the dews of daybreak.  Each iron table was a pyramid formed of all the hues of the rainbow and all the fragrance that the earth can bring forth.

The fine weather was beginning.  The trees of the Ramblas were covering themselves with leaves and in their shady branches were twittering thousands of birds with the deafening tenacity of the crickets.

The captain found special enjoyment in surveying the ladies in lace mantillas who were selecting bouquets in the refreshing atmosphere.  No situation, however anguished it might be, ever left him insensible to feminine attractions.

One morning, passing slowly through the crowds, he noticed that a woman was following him.  Several times she crossed his path, smiling at him, hunting a pretext for beginning conversation.  Such insistence was not particularly gratifying to his pride; for she was a female of protruding bust and swaying hips, a cook with a basket on her arm, like many others who were passing through the Rambla in order to add a bunch of flowers to the daily purchase of eatables.

Finding that the sailor was not moved by her smiles nor the glances from her sharp eyes, she planted herself before him, speaking to him in Catalan.

“Excuse me, sir, but are you not a ship captain named Don Ulysses?...”

This started the conversation.  The cook, convinced that it was he, continued talking with a mysterious smile.  A most beautiful lady was desirous of seeing him....  And she gave him the address of a towered villa situated at the foot of Tibidabo in a recently constructed district.  He could make his visit at three in the afternoon.

“Come, sir,” she added with a look of sweet promise.  “You will never regret the trip.”

All questions were useless.  The woman would say no more.  The only thing that could be gathered from her evasive answers was that the person sending her had left her upon seeing the captain.

When the messenger had gone away he wished to follow her.  But the fat old wife shook her head repeatedly.  Her astuteness was quite accustomed to eluding pursuit, and without Ferragut’s knowing exactly how, she slipped away, mingling with the groups near the Plaza of Catalunia.