But on reaching the torre, whose number he still kept in mind, and pausing a few seconds before its architecture of a feudal castle whose interior was probably like that of the beer gardens, he saw the door opening, and appearing in it the same woman that had talked with him in the flower Rambla.

“Come in, Captain.”

And the captain was not able to resist the suggestive smile of the cook.

He found himself in a kind of hall similar to the facade with a Gothic fireplace of alabaster imitating oak, great jars of porcelain, pipes the size of walking-sticks, and old armor adorning the walls.  Various wood-cuts reproducing modern pictures of Munich alternated with these decorations.  Opposite the fireplace William II was displaying one of his innumerable uniforms, resplendent in gold and a gaudy frame.

The house appeared uninhabited.  Heavy soft curtains deadened every sound.  The corpulent go-between had disappeared with the lightness of an immaterial being, as though swallowed up by the wall.  While scowling at the portrait of the Kaiser, the sailor began to feel disquieted in this silence which appeared to him almost hostile....  And he was not carrying arms.

The smiling woman again presented herself with the same slippery smoothness.

“Come in, Don Ulysses.”

She had opened a door, and Ferragut on advancing felt that this door was locked behind him.

The first thing that he could see was a window, broader than it was high, of colored glass.  A Valkyrie was galloping across it, with lance in rest and floating locks, upon a black steed that was expelling fire through its nostrils.  In the diffused light of the stained glass he could distinguish tapestries on the walls and a deep divan with flowered cushions.

A woman arose from the soft depths of this couch, rushing towards Ferragut with outstretched arms.  Her impulse was so violent that it made her collide with the captain.  Before the feminine embrace could close around him he saw a panting mouth, with avid teeth, eyes tearful with emotion, a smile that was a mixture of love and painful disquietude.

“You!...  You!” he stuttered, springing back.

His legs trembled with a shudder of surprise.  A cold wave ran down his back.

“Ulysses!” sighed the woman, trying again to fold him in her arms.

“You!... You!” again repeated the sailor in a dull voice.

It was Freya.

He did not know positively what mysterious force dictated his action.  It was perhaps the voice of his good counselor, accustomed to speak in his brain in critical instants, which now asserted itself....  He saw instantaneously a ship that was exploding and his son blown to pieces.

“Ah ... tal”

He raised his robust arm with his fist clenched like a mace.  The voice of prudence kept on giving him orders.  “Hard!...  No consideration!...  This female is shifty.”  And he struck as though his enemy were a man, without hesitation, without pity, concentrating all his soul in his fist.