Freya, staggering under the rude push, again tried to draw near to him, enlacing him again in her arms, in order to repeat her imperious kiss.

“My love!...  My love!...”

She could not go on.  That tremendous hand again repelled her, but so violently that her head struck against the cushions of the divan.

The door trembled with a rude shove that made its two leaves open at the same time, dragging out the bolt of the lock.

The woman, tenacious in her desires, rose up quickly without noticing the pain of her fall.  Nimbleness only could serve her now that Ferragut was escaping after mechanically picking up his hat.

“Ulysses!...  Ulysses!...”

Ulysses was already in the street,—­and in the little hallway various objects of bric-a-brac that had obtruded themselves and confused the fugitive in his blind flight were still trembling and then falling and breaking on the floor with a crash.

Feeling on his forehead the sensation of the free air, the dangers to which Freya had referred now surged up in his mind.  He surveyed the street with a hostile glance....  Nobody!  He longed to meet the enemy of whom that woman had been speaking, to find vent for that wrath which he was feeling even against himself.  He was ashamed and furious at his passing weakness which had almost made him renew their former existence.

In the days following, he repeatedly recalled the band of refugees under the doctor’s control.  When meeting German-looking people on the street, he would glare at them menacingly.  Was he perhaps one of those charged with killing him?...  Then he would pass on, regretting his irritation, sure that they were tradesmen from South America, apothecaries or bank employees undecided whether to return to their home on the other side of the ocean, or to await in Barcelona the always-near triumph of their Emperor.

Finally the captain began to ridicule Freya’s recommendations.

“Just her lies!...  Inventions in order to engage my interest again and make me take her with me!  Ah, the old fraud!”

One morning, as he was stepping out on the deck of his steamer, Toni approached him with a mysterious air, his face assuming an ashy pallor.

When they reached the saloon at the stern, the mate spoke in a low voice, looking around him.

The night before he had gone ashore in order to visit the theater.  All of Toni’s literary tastes and his emotions were concentrated in vaudeville.  Men of talent had never invented anything better.  From it he used to bring back the humming songs with which he beguiled his long watches on the bridge.  Besides, it had a feminine chorus brilliantly clad and bare-legged, a prima donna rich in flesh and poor in clothes, a row of rosy and voluptuous ninepins that delighted the seamen’s imagination without making him forget the obligations of fidelity.

At one o’clock in the morning, when returning to the boat along the solitary entrance pier, some one had tried to assassinate him.  Hearing footsteps, he fancied that he had seen forms hiding behind a mountain of merchandise.  Then there had sounded three reports, three revolver shots.  A ball had whistled by one of his ears.