These eyes began to look at the captain, humbly and pleadingly.

“You!” exclaimed Ulysses in wonder.  “You!...  What are you coming here for?"...

Freya replied with the timidity of a bondslave.  Yes, it was she who had recognized him the day before, long before he had seen her, and at once had formed the plan of coming in search of him.  He could beat her just as at their last meeting:  she was ready to suffer everything ... but with him!

“Save me, Ulysses!  Take me with you!...  I implore you even more anxiously than in Barcelona.”

“What are you doing here?...”

She understood the captain’s amazement on meeting her in a belligerent country, the disquietude he must naturally feel upon finding a spy on his vessel.  She looked around in order to make sure that they were entirely alone and spoke in a low voice.  The doctor had sent her to France in order that she should “operate” in its ports.  Only to him could she reveal the secret.

Ulysses was more indignant than ever at this confidence.

“Clear out!” he said in a wrathful voice.  “I don’t want to know anything about you....  Your affairs do not interest me at all.  I do not wish to know them....  Get out of here!  What are you plaguing me for?”

But she did not appear disposed to comply with his orders.  Instead of departing, she dropped wearily down on one of the divans of the stateroom.

“I have come,” she said, “to beg you to save me.  I ask it for the last time....  I’m going to die; I suspect that my end is very near if you will not hold out a helping hand; I foresee the vengeance of my own people....  Guard me, Ulysses!  Do not make me go back ashore; I am afraid....  So safe I shall feel here at your side!...”

Fear, sure enough, was reflected in her eyes as she recalled the last months of her life in Barcelona.

“The doctor is my enemy....  She who protected me so in other times abandons me now like an old shoe that it is necessary to get rid of.  I am positive that her superior officers have condemned me....”

She shuddered on remembering the doctor’s wrath when on her return from one of her trips she learned of the death of her faithful Karl.  To her, Captain Ferragut was a species of invulnerable and victorious demon who was escaping all dangers and murdering the servants of a good cause.  First von Kramer; now Karl....  As it was necessary for her to vent her wrath on somebody, she had made Freya responsible for all her misfortunes.  Through her she had known the captain, and had mixed him up in the affairs of the “service.”

Thirst for vengeance made the imposing dame smile with a ferocious expression.  The Spanish sailor was doomed by the Highest Command.  Precise orders had been given out against him.  “As to his accomplices!...”  Freya was figuring undoubtedly among these accomplices for having dared to defend Ferragut, for remembering the tragic event of his son, for having refused to join the chorus desiring his extermination.