A second projectile opened another breach in the poop.  “If it only won’t hit the engines!” the captain was thinking.  After that the Mare Nostrum received no more damage, the following shots merely raising up columns of water in the steamer’s wake.  Every time now, these white phantasms leaped up further and further away.  Although out of the range of the enemy’s gun, it continued shooting and shooting uselessly.  Finally the firing ceased and the submarine disappeared from the view of the glasses and completely submerged, tired of vain pursuit.

“That’ll never happen again!” the captain kept repeating.  “They’ll never attack me another time with impunity!”

Then it occurred to him that this submarine had attack him knowing just who he was.  On the side of his vessel were painted the colors of Spain.  At the first shot from the gun, the third officer had hoisted the flag, but the shots did not cease on that account.  They had wished to sink it “without leaving any trace.”  He believed that Freya, in her relations with the directors of the submarine campaign, must have advised them of his trip.

“Ah,... tal! If I meet her another time!...”

He had to remain several weeks in Marseilles while the damage to his steamer was being repaired.

As Toni lacked occupation during this enforced idleness, he accompanied him many times on his strolls.  They liked to seat themselves on the terrace of a cafe in order to comment upon the picturesque differences in the cosmopolitan crowd.

“Look; people from our own country!” said the captain one evening.

And he pointed to three seamen drawn into the current of different uniforms and types of various races flowing familiarly around the tables of the cafe.

He had recognized them by their silk caps with visors, their blue jackets and their heavy obesity of Mediterranean sailors enjoying a certain prosperity.  They must be skippers of small boats.

As though Ferragut’s looks and gestures had mysteriously notified them, the three turned, fixing their eyes on the captain.  Then they began to discuss among themselves with a vehemence which made it easy to guess their words.

“It is he!...”  “No, it isn’t!...”

Those men knew him but couldn’t believe that they were really seeing him.

They went a little way off with marked indecision, turning repeatedly to look at him once more.  In a few moments one of them, the oldest, returned, approaching the table timidly.

“Excuse me, but aren’t you Captain Ferragut?...”  He asked this question in Valencian, with his right hand at his cap, ready to take it off.

Ulysses stopped his salutation and offered him a seat.  Yes, he was Ferragut.  What did he want?...

The man refused to sit down.  He wished to tell him privately two special things.  When the captain presented to him his mate as a man in whom they could have complete confidence, he then sat down.  The two companions, breaking through the human current, were standing on the edge of the sidewalk, turning their backs to the cafe.