Caragol, hitherto little interested in military affairs, became most enthusiastic when relating this heroic struggle to Ferragut, simply because his new friends had taken part in it.

“Many died, Captain....  Almost half of them.  But the Germans couldn’t make any headway....  Then, on learning that the marines had been no more than six thousand, the generals tore their hair.  So great was their wrath!  They had supposed that they were confronted by dozens of thousands....  It was just great to hear the lads relate what they did there.”

Among these “lads” wounded in the war, who had passed to the naval reserve and were manning the Mare Nostrum, one was especially distinguished by the old man’s partiality.  He could talk to him in Spanish, because of his transatlantic voyages, and besides he had been born in Vannes.

If the youth ever approached the cook’s dominions he was invariably met with a smile of invitation.  “A refresco, Vicente?” The best seat was for him.  Caragol had forgotten his name as not worth while.  Since he came from Vannes, he could not have any other name but Vicente.

The first day that they chatted together, the marine, in love with his country, described to the cook the beauties of Morbihan,—­a great interior sea surrounded with groves and with islands covered with pines.  Among the venerable antiquities of the city was the Gothic cathedral with its many tombs, among them that of a Spanish saint,—­St. Vicente Ferrer.

This gave a tug at Caragol’s heart-strings.  He had never before bothered to find out where the famous apostle of Valencia was entombed....  He recalled suddenly a strophe of the songs of praise that the devotees of his land used to sing before the altars of this saint.  Sure enough he had gone to die in “Vannes, in Brittainy,”—­a mere geographical name which until then had lacked any significance for him....  And so this lad was from Vannes?  Nothing more was needed to make Caragol regard him with the respect due to one born in a miraculous country.

He made him describe many times the tomb of the saint, the only one in the transept of the cathedral, the moth-eaten tapestries that perpetuated his miracles, the silver bust which guarded his heart....  Furthermore, the principal portal of Vannes was called the gate of St. Vicente and recollections of the saint were still alive in their chronicles.

Caragol proposed to visit this city also when the ship should return to Brest.  Brittainy must be very holy ground, the holiest in the world, since the miracle-working Valencian, after traversing so many nations, had wished to die there.