It, therefore, did not produce the slightest astonishment that this slip of a boy who had been picked up at Dixmude covered with wounds, was now showing himself sane and vigorous....  On board the Mare Nostrum he was the head gunner.  He and two comrades had charge of the quickfirers.  For Caragol there was not the slightest doubt as to the fate of every submarine that should venture to attack them; the “lad from Vannes” would send them to smithereens at the first shot.  A picture post-card, a gift of the lad from Brittany, showing the tomb of the saint, occupied the position of honor in the galley.  The old man used to pray before it as though it were a miracle-working print, and the Cristo del Grao was relegated to second place.

One morning Caragol went in search of the captain and found him writing in his stateroom.  He had just come from making purchases in the shore market.  While passing through the rue de Siam, the most important road in Brest, where the theaters are, the moving-picture shows, and the cafes, he had had an encounter.  “An unexpected meeting,” he continued with a mysterious smile.  “Who do you suppose it was with?...”  Ferragut shrugged his shoulders.  And, noting his indifference, the old man could not keep the secret any longer.

“The lady-bird!” he added.  “That handsome, perfumed lady-bird that used to come to see you....  The one from Naples....  The one from Barcelona....”  The captain turned pale, first with surprise and then with anger.  Freya in Brest!...  Her spy work was reaching even here?...

Caragol went on with his story.  He was returning to the ship, and she, who was walking through the rue de Siam, had recognized him, speaking to him affectionately.

“She asked to be remembered to you....  She has been informed that no foreigner can come aboard.  She told me that she had tried to come to see you.”

The cook began a search through his pockets, extricating a bit of wrinkled paper, a white sheet snatched from an old letter.

“She also gave me this paper, written right there in the street with a lead pencil.  You will know what it says.  I did not wish to look at it.”

Ferragut, on taking the paper, recognized immediately her handwriting, although uneven, nervous and scribbled with great precipitation.  Six words, no more:—­“Farewell, I am going to die.”

“Lies!  Always lies!” said the voice of prudence in his brain.

He tore up the paper and passed the rest of the morning very much preoccupied....  It was his duty to defend himself against this espionage that had even established its base in a port of war....  Every boat anchored near the Mare Nostrum was menaced by Freya’s power to give information.  Who knew but what her mysterious communications would bring about their attack by a submarine on going out from the roadstead of Brest!...

His first impulse was to denounce her.  Then he repented because of his absurd scruples of chivalry....  Besides, he would have to explain his past to the head officers at Brest who knew him very slightly.  He was far from that naval captain at Salonica who had so well understood his passional errors.