Ferragut realized that in normal times, he would have gone to his death just as he had lived, continuing a monotonous and uniform existence.  Now the violent changes around him were resuscitating the dormant personalities which we all carry within us as souvenirs of our ancestors, revolving around a central and keen personality the only one that has existed until then.

The world was in a state of war.  The men of Middle Europe were clashing with the other half on the battlefields.  Both sides had a mystic ideal, affirming it with violence and slaughter just as the multitudes have always done when moved by religious or revolutionary certainty accepted as the only truth....

But the sailor recognized a profound difference in the two masses struggling at the present day.  One was placing its ideal in the past, wishing to rejuvenate the sovereignty of Force, the divinity of war, and adapt it to actual life.  The other throng was preparing for the future, dreaming of a world of free democracy, of nations at peace, tolerant and without jealousy.

Upon adjusting himself to this new atmosphere, Ferragut began to feel within him ideas and aspirations that were, perhaps, an ancestral legacy.  He fancied he could hear his uncle, the Triton, describing the impact of the men of the North upon the men of the South when trying to make themselves masters of the blue mantle of Amphitrite.  He was a Mediterranean, but just because the country in which he had been born happened to be uninterested in the fate of the world, he was not going to remain indifferent.

He ought to continue just where he was.  Whatever Toni had told him of Latinism and Mediterranean civilization, he now accepted as great truths.  Perhaps they might not be exact when examined in the light of pure reason, but they were worth as much as the assurances of the others.

He was going to continue his life of navigation with new enthusiasm.  He had faith, the ideals, the illusions that heroes are made of.  While the war lasted he would assist in his own way, acting as an auxiliary to those who were fighting, transporting all that was necessary to the struggle.  He began to look with greater respect upon the sailors obedient to his orders, simple folk who had given their blood without fine phrases and without arguments.

When peace should come he would not, therefore, retire from the sea.  There would still be much to be done.  Then would begin the commercial war, the sharp rivalry to conquer the markets of the younger nations of America.  Audacious and enormous plans were outlining themselves in his brain.  In this war he might perhaps become a leader.  He dreamed of the creation of a fleet of steamers that might reach even to the coast of the Pacific; he wished to contribute his means to the victorious re-birth of the race which had discovered the greater part of the planet.

His new faith made him more friendly with the ship’s cook, feeling the attraction of his invincible illusions.  From time to time he would amuse himself consulting the old fellow as to the future fate of the steamer; he wished to know if the submarines were causing him any fear.