Chapter IX: The Encounter at Marseilles (2)

He stopped a few seconds, searching for a more concrete affirmation.

"I am fighting, Captain, because of Danton and Hoche."

Ferragut in his imagination saw the white, disheveled hair of Michelet and the romantic foretop of Lamartine upon a double pedestal of volumes which used to contain the story-poem of the Revolution.

"And I am also fighting for France," concluded the lad triumphantly, "because it is the country of Victor Hugo."

Ulysses suspected that this twenty-year-old Republican was probably hiding in his knapsack a blank book full of original verses written in lead pencil.

The South American, accustomed to the disputes of his two companions, looked at his black fingernails with the melancholy desperation of a prophet contemplating his country in ruins. Blanes, the son of a middle-class citizen, used to admire him for his more distinguished family. The day of the mobilization he had gone to Paris in an automobile of fifty horse-power to enroll as a volunteer; he and his chauffeur had enlisted together. Then he had donated his luxurious vehicle to the cause.

He had wished to be a soldier because all the young fellows in his club were leaving for the war. Furthermore, he felt greatly flattered that his latest sweetheart, seeing him in uniform, should devote a few tears of admiration and astonishment to him. He had felt the necessity of producing a touching effect upon all the ladies that had danced the tango with him up to the week before. Besides that, the millions of his grandfather, "the Galician," held rather tight by his father, the Creole, were slipping through his hands.

"This experience is lasting too long, Captain."

In the beginning he had believed in a six months' war. The shells didn't trouble him much; for him the terrible things were the vermin, the impossibility of changing his clothing, and being deprived of his daily bath. If he could ever have supposed!...

And he summed up his enthusiasm with this affirmation:

"I am fighting for France because it is a _chic_ country. Only in Paris do the women know how to dress. Those Germans, no matter how much they try, will always be very ordinary."

It was not necessary to add anything to this. All had been said.

The three recalled the hellish months suffered recently in the Dardanelles, in a space of three miles conquered by the bayonet. A rain of projectiles had fallen incessantly upon them. They had had to live underground like moles and, even so, the explosion of the great shells sometimes reached them.

In this tongue of land opposite Troy through which had slipped the remote history of humanity, their shovels, on opening the trenches, had stumbled upon the rarest finds. One day Blanes and his companions had excavated pitchers, statuettes, and plates centuries old. At other times, when opening trenches that had served as cemeteries for Turks, they had hacked into repulsive bits of pulp exhaling an insufferable odor. Self-defense had obliged the legionaries to live with their faces on a level with the corpses that were piled up in the vertical yard of removed earth.

"The dead are like the truffles in a pie," said the South American. "An entire day I had to remain with my nose touching the intestines of a Turk who had died two weeks before.... No, war is not _chic_, Captain, no matter how much they talk of heroism and sublime things in the newspapers and books."

Ulysses wished to see the three musketeers again before leaving Salonica, but the battalion had broken camp and was now situated several kilometers further inland, opposite the first Bulgarian lines. The enthusiastic Blanes had already fired his gun against the assassins of Roger de Flor.

In the middle of November the _Mare Nostrum_ arrived at Marseilles. Its captain always felt a certain admiration upon doubling Cape Croisette, and noting the vast maritime curves opening out before the prow. In the center of it was an abrupt and bare hill, jutting into the sea, sustaining on its peak the basilica and square-sided tower of _Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde._

Marseilles was the metropolis of the Mediterranean, the terminal for all the navigators of the _mare nostrum_. In its bay with choppy waves were various yellowish islands fringed with foam and upon one of these the strong towers of the romantic _Château d'If_.

All the crew, from Ferragut down to the lowest seaman, used to look upon this city somewhat as their own when they saw, appearing in the background of the bay, its forests of masts and its conglomeration of gray edifices upon which sparkled the Byzantian domes of the new cathedral. Around Marseilles there opened out a semi-circle of dry and barren heights brightly colored by the sun of Provence and spotted by white cottages and hamlets, and the pleasure villas of the merchants of the city. On beyond this semi-circle the horizon was bounded by an amphitheater of rugged and gloomy mountains.

On former trips the sight of the gigantic gilded Virgin which glistened like a shaft of fire on the top of _Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde_ shed an atmosphere of joy over the bridge of the vessel.

"Marseilles, Toni," the captain used to say gayly. "I invite you to a _bouillabaisse_ at Pascal's."

And Toni's hairy countenance would break into a greedy smile, seeing in anticipation the famous restaurant of the port, its twilight shadows smelling of shell-fish and spicy sauces, and upon the table the deep dish of fish with its succulent broth tinged with saffron.

But now Ulysses had lost his vigorous joy in living. He looked at the city with kindly but sad eyes. He could see himself disembarking there that last time, sick, without will-power, overwhelmed by the tragic disappearance of his son.

The _Mare Nostrum_ approached the mouth of the old harbor having at its right the batteries of the _Phare_. This old port was the most interesting souvenir of ancient Marseilles, penetrating like an aquatic knife into the heart of its clustered homes. The city extended along the wharves. It was an enormous stretch of water into which all the streets flowed; but its area was now so insufficient for the maritime traffic that eight new harbors were gradually covering the north shore of the bay.

An interminable jetty, a breakwater longer than the city itself, was parallel to the coast, and in the space between the shore and this obstacle which made the waves foam and roar were eight roomy communicating harbors stretching from Joliette at the entrance to the one which, farthest away, is connected inland by the great subterranean canal, putting the city in communication with the Rhone.

Ferragut had seen anchored in this succession of harbors the navies of every land and even of every epoch. Near to the enormous transatlantic liners were some very ancient tartans and some Greek boats, heavy and of archaic form, which recalled the fleets described in the Iliad.

On the wharves swarmed all kinds of Mediterranean men,--Greeks from the continent and from the islands, Levantines from the coast of Asia, Spaniards, Italians, Algerians, Moroccans, Egyptians. Many had kept their original costume and to this varied picturesque garb was united a diversity of tongues, some of them mysterious and well-nigh extinct. As though infected by the oral confusion, the French themselves began to forget their native language, speaking the dialect of Marseilles, which preserves indelible traces of its Greek origin.

The _Mare Nostrum_ crossed the outer port, the inner harbor of Joliette, and slipped slowly along past groups of pedestrians and carts that were waiting the closing of the steel drawbridge now opening before their prow. Then they cast anchor in the basin of Arenc near the docks.

When Ferragut could go ashore he noticed the great transformation which this port had undergone in war times.

The traffic of the times of peace with its infinite variety of wares no longer existed. On the wharves there were piled up only the monotonous and uniform loads of provisions and war material.

The legions of longshoremen had also disappeared. They were all in the trenches. The sidewalks were now swept by women, and squads of Senegalese sharpshooters were unloading the cargoes,--shivering with cold in the sunny winter days, and bent double as though dying under the rain or the breeze of the Mistral. They were working with red caps pulled down over their ears, and at the slightest suspension of their labor would hasten to put their hands in the pockets of their coats. Sometimes when formed in vociferating groups around a case that four men could have moved in ordinary times, the passing of a woman or a vehicle would make them neglect their work, their diabolical faces filled with childish curiosity.

The unloaded cargoes piled up the same articles on the principal docks,--wheat, much wheat, sulphur and saltpeter for the composition of explosive material. On other piers were lined up, by the thousands, pairs of gray wheels, the support of cannons and trucks; boxes as big as dwellings that contained aeroplanes; huge pieces of steel that served as scaffolding for heavy artillery; great boxes of guns and cartridges; huge cases of preserved food and sanitary supplies,--all the provisioning of the army struggling in the extreme end of the Mediterranean.

Various squads of men, preceded and followed by bayonets, were marching with rhythmic tread from one port to another. They were German prisoners,--rosy and happy, in spite of their captivity, still wearing their uniforms of green cabbage color, with round caps on their shaved heads. They were going to work on the vessels, loading and unloading the material that was to serve for the extermination of their compatriots and friends.

The ships at the docks seemed to be increasing in size, for on arrival they had extended only a few yards above the wharf; but now that their cargo was piled up on land, they appeared like towering fortresses. Two-thirds of the hull, usually hidden in the water, were now in evidence, showing the bright red of their curved shell. Only the keel kept itself in the water. The upper third, that which remained visible above the line of flotation in ordinary times, was now a simple black cornice that capped the long purple walls. The masts and smokestacks diminished by this transformation appeared to belong to other smaller boats.

Each of these merchant and peaceful steamers carried a quickfirer at the stern in order to protect itself from the submarine corsairs. England and France had mobilized their tramp ships and were beginning to supply them with means of defense. Some of them had not been able to mount their cannon upon a fixed gun carriage, and so carried a field gun with its mouth sticking out between the wheels bolted to the deck.

The captain in all his strolls invariably felt attracted by the famous Cannebiere, that engulfing roadway which sucks in the entire activity of Marseilles.

Some days a fresh and violent wind would eddy through, littering it with dust and papers, and the waiters of the cafes would have to furl the great awnings as though they were the sails of a vessel. The Mistral was approaching and every owner of an establishment was ordering this maneuver in order to withstand the icy hurricane that overturns tables, snatches away chairs, and carries off everything which is not secured with marine cables.

To Ferragut this famous avenue of Marseilles was a reminder of the antechamber of Salonica. The same types from the army of the East crowded its sidewalks,--English dressed in khaki, Canadians and Australians in hats with up-turned brims, tall, slender Hindoos with coppery complexion and thick fan-shaped beards, Senegalese sharpshooters of a glistening black, and Anammite marksmen with round yellow countenance and eyes forming a triangle. There was a continual procession of dark trucks driven by soldiers, automobiles full of officers, droves of mules coming from Spain that were going to be shipped to the Orient, leaving behind their quick-trotting hoofs a pungent and penetrating smell of the stable.

The old harbor attracted Ferragut because of its antiquity which was almost as remote as that of the first Mediterranean navigations. On passing before the Palace of the Bourse he shot a glance at the statue of the two great Marseillaise navigators,--Eutymenes and Pytas,--the most remote ancestors of Mediterranean navigators. One had explored the coast of Senegambia, the other had gone further up to Ireland and the Orkney Islands.

The ancient Greek colony had been, during long centuries, supplanted by others,--Venice, Genoa and Barcelona having held it in humble subjection. But when those had fallen and its hour of prosperity returned, that prosperity was accompanied by all the advantages of the present day. Steam machinery had been invented and boats were easily able to overcome the obstacles of the Strait of Cadiz without being obliged to wait weeks until the violence of the current sent by the Atlantic should abate. Industrialism was born and inland factories sent forward, over the recently-installed railroads, a downpour of products that the fleets were transporting to all the Mediterranean towns. Finally, upon the opening of the Isthmus of Suez, the city unfolded in a prodigious way, becoming a world port, putting itself in touch with the entire earth, multiplying its harbors, which became gigantic marine sheepfolds where vessels of every flag were gathered together in herds.

The old port, boxed in the city, changed its aspect according to the time and state of the atmosphere. On calm mornings it was a yellowish green and smelled slightly of stale water,--organic water, animal water. The oyster stands established on its wharfs appeared sprinkled with this water impregnated by shell fish.

On the days of a strong wind the waters turned a terrible dark green, forming choppy and continuous waves with a light yellowish foam. The boats would begin to dance, creaking and tugging at their hawsers. Between their hulls and the vertical surface of the wharfs would be formed mountains of restless rubbish eaten underneath by the fish and pecked above by the sea-gulls.

Ferragut saw the swift torpedo destroyers dancing at the slightest undulation upon their cables of twisted steel, and examined the improvised submarine-chasers, robust and short little steamers, constructed for fishing, that carried quickfirers on their prows. All these vessels were painted a metallic gray to make them indistinguishable from the color of the water, and were going in and out of the harbor like sentinels changing watch.

They mounted guard out on the high sea beyond the rocky and desert islands that closed the bay of Marseilles, accosting the incoming ships in order to recognize their nationality or running at full speed, with their wisps of horizontal smoke toward the point where they expected to surprise the periscope of the enemy hidden between two waters. There was no weather bad enough to terrify them or make them drowsy. In the wildest storms they kept the coast in view, leaping from wave to wave, and only when others came to relieve them would they return to the old port to rest a few hours at the entrance of the Cannebière.

The narrow passageways of the right bank attracted Ferragut. This was ancient Marseilles in which may still be seen some ruined palaces of the merchants and privateers of other centuries. On these narrow and filthy slopes lived the bedizened and dismal prostitutes of the entire maritime city.

In this district were huddled together the warriors of the French-African colonies, impelled by their ardor of race and by their desire to free themselves gluttonously from the restrictions of their Mahommedan country where the women live in jealous seclusion. On every corner were groups of Moroccan infantry, recently disembarked or convalescing from wounds, young soldiers with red caps and long cloaks of mustard yellow. The Zouaves of Algiers conversed with them in a Spanish spattered with Arabian and French. Negro youths who worked as stokers in the vessels, came up the steep, narrow streets with eyes sparkling restlessly as though contemplating wholesale rapine. Under the doorways disappeared grave Moorish horsemen, trailing long garments fastened at the head in a ball of whiteness, or garbed in purplish mantles, with sharp pointed hoods that gave them the aspect of bearded, crimson-clad monks.

The captain went through the upper end of these streets, stopping appreciatively to note the rude contrast which they made with their terminal vista. Almost all descended to the old harbor with a ditch of dirty water in the middle of the gutter that dribbled from stone to stone. They were dark as the tubes of a telescope, and at the end of these evil smelling ditches occupied by abandoned womanhood, there opened out a great space of light and blue color where could be seen little white sailboats, anchored at the foot of the hill, a sheet of sparkling water and the houses of the opposite wharf diminished by the distance. Through other gaps appeared the mountain of _Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde_ with its sharp pointed Basilica topped by its gleaming statue, like an immovable, twisted tongue of flame. Sometimes a torpedo destroyer entering the old harbor could be seen slipping by the mouth of one of these passageways as shadowy as though passing before the glass of a telescope.

Feeling fatigued by the bad smells and vicious misery of the old district, the sailor returned to the center of the city, strolling among the trees and flower stands of the avenues....

One evening while awaiting with others a street car in the Cannebiere, he turned his head with a presentiment that some one was looking at his back.

Sure enough! He saw behind him on the edge of the sidewalk an elegantly-dressed, clean-shaven gentleman whose aspect was that of an Englishman careful of his personal appearance. The dapper man had stopped in surprise as though he might have just recognized Ferragut.

The two exchanged glances without awakening the slightest echo in the captain's memory.... He could not recall this man. He was almost sure of never having seen him before. His shaven face, his eyes of a metallic gray, his elegant pomposity did not enlighten the Spaniard's memory. Perhaps the unknown had made a mistake.

This must have been the case, judging by the rapidity with which he withdrew his glance from Ferragut and went hastily away.

The captain attached no importance to this encounter. He had already forgotten it when, taking the car but a few minutes later, it recurred to him in a new light. The face of the Englishman presented itself to his imagination with the distinct relief of reality. He could see it more clearly than in the dying splendor of the Cannebière.... He passed with indifference over his features; in reality he had seen them for the first time. But the eyes!... He knew those eyes perfectly. They had often exchanged glances with him. Where?... When?...

The memory of this man accompanied him as an obsession even to his ship without giving the slightest answer to his questioning. Then, finding himself on board with Toni and the third officer, he again forgot it.

Upon going ashore on the following days, his memory invariably experienced the same phenomena. The captain would be going through the city without any thought of that individual, but on entering the Cannebière the same remembrance, followed by an inexplicable anxiety, would again surge up in his mind.

"I wonder where my Englishman is now," he would think. "Where have I seen him before?... Because there is no doubt that we are acquainted with each other."

From that time on, he would look curiously at all the passersby and sometimes would hasten his step in order to examine more closely some one whose back resembled the haunting unknown. One afternoon he felt sure that he recognized him in a hired carriage whose horse was going at a lively trot through one of the avenues, but when he tried to follow it the vehicle had disappeared into a nearby street.

Some days passed by and the captain completely forgot the meeting. Other affairs more real and immediate were demanding his attention. His boat was ready; they were going to send it to England in order to load it with munitions destined for the army of the Orient.

The morning of its departure he went ashore without any thought of going to the center of the city.

In one of the wharf streets there was a barber shop frequented by Spanish captains. The picturesque chatter of the barber, born in Cartagena, the gay, brilliant chromos on the walls representing bullfights, the newspapers from Madrid, forgotten on the divans, and a guitar in one corner made this shop a little bit of Spain for the rovers of the Mediterranean.

Before sailing, Ferragut wished to have his beard clipped by this verbose master. When, an hour later, he left the barber-shop, tearing himself away from the interminable farewells of the proprietor, he passed down a broad street, lonely and silent, between two rows of docks.

The steel-barred gates were closed and locked. The warehouses, empty and resounding as the naves of a cathedral, still exhaled the strong odors of the wares which they had kept in times of peace,--vanilla, cinnamon, rolls of leather, nitrates and phosphates for chemical fertilizers.

In all the long street he saw only one man, coming toward him with his back to the inner harbor. Between the two long walls of brick appeared in the background the wharf with its mountains of merchandise, its squadrons of black stevedores, wagons and carts. On beyond were the hulls of the ships sustaining their grove of masts and smokestacks and, at the extreme end, the yellow breakwater and the sky recently washed by the rain, with flocks of little clouds as white and placid as silky sheep.

The man who was returning from the dock and walking along with his eyes fixed on Ferragut suddenly stopped and, turning upon his tracks, returned again to the quay.... This movement awakened the captain's curiosity, sharpening his senses. Suddenly he had a presentiment that this pedestrian was his Englishman, though dressed differently and with less elegance. He could only see his rapidly disappearing back, but his instinct in this moment was superior to his eyes.... He did not need to look further.... It was the Englishman.

And without knowing why, he hastened his steps in order to catch up with him. Then he broke into a run, finding that he was alone in the street, and that the other one had disappeared around the corner.

When Ferragut reached the harbor he could see him hastening away with an elastic step which amounted almost to flight. Before him was a ridge of bundles piled up in uneven rows. He was going to lose sight of him; a minute later it would be impossible to find him.

The captain hesitated. "What motive have I for pursuing this unknown person?..." And just as he was formulating this question, the other one slowed down a little in order to turn his head and see if he were still being followed.

Suddenly a rapid phenomenal transformation took place in Ferragut. He had not recognized this man's glance when he had almost run into him on the sidewalk of the Cannebiere, and now that there was between the two a distance of some fifty yards, now that the other was fleeing and showing only a fugitive profile, the captain identified him despite the fact that he could not distinguish him clearly at such a distance.

With a sharp click a curtain of his memory seemed to be dashed aside, letting in torrents of light.... It was the counterfeit Russian count, he was sure of that,--shaven and disguised, who undoubtedly was "operating" in Marseilles, directing new services, months after having prepared the entrance of the submersibles into the Mediterranean.

Surprise held Ferragut spellbound. With the same imaginative rapidity with which a drowning person giddily recalls all the scenes of his former life, the captain now beheld his infamous existence in Naples, his expedition in the schooner carrying supplies to the submarines and then the torpedo which had opened a breach in the _Californian_.... And this man, perhaps, was the one who had made his poor son fly through the air in countless pieces!...

He also saw his uncle, the _Triton_, just as when a little chap he used to listen to him in the harbor of Valencia. He recalled his story of a certain night of Egyptian orgy in a low café in Alexandria where he had had to "sting" a man with his dagger in order to force his way.

Instinct made him carry his hand to his belt. Nothing!... He cursed modern life and its uncertain securities, which permit men to go from one side of the world to the other confident, disarmed, without means of attack. In other ports he would have come ashore with a revolver in the pocket of his trousers.... But in Marseilles! He was not even carrying a penknife; he had only his fists.... At that moment he would have given his entire vessel, his life even, for an instrument that would enable him to kill ... kill with one blow!...

The bloodthirsty vehemence of the Mediterranean was overwhelming him. To kill!... He did not know how he was going to do it, but he must kill.

The first thing was to prevent the escape of his enemy. He was going to fall upon him with his fists, with his teeth, staging a prehistoric struggle,--the animal fight before mankind had invented the club. Perhaps that other man was hiding firearms and might kill him; but he, in his superb vengeance, could see only the death of the enemy, repelling all fear.

In order that his victim might not get out of his sight, he ran toward him without any dissimulation whatever, as though he might have been in the desert, at full speed. The instinct of attack made him stoop, grasp a piece of wood lying on the ground,--a kind of rustic handspike,--and armed in this primitive fashion he continued his race.

All this had lasted but a few seconds. The other one, perceiving the hostile pursuit, was also running frankly, disappearing among the hills of packages.

The captain saw confusedly that some shadows were leaping around him, preventing his progress. His eyes that were seeing everything red finally managed to distinguish a few black faces and some white ones.... They were the soldiers and civilian stevedores, alarmed by the aspect of this man who was running like a lunatic.

He uttered a curse upon finding himself stopped. With the instinct of the multitude, these people were only concerned with the aggressor, letting the one who was fleeing go free. Ferragut could not keep his wrath bottled up on that account. He had to reveal his secret.

"He is a spy!... A _Boche_ spy!..."

He said this in a dull, disjointed voice and never did his word of command obtain such a noisy echo.

"A spy!..."

The cry made men rise up as though vomited forth by the earth; from mouth to mouth it leaped, repeating itself incessantly, penetrating through the docks and the boats, vibrating even beyond the reach of the eye, permeating everywhere with the confusion and rapidity of sound waves. "A spy!..." Men came running with redoubled agility; the stevedores were abandoning their loads in order to join the pursuit; people were leaping from the steamers in order to unite in the human hunt.

The author of the noisy alarm, he who had given the cry, saw himself outdistanced and ignored by the pursuing streams of people which he had just called forth. Ferragut, always running, remained behind the negro sharpshooters, the stevedores, the harbor guard, the seamen that were hastening from all sides crowding in the alleyways between the boxes and bundles.... They were like the greyhounds that follow the windings of the forest, making the stag come out in the open field, like the ferrets that slip along through the subterranean valleys, obliging the hare to return to the light of day. The fugitive, surrounded in a labyrinth of passageways, colliding with enemies at every turn, came running out through the opposite end and continued his race the whole length of the wharf. The chase lasted but a few instants after coming out on ground free of obstacles. "A spy!..." The voice, more rapid than the legs, out distanced him. The cries of the pursuers warned the people who were working afar off, without understanding the alarm.

Suddenly the fugitive was within a concave semi-circle of men who were awaiting him firmly, and a convex semi-circle following his footsteps in irregular pursuit. The two multitudes, closing their extremes, united and the spy was a prisoner.

Ferragut saw that he was intensely pale, panting, casting his eyes around him with the expression of an animal at bay, but still thinking of the possibility of defending himself.

His right hand was feeling around one of his pockets. Perhaps he was going to draw out a revolver in order to die, defending himself. A negro nearby raised a beam of wood which he was grasping as a club. The spy's hand, displaying a bit of paper between the fingers, was hastily raised toward his mouth; but the negro's blow, suspended in the air, fell upon his arm, making it hang inert. The spy bit his lips in order to keep back a roar of pain.

The paper had rolled upon the ground and several hands at once tried to pick it up. A petty officer smoothed it out before examining it. It was a piece of thin paper sketched with the outline of the Mediterranean. The entire sea was laid out in squares like a chess board and in the center of each of these squares there was a number. These squares were charted sections whose numbers made the submarines know, by wireless, where they were to lie in wait for the allied vessels and torpedo them.

Another officer explained rapidly to the people crowding close, the importance of the discovery. "Indeed he was a spy!" This affirmation awakened the joy of capture and that impulsive desire for vengeance that at certain times crazes a crowd.

The men from the boats were the most furious, for the very reason that they were constantly encountering the treacherous submarine traps. "Ah, the bandit!..." Many cudgelings fell upon him, making him stagger under their blows.

When the prisoner was protected by the breasts of various sub-officers, Ferragut could see him close by, with one temple spotted with blood and a cold and haughty expression in his eye. Then he realized that the prisoner had dyed his hair.

He had fled in order to save himself; he had shown himself humble and timorous upon being approached, believing that it would still be possible to lie out of it. But the paper that he had tried to hide in his mouth was now in the hands of the enemy.... It was useless to pretend longer!...

And he drew himself up proudly like every army man who considers his death certain. The officer of the military caste reappeared, looking haughtily at his unknown pursuers, imploring protection only from the kepis with its band of gold.

Upon discovering Ferragut, he surveyed him fixedly with a glacial and disdainful insolence. His lips also curled with an expression of contempt.

They said nothing, but the captain surmised his soundless words. They were insults. It was the insult of the man of the superior hierarchy to his faithless servant; the pride of the noble official who accuses himself for having trusted in the loyalty of a simple merchant marine.

"Traitor!... Traitor!" his insolent eyes and murmuring, voiceless lips seemed to be saying.

Ulysses became furious before this haughtiness, but his wrath was cold and self-contained on seeing the enemy deprived of defense.

He advanced toward the prisoner, like one of the many who were insulting him, shaking his fist at him. His glance sustained that of the German and he spoke to him in Spanish with a dull voice.

"My son.... My only son was blown to a thousand atoms by the torpedoing of the _Californian_!"

These words made the spy change expression. His lips separated, emitting a slight exclamation of surprise.

"Ah!..."

The arrogant light in his pupils faded away. Then he lowered his eyes and soon after hung his head. The vociferating crowd was shoving and carrying him along without taking into consideration the man who had given the alarm and begun the chase.

That very afternoon the _Mare Nostrum_ sailed from Marseilles.