road to Posilipo. They avoided the electric lights of the
_Via Caracciolo_ reflected in the sea,--the two instinctively
approaching a bench, and seeking the ebony shade of the trees.

Freya had suddenly become very composed. She appeared annoyed at
herself for her languor during the walk. Finding herself near the
hotel, she recovered her energy as though in the presence of danger.

"Good-by, Ulysses! We shall see each other again to-morrow.... I am
going to pass the night in the doctor's home."

The sailor withdrew a little in the shock of surprise. "Was it a
jest?..." But no, he could not think that. The very tone of her words
displayed firm resolution.

He entreated her humbly with a thick and threatening voice not to go
away. At the same time his mental counselor was rancorously chanting,
"She's making a fool of you!... It's time to put an end to all this....
Make her feel your masculine authority." And this voice had the same
ring as that of the dead _Triton_.

Suddenly occurred a violent, brutal, dishonorable thing. Ulysses threw
himself upon her as though he Were going to kill her, holding her
tightly in his arms, and the two fell upon the bench, panting and
struggling. But this only lasted an instant.

The vigorous Ferragut, trembling with emotion, was only using half of
his powers. He suddenly sprang back, raising his two hands to his
shoulders. He felt a sharp pain, as though one of his bones had just
broken. She had repelled him with a certain Japanese fencing trick that
employs the hands as irresistible weapons.

"Ah!... _Tal!_..." he roared, hurling upon her the worst of feminine
insults.

And he fell upon her again as though he were a man, uniting to his
original purpose the desire of maltreating her, of degrading her, of
making her his.

Freya awaited him firmly... Seeing the icy glitter of her eyes, Ulysses
without knowing why recalled the "eye of the morning," the
companionable reptile of her dances.

In this furious onslaught he was stopped by the simple contact on his
forehead of a diminutive metal circle, a kind of frozen thimble that
was resting on his skin.

He looked... It was a little revolver, a deadly toy of shining nickel.
It had appeared in Freya's hand, drawn secretly from her clothes, or
perhaps from that gold-mesh bag whose contents seemed inexhaustible.

She was looking at him fixedly with her finger on the trigger. He
surmised her familiarity with the weapon that she had in