d the following day....
Very good! He was entirely content. Soon they would be on the sea
again.

In the galley he greeted Uncle Caragol.... That man _was_ a
philosopher. All the women in the world were not in his estimation
worth a good dish of rice. Ah, the great man!... He surely was going to
live to be a hundred! And the cook flattered by such praises, whose
origin he did not happen to comprehend, responded as always,--"That is
so, my captain."

Toni, silent, disciplined and familiar, inspired him with no less
admiration. His life was an upright life, firm and plain, as the road
of duty. When the young officials used to talk in his presence of
boisterous suppers on shore with women from distant countries, the
pilot had always shrugged his shoulders. "Money and pleasure ought to
be kept for the home," he would say sententiously.

Ferragut had laughed many times at the virtue of his mate who, timid
and torpid, used to pass over a great part of the planet without
permitting himself any distraction whatever, but would awake with an
overpowering tension whenever the chances of their voyage brought him
the opportunity of a few days' stay in his home in the _Marina_.

And with the tranquil grossness of the virtuous stay-at-home, he was
accustomed to calculate the dates of his voyages by the age of his
eight children. "This one was on returning from the Philippines....
This other one after I was in the coast trade in the Gulf of
California...."

His methodical serenity, incapable of being perturbed by frivolous
adventures, made him guess from the very first the secret of the
captain's enthusiasm and wrath. "It must be a woman," he said to
himself, upon seeing him installed in a hotel in Naples, and after
feeling the effects of his bad humor in the fleeting appearances that
he made on board.

Now, listening to Ferragut's jovial comments on his mate's tranquil
life and philosophic sagacity, Toni again ejaculated mentally, without
the captain's suspecting anything from his impassive countenance: "Now
he has quarreled with the woman. He has tired of her. But better so!"

He was more than ever confirmed in this belief on hearing Ferragut's
plans. As soon as the boat could be made ready, they were going to
anchor in the commercial port. He had been told of a certain cargo for
Barcelona,--some cheap freight,--but that was better than going
empty.... If the cargo should be delayed, they would set sail merely
with ballast.