order to make them witnesses of his indignation.

The two men were entirely agreed as to the cause of their despair. She
was to blame for it all; she who was going to hold the boat spellbound
in this port until she knew when, with the irresistible power of a
witch.

"Ah, these females!... The devil always follows after petticoats like a
lap-dog.... They are the ruination of our life."

And the wrathful chastity of the cook continued hurling against
womankind insults and curses equal to those of the first fathers of the
church.

One morning the men washing down the deck sent a cry passing from stem
to stern,--"The captain!" They saw him approaching in a launch, and the
word was passed along through staterooms and corridors, giving new
force to their arms, and lighting up their sluggish countenances. The
mate came up on deck and Caragol stuck his head out through the door of
his kitchen.

At the very first glance, Toni foresaw that something important was
about to happen. The captain had a lively, happy air. At the same time,
he saw in the exaggerated amiability of his smile a desire to
conciliate them, to bring sweetly before them something which he
considered of doubtful acceptation.

"Now you'll be satisfied," said Ferragut, giving his hand, "we are
going to weigh anchor soon."

They entered the saloon. Ulysses looked around his boat with a certain
strangeness as though returning to it after a long voyage. It looked
different to him; certain details rose up before his eyes that had
never attracted his attention before.

He recapitulated in a lightning cerebral flash all that had occurred in
less than two weeks. For the first time he realized the great change in
his life since Freya had come to the steamer in search of him.

He saw himself in his room in the hotel opposite her, dressed like a
man, and looking out over the gulf while smoking.

"I am a German woman, and ..."

Her mysterious life, even its most incomprehensible details, was soon
to be explained.

She was a German woman in the service of her country. Modern war had
aroused the nations _en masse_; it was not as in other centuries, a
clash of diminutive, professional minorities that have to fight as a
business. All vigorous men were now going to the battlefield, and the
others were working in industrial centers which had been converted into
workshops of war. And this general activity was also taking in the
women who were devoting their labor t