s the captain and they all ought to obey him. For that reason he
was responsible for the boat, for the life of its crew, for the fate of
the cargo. Besides, he was the proprietor; no one exceeded him in
command; his power was unlimited. Through friendly affection and
custom, he had consulted his mate, making him share in his secrets and
here Toni, with an ingratitude never seen before, was daring to
rebel.... What did this mean?...

But the mate, instead of giving any explanation, merely confined
himself to answering, each time more obstinately and wrathfully:

"No!... No!"

"But why not?" insisted Ferragut, waxing impatient and in a voice
trembling with anger.

Toni, without losing energy in his negatives, was
hesitating,--confused, bewildered, scratching his beard, and lowering
his eyes in order to reflect better.

He did not know just how to explain himself. He envied his captain's
facility in finding just the right word. The simplest of his ideas
suffered terribly before coming anxiously from his mouth.... But,
finally, little by little, between his stutterings, he managed to
express his hatred of those monsters of modern industry which were
dishonoring the sea with their crimes.

Each time that he had read in the newspapers of their exploits in the
North Sea a wave had passed over the conscience of this simple, frank
and upright man. They were accustomed to attack treacherously hidden in
the water, disguising their long and murderous eyes like the visual
antennae of the monsters of the deep. This aggression without danger
appeared to revive in his soul the outraged souls of a hundred
Mediterranean ancestors, cruel and piratical perhaps, but who,
nevertheless, had sought the enemy face to face with naked breast,
battle-axe in hand, and the barbed harpoon for boarding ship as their
only means of struggle.

"If they would torpedo only the armed vessels!" he added. "War is a
form of savagery, and it is necessary to shut the eyes to its
treacherous blows, accepting them as glorious achievements.... But
there is something more than that: you know it well. They sink merchant
vessels, and passenger ships carrying women, carrying little
children...."

His weather-beaten cheeks assumed the color of a baked brick. His eyes
flashed with a bluish splendor. He was feeling the same wrath that he
had experienced when reading the accounts of the first torpedoing of
the great transatlantic steamer on the coast of England.