tive. Freya really was not the
principal person guilty of Esteban's death. He was thinking of that
other one, of the pretended diplomat, of that von Kramer who perhaps
had directed the torpedo which had blown his son to atoms.... Would he
not raise the devil if he could meet him sometime?... What happiness if
these two should find themselves face to face!

Finally he avoided the solitude of a stateroom that tormented him with
desires of impotent revenge. Near Toni on deck or on the bridge he felt
better.... And with a humble condescension, such as his mate had never
known before, he would talk and talk, enjoying the attention of his
simple-hearted listener, just as though he were telling marvelous
stories to a circle of children.

In the Strait of Gibraltar he explained to him the great currents sent
by the ocean into the Mediterranean, at certain times aiding the
screw-propeller in the propulsion of the vessel.

Without this Atlantic current the _mare nostrum_, which lost through
atmospheric evaporation much more water than the rains and rivers could
bring to it, would become dry in a few centuries. It had been
calculated that it might disappear in about four hundred and seventy
years, leaving as evidence of its former existence a stratum, of salt
fifty-two meters thick.

In its deep bosom were born great and numerous springs of fresh water,
on the coast of Asia Minor, in Morea, Dalmatia and southern Italy; it
received besides a considerable contribution from the Black Sea, which
on returning to the Mediterranean accumulated from the rains and the
discharge of its rivers, more water than it lost by evaporation,
sending it across the Bosporous and the Dardenelles in the form of a
superficial current. But all these tributaries, enormous as they were,
sank into insignificance when compared with the renovation of the
oceanic currents.

The waters of the Atlantic poured into the Mediterranean so riotously
that neither contrary winds nor reflex motion could stop them.
Sailboats sometimes had to wait entire months for a strong breeze that
would enable them to conquer the impetuous mouth of the strait.

"I know that very well," said Toni. "Once going to Cuba we were in
sight of Gibraltar more than fifty days, going backwards and forwards
until a favorable wind enabled us to overcome the current and go out
into the great sea."

"Just such a current," added Ferragut, "was one of the causes that
hastened the decadence of