nvas walls were trembling
under the violent squalls of wind.

Through his glasses, Ulysses could see warlike hosts occupied with the
business of caring for strings of riderless horses that were going to
watering places, parks of artillery with their cannon upraised like the
tubes of a telescope, enormous birds with yellow wings that were trying
to skip along the earth's surface with a noisy bumping, gradually
reappearing in space with their waxy wings glistening in the first
shafts of sunlight.

All the allied army of the Orient returning from the bloody and
mistaken adventure of the Dardanelles or proceeding from Marseilles and
Gibraltar were massing themselves around Salonica.

The _Mare Nostrum_ anchored at the wharves filled with boxes and bales.
War had given a much greater activity to this port than in times of
peace. Steamers of all the allied and neutral flags were unloading
eatables and military materials.

They were coming from every continent, from every ocean, drawn thither
by the tremendous necessities of a modern army. They were unloading
harvests from entire provinces, unending herds of oxen and horses, tons
upon tons of steel, prepared for deadly work, and human crowds lacking
only a tail of women and children to be like the great martial exoduses
of history. Then taking on board the residuum of war, arms needing
repair, wounded men, they would begin their return trip.

These cargoes quietly transported through the darkness in spite of bad
times and the submarine threats, were preparing the ultimate victory.
Many of these steamers were formerly luxurious vessels, but now
commandeered by military necessity, were dirty and greasy and used as
cargo boats. Lined up, drowsing along the docks, ready to begin their
work, were new hospital ships, the more fortunate transatlantic liners
that still retained a certain trace of their former condition, quite
clean with a red cross painted on their sides and another on their
smokestacks.

Some of the transports had reached Salonica most miraculously. Their
crews would relate with the fatalistic serenity of men of the sea how
the torpedo had passed at a short distance from their hulls. A damaged
steamer lay on its side, with only the keel submerged, all its red
exterior exposed to the air; on its water-line there had opened a
breach, angular in outline. Upon looking from the deck into the depths
of its hold filled with water, there might be seen a great gash in