d almost to flight. Before him was a ridge
of bundles piled up in uneven rows. He was going to lose sight of him;
a minute later it would be impossible to find him.

The captain hesitated. "What motive have I for pursuing this unknown
person?..." And just as he was formulating this question, the other one
slowed down a little in order to turn his head and see if he were still
being followed.

Suddenly a rapid phenomenal transformation took place in Ferragut. He
had not recognized this man's glance when he had almost run into him on
the sidewalk of the Cannebiere, and now that there was between the two
a distance of some fifty yards, now that the other was fleeing and
showing only a fugitive profile, the captain identified him despite the
fact that he could not distinguish him clearly at such a distance.

With a sharp click a curtain of his memory seemed to be dashed aside,
letting in torrents of light.... It was the counterfeit Russian count,
he was sure of that,--shaven and disguised, who undoubtedly was
"operating" in Marseilles, directing new services, months after having
prepared the entrance of the submersibles into the Mediterranean.

Surprise held Ferragut spellbound. With the same imaginative rapidity
with which a drowning person giddily recalls all the scenes of his
former life, the captain now beheld his infamous existence in Naples,
his expedition in the schooner carrying supplies to the submarines and
then the torpedo which had opened a breach in the _Californian_.... And
this man, perhaps, was the one who had made his poor son fly through
the air in countless pieces!...

He also saw his uncle, the _Triton_, just as when a little chap he used
to listen to him in the harbor of Valencia. He recalled his story of a
certain night of Egyptian orgy in a low cafe in Alexandria where he had
had to "sting" a man with his dagger in order to force his way.

Instinct made him carry his hand to his belt. Nothing!... He cursed
modern life and its uncertain securities, which permit men to go from
one side of the world to the other confident, disarmed, without means
of attack. In other ports he would have come ashore with a revolver in
the pocket of his trousers.... But in Marseilles! He was not even
carrying a penknife; he had only his fists.... At that moment he would
have given his entire vessel, his life even, for an instrument that
would enable him to kill ... kill with one blow!...

The bloodthirsty vehemence o