de three trips to Salonica, and on the
second had to appear before a naval captain of the army of the Orient.
The French officer was informed of his former expeditions for the
victualing of the allied troops. He knew his name and looked upon him
as does a judge interested in the accused. He had received from
Marseilles a long telegram with reference to Ferragut. A spy submitted
to military justice was accusing him of having carried supplies to the
German submarines.

"How about that, Captain?..."

Ulysses hesitated, looking at the official's grave face, framed by a
grey beard. This man inspired his confidence. He could respond
negatively to such questions; it would be difficult for the German to
prove his affirmation; but he preferred to tell the truth, with the
simplicity of one who does not try to hide his faults, describing
himself just as he had been,--blind with lust, dragged down by the
amorous artifices of an adventuress.

"The women!... Ah, the women!" murmured the French chief with the
melancholy smile of a magistrate who does not lose sight of human
weaknesses and has participated in them.

Nevertheless Ferragut's transgression was of gravest importance. He had
aided in staging the submarine attack in the Mediterranean.... But when
the Spanish captain related how he had been one of the first victims,
how his son had died in the torpedoing of the _Californian_, the judge
appeared touched, looking at him less severely.

Then Ferragut related his encounter with the spy in the harbor of
Marseilles.

"I have sworn," he said finally, "to devote my ship and my life to
causing all the harm possible to the murderers of my son.... That man
is denouncing me in order to avenge himself. I realize that my headlong
blindness dragged me to a crime that I shall never forget. I am
sufficiently punished in the death of my son.... But that does not
matter; let them sentence me, too."

The chief remained sunk in deep reflection, forehead in hand and elbow
on the table. Ferragut recognized here military justice, expeditious,
intuitive, passional, attentive to the sentiments that have scarcely
any weight in other tribunals, judging by the action of conscience more
than by the letter of the law, and capable of shooting a man with the
same dispatch that he would employ in setting him at liberty.

When the eyes of the judge again fixed themselves upon him, they had an
indulgent light. He had been guilty, not on account of mon