ona by the free-masonry of
comradeship and patriotic interest. But they were all Germans, and that
was enough to make the captain immediately recall his son, planning
bloody vengeance. He sometimes wished to have in his arm all the blind
forces of Nature in order to blot out his enemies with one blow. It
annoyed him to see them established in his country, to have to pass
them daily without protest and without aggression, respecting them
because the laws demanded it.

He used to like to stroll among the flower stands of the Rambla,
between the two walls of recently-cut flowers that were still guarding
in their corollas the dews of daybreak. Each iron table was a pyramid
formed of all the hues of the rainbow and all the fragrance that the
earth can bring forth.

The fine weather was beginning. The trees of the Ramblas were covering
themselves with leaves and in their shady branches were twittering
thousands of birds with the deafening tenacity of the crickets.

The captain found special enjoyment in surveying the ladies in lace
mantillas who were selecting bouquets in the refreshing atmosphere. No
situation, however anguished it might be, ever left him insensible to
feminine attractions.

One morning, passing slowly through the crowds, he noticed that a woman
was following him. Several times she crossed his path, smiling at him,
hunting a pretext for beginning conversation. Such insistence was not
particularly gratifying to his pride; for she was a female of
protruding bust and swaying hips, a cook with a basket on her arm, like
many others who were passing through the Rambla in order to add a bunch
of flowers to the daily purchase of eatables.

Finding that the sailor was not moved by her smiles nor the glances
from her sharp eyes, she planted herself before him, speaking to him in
Catalan.

"Excuse me, sir, but are you not a ship captain named Don Ulysses?..."

This started the conversation. The cook, convinced that it was he,
continued talking with a mysterious smile. A most beautiful lady was
desirous of seeing him.... And she gave him the address of a towered
villa situated at the foot of Tibidabo in a recently constructed
district. He could make his visit at three in the afternoon.

"Come, sir," she added with a look of sweet promise. "You will never
regret the trip."

All questions were useless. The woman would say no more. The only thing
that could be gathered from her evasive answers was that the perso