nemy.

Ferragut was storming from side to side, cursing his lack of means for
returning the aggression. "This will never happen another time!... They
won't get another chance to amuse themselves chasing me!"

A second projectile opened another breach in the poop. "If it only
won't hit the engines!" the captain was thinking. After that the _Mare
Nostrum_ received no more damage, the following shots merely raising up
columns of water in the steamer's wake. Every time now, these white
phantasms leaped up further and further away. Although out of the range
of the enemy's gun, it continued shooting and shooting uselessly.
Finally the firing ceased and the submarine disappeared from the view
of the glasses and completely submerged, tired of vain pursuit.

"That'll never happen again!" the captain kept repeating. "They'll
never attack me another time with impunity!"

Then it occurred to him that this submarine had attack him knowing just
who he was. On the side of his vessel were painted the colors of Spain.
At the first shot from the gun, the third officer had hoisted the flag,
but the shots did not cease on that account. They had wished to sink it
"without leaving any trace." He believed that Freya, in her relations
with the directors of the submarine campaign, must have advised them of
his trip.

"Ah,... _tal!_ If I meet her another time!..."

He had to remain several weeks in Marseilles while the damage to his
steamer was being repaired.

As Toni lacked occupation during this enforced idleness, he accompanied
him many times on his strolls. They liked to seat themselves on the
terrace of a cafe in order to comment upon the picturesque differences
in the cosmopolitan crowd.

"Look; people from our own country!" said the captain one evening.

And he pointed to three seamen drawn into the current of different
uniforms and types of various races flowing familiarly around the
tables of the cafe.

He had recognized them by their silk caps with visors, their blue
jackets and their heavy obesity of Mediterranean sailors enjoying a
certain prosperity. They must be skippers of small boats.

As though Ferragut's looks and gestures had mysteriously notified them,
the three turned, fixing their eyes on the captain. Then they began to
discuss among themselves with a vehemence which made it easy to guess
their words.

"It is he!..." "No, it isn't!..."

Those men knew him but couldn't believe that they were really seeing
h