But contemplating the three old men and the boy who had remained as the only crew, he forgot his remorse. He would have to bestir himself greatly in order to supply the lack of men. For two nights and a day he scarcely rested, managing almost at the same time both helm and motor, since he did not dare to let out all his sails with this scarcity of sailors.
When he found himself opposite the port of Palermo, just as it was beginning to extinguish its night lights, Ferragut was able to sleep for the first time, leaving the watch of the boat in charge of one of the seamen, who maintained it with sails furled. In the middle of the morning he was awakened by some voices shouting from the sea:
"Where is the captain?"
He saw a skiff and various men leaping aboard the schooner. It was the owner who had come to claim, his boat in order to bring it into port in the customary legal form. The skiff was commissioned to take Ulysses ashore with his little suitcase. He was accompanied by a red-faced, fat gentleman who appeared to have great authority over the skipper.
"I suppose you are already informed of what is happening," he said to
Ferragut while the two oarsmen made the skiff glide over the waves.
"Those bandits!… Those mandolin-players!…"
Ulysses, without knowing why, made an affirmative gesture. This indignant burgher was a German, one of those that were useful to the doctor…. It was enough just to listen to him.
A half hour later Ferragut leaped on the dock without any one's opposing his disembarking, as though the protection of his obese companion had made all the guards drowsy. The good gentleman showed, notwithstanding, a fervent desire to separate himself from his charge—to hurry away, attending to his own affairs.
He smiled upon learning that Ulysses wished to go immediately to Naples. "You do well…. The train leaves in two hours." And putting him in a vacant hack, he disappeared with precipitation.
Finding himself alone, the captain almost believed that he had dreamed of those two preceding days.
He was again seeing Palermo after an absence of long years: and he experienced the joy of an exiled Sicilian on meeting the various carts of the countryside, drawn by broken-down horses with plumes, whose badly-painted wagon bodies represented scenes from "Jerusalem Delivered." He recalled the names of the principal roads,—the roads of the old Spanish viceroys. In one square he saw the statue of four kings of Spain…. But all these souvenirs only inspired in him a fleeting interest. What he particularly noticed was the extraordinary movement in the streets, the people grouping themselves together in order to listen to the reading of the daily papers. Many windows displayed the national flag, interlaced with those of France, England, and Belgium.