On the following day a sudden self-confidence replaced this uneasiness. He recalled the captain as he had seen him many times on the deck of his vessel, telling of his escapades when rowing in the harbor of Barcelona, or commenting to friends on his son's strength and intelligence. The image of the paternal hero now came to his mind with good-humored eyes and a smile passing like a fresh breeze over his face.
He would tell him the whole truth. He would make him understand that he had come to Naples just to take him away with him, like a good comrade who comes to another's rescue in time of danger. Perhaps he might be irritated and give him a blow, but he would eventually accede to his proposition.
Ferragut's character was reborn in him with all the force of decisive argument. And if the voyage should prove absurd and dangerous?… All the better! So much the better! That was enough to make him undertake it. He was a man and should know no fear.
During the next two weeks he prepared his flight. He had never taken a long journey. Only once he had accompanied his father on a flying business trip to Marseilles. It was high time that he should go out in the world like the man that he was, acquainted with almost all the cities of the earth,—through his readings.
The money question did not worry him any. Doña Cinta had it in abundance and it was easy to find her bunch of keys. An old and slow-going steamer, commanded by one of his father's friends, had just entered port and the following day would weigh anchor for Italy.
This sailor accepted the son of his old comrade without any traveling papers. He would arrange all irregularities with his friends in Genoa. Between captains they ought to exchange such services, and Ulysses Ferragut, who was awaiting his son in Naples (so Esteban told him), would not wish to waste time just because of some ridiculous, red tape formality.
Telemachus with a thousand pesetas in his pocket, extracted from a work box which his mother used as a cash box, embarked the following day. A little suit-case, taken from his home with deliberate and skillful precaution, formed his entire baggage.
From Genoa he went to Rome, and from there to Naples, with the foolhardiness of the innocent, employing Spanish and Catalan words to reinforce his scanty Italian vocabulary acquired at the opera. The only positive information that guided him on his quest of adventure was the name of the albergo on the shore of S. Lucia which Caragol had given him as his father's residence.
He sought him vainly for many days and visited in Naples the consignees who thought that the captain had returned to his country some time ago.
Not finding him, he began to be afraid. He ought to be back in Barcelona by this time and what he had begun as an heroic voyage was going to turn into a runaway, a boyish escapade. He thought of his mother who was perhaps weeping hours at a time, reading and rereading the letter that he had left for her explaining the object of his flight. Besides, Italy's intervention in the war,—an event which every one had been expecting but had supposed to be still a long way off,—had suddenly become an actual fact. What was there left for him to do in this country?… And one morning he had disappeared.