"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 money nor treason, but crazed by a woman. Who has not something like this in his own history?… "Ah, the women!" repeated the Frenchman, as though lamenting the most terrible form of enslavement…. But the victim had already suffered enough in the loss of his son. Besides, they owed to him the discovery and arrest of an important spy.
"Your hand, Captain," he concluded, holding out his own. "All that we have said will be just between ourselves. It is a sacred, confessional secret. I will arrange it with the Council of War…. You may continue lending your services to our cause."
And Ferragut was not annoyed further about the affair of Marseilles. Perhaps they were watching him discreetly and keeping sight of him in order to convince themselves of his entire innocence; but this suspected vigilance never made itself felt nor occasioned him any trouble.
On the third trip to Salonica the French captain saw him once at a distance, greeting him with a grave smile which showed that he no longer was thinking of him as a possible spy.
Upon its return, the Mare Nostrum anchored at Barcelona to take on cloth for the army service, and other industrial articles of which the troops of the Orient stood in need. Ferragut did not make this trip for mercantile reasons. An affectionate interest was drawing him there…. He needed to see Cinta, feeling that in his soul the past was again coming to life.
The image of his wife, vivacious and attractive, as in the early years of their marriage, kept rising before him. It was not a resurrection of the old love; that would have been impossible…. But his remorse made him see her, idealized by distance, with all her qualities of a sweet and modest woman.
He wished to reëstablish the cordial relations of other times, to have all the past pardoned, so that she would no longer look at him with hatred, believing him responsible for the death of her son.
In reality she was the only woman who had loved him sincerely, as she was able to love, without violence or passional exaggeration, and with the tranquillity of a comrade. The other women no longer existed. They were a troop of shadows that passed through his memory like specters of visible shape but without color. As for that last one, that Freya whom bad luck had put in his way—… How the captain hated her! How he wished to meet her and return a part of the harm she had done him!…