Ulysses' uneasiness vanished as soon as the loading of the vessel was finished. This trip was going to be shorter than the others. The Mare Nostrum went to Corfu with war material for the Serbs who were reorganizing their battalions destined for Salonica.
On the return trip Ferragut was attacked by the enemy. One day at dawn just as he mounted the bridge to relieve Toni, the two spied at the same time the tangible form that they were always seeing in imagination. Within the circle of their glasses there framed itself the end of a stick, black and upright, that was cutting the waters rosy in the sunrise, leaving a wake of foam.
"Submarine!" shouted the captain.
Toni said nothing, but shoving aside the helmsman with a stroke of his paw, he grasped the wheel, making the boat swerve in another direction. The movement was opportune. Only a few seconds had passed by when there began to be seen upon the water a black back of dizzying speed headed directly for the steamer.
"Torpedo!" shouted the captain.
The anxious waiting lasted but a few seconds. The projectile, hidden in the water, passed some six yards from the stern, losing itself in space. Had it not been for Toni's rapid tacking, the boat would have been hit squarely in the side.
Through the speaking tube connecting with the engine-room the captain shouted energetic orders to put on full speed. Meanwhile the mate, clamped to the wheel, ready to die rather than leave it, was directing the boat in zigzags so as not to offer a fixed point to the submarine.
All the crew were watching from the rail the distant and insignificant upright periscope. The third officer had rushed out of his stateroom, almost naked, rubbing his sleepy eyes. Caragol was in the stern, his loose shirt-tail flapping away as he held one hand to his eyebrows like a visor.
"I see it!… I see it perfectly…. Ah, the bandit, the heretic!"
And he extended his threatening fist toward a point in the horizon exactly opposite to the one upon which the periscope was appearing.