This was a recollection of his far-away youth when, as a contrabandist, he used to stretch himself flat on the deck of his bark, manipulating the wheel and the sail under the fire of the custom-house officers on watch. He feared for the life of his captain while he was standing, constantly offering himself to the shots of the enemy.
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 café 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 café.