Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) Part 34

The trip lasted three days. The first night, the captain enjoyed the selfish delights of resting alone. He was living among men.... And he appreciated the satisfaction chast.i.ty offered with all the enchantments of novelty.

The second night, in the narrow and noisome cabin of the skipper, he felt wakeful because of the memories that were again springing up. Oh, Freya!... When would he ever see her again?

The count and he conversed little, but pa.s.sed long hours together, seated at the side of the wheel looking out on the sea. They were more friendly than on land, although they exchanged very few words. The common life lessened the haughtiness of the pretended diplomat and enabled the captain to discover new merits in his personality. The freedom with which he was going through the boat, and certain technical words employed against his will, left no doubt in Ferragut's mind regarding his true profession.

"You are in the navy," he said suddenly.

And the count a.s.sented, judging dissimulation useless.

Yes, he was a naval officer.

"Then what am I doing here? Why have you given the command to me?..."

So Ferragut was thinking without discovering why this man should seek his a.s.sistance when he could direct a boat himself, without any outside aid.

Undoubtedly he was a naval officer, and all the blonde sailors that were working like automatons must also have come from some fleet.

Discipline was making them respect Ferragut's orders, but the captain suspected that for them he was merely a proxy, the true chief on board being the count.

The schooner pa.s.sed within sight of the Liparian archipelago; then, twisting its course toward the west, followed the coast of Sicily, from Cape Gallo to the Cape of Vito. From there it turned its prow to the southeast, heading toward the Aegadian Islands.

It had to wait in the waters where the Mediterranean was beginning to narrow between Tunis and Sicily, where the volcanic peak of the Pantellarian Island rises up in the middle of the immense strait.

Brief indications from the count were sufficient to make the course followed by Ferragut in accordance with his desire. He finally could not hide his admiration for the Spaniard's mastery of navigation.

"You know your sea well," said the count.

The captain shrugged his shoulders, smiling. It truly was his. He could call it "_mare nostrum_" just as the Romans and their former rulers had done.

As though divining the subsea depths by a simple glance, he kept his boat within the limits of the extensive ledge of the Aventura. He was navigating slowly with only a few sails, crossing and recrossing the same water.

Kaledine, after two days had pa.s.sed by, began to grow uneasy. Several times it sounded to Ferragut as though he were muttering the name of Gibraltar. The pa.s.sage from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean was the greatest danger for those that he was expecting.

From the deck of the schooner he was able to see only a short distance, and the count clambered up the rigging in order that his eyes might take in a more extensive sweep.

One morning up aloft he called something to the captain, pointing out a speck on the horizon. He must steer in that very direction. What he was seeking was over there.

Ferragut obeyed him, and half an hour later there appeared, one after the other, two long, low boats, moving with great velocity. They were like destroyers, but without mastheads, without smokestacks, skimming along almost on a level with the water, painted in a gray that made them seem a short distance away of the same color as the sea. They came around on both sides of the sailboat as though they were going to crush it with the meeting of their hulls. Various metallic cables came up from their decks and were thrown over the bitts of the schooner, fastening it to them, and forming the three vessels into a solid ma.s.s that, united, followed the slow undulation of the sea.

Ulysses examined curiously his two companions in this improvised float.

Were these the famous submarines?... He saw on their steel decks round and protruding hatchways like chimneys through which groups of heads were sticking out. The officers and crews were dressed like fishermen from the northern coast with waterproof suits of one piece and oilskin hats. Many of them were swinging their tarpaulins over their heads, and the count replied to them by waving his cap. The blonde sailors of the schooner shouted in reply to the acclamations of their comrades on the submersibles, "_Deutchsland uber alles_!..."

But this enthusiasm, equivalent to a song of triumph in the midst of the solitude of the sea, lasted but a very short time. Whistles sounded, men ran over the steel decks and Ferragut saw his vessel invaded by two files of seamen. In a moment the hatchways were opened; there sounded the crash of breaking pieces of wood, and the cases of petrol began to be carried off on both sides. The water all around the sailboat was filled with broken cases that were gently floating away.

The count on the p.o.o.p deck was listening to an officer dressed in waterproof garments.

He was recounting their pa.s.sage through the Strait of Gibraltar, completely submerged, seeing through the periscope the English torpedo-chasers on patrol.

"Nothing, Commandant," continued the officer. "Not even the slightest incident.... A magnificent voyage!"

"May G.o.d punish England!" said the count now called Commandant.

"May G.o.d punish her!" replied the official as though he were saying "Amen."

Ferragut saw himself forgotten, ignored, by all the men aboard the schooner. Some of the sailors even pushed him to one side in the haste of their work. He was the mere master of a sailing vessel who counted for nothing in this hierarchy of warlike men.

He now began to understand why they had given him the command of the little vessel. The count was in possession of the situation. Ferragut saw him approaching as though he had suddenly recollected him, stretching out his right hand with the affability of a comrade.

"Many thanks, Captain. This service is of the kind that is not easily forgotten. Perhaps we shall never see each other again.... But if at any time you need me, you may know who I am."

And, as though presenting him to another person, he gave his name and t.i.tles ceremoniously:--Archibald von Kramer, Naval Lieutenant of the Imperial Navy.... His diplomatic role had not been entirely false....

He had served as Naval Attache in various emba.s.sies.

He then gave instructions for the return trip. Ferragut was to wait opposite Palermo where a boat would come out after him and take him ash.o.r.e. Everything had been foreseen.... He must deliver the command to the true owner of the schooner, a timorous man who had made them pay very high for the hire of the boat without venturing to jeopardize his own person. In the cabin were the customary papers for clearing the vessel.

"Salute the ladies in my name. Tell them that they will soon have news of us. We are going to make ourselves lords of the Mediterranean."

The unloading of combustibles still continued. Ferragut saw von Kramer slipping through the openings of one of the submarines. Then he thought he recognized on the submersible two of the sailors of the crew of the schooner who, after being received with shouts and embraces by their comrades, disappeared through a tubular hatchway.

The unloading lasted until mid-afternoon. Ulysses had not imagined that the little boat could carry so many cases. When the hold was empty, the last German sailors disappeared and with them the cables that had lashed them to the sailboat. An officer shouted to him that he could get under way.

The two submersibles with their cargo of oil and gasoline were nearer the level of the sea than on their arrival and now began to disappear in the distance.

Finding himself alone in the stern of the schooner, the Spaniard felt a sudden disquietude.

"What have you done!... What have you done!" clamored a voice in his brain.

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 ash.o.r.e 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 princ.i.p.al 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.

Upon arriving at the station he learned the truth,--was informed of the event to which the merchant had alluded while they were in the skiff.

It was war!... Italy had broken her relations the day before with the Central Powers.