Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) Part 43

In this district were huddled together the warriors of the French-African colonies, impelled by their ardor of race and by their desire to free themselves gluttonously from the restrictions of their Mahommedan country where the women live in jealous seclusion. On every corner were groups of Moroccan infantry, recently disembarked or convalescing from wounds, young soldiers with red caps and long cloaks of mustard yellow. The Zouaves of Algiers conversed with them in a Spanish spattered with Arabian and French. Negro youths who worked as stokers in the vessels, came up the steep, narrow streets with eyes sparkling restlessly as though contemplating wholesale rapine. Under the doorways disappeared grave Moorish hors.e.m.e.n, trailing long garments fastened at the head in a ball of whiteness, or garbed in purplish mantles, with sharp pointed hoods that gave them the aspect of bearded, crimson-clad monks.

The captain went through the upper end of these streets, stopping appreciatively to note the rude contrast which they made with their terminal vista. Almost all descended to the old harbor with a ditch of dirty water in the middle of the gutter that dribbled from stone to stone. They were dark as the tubes of a telescope, and at the end of these evil smelling ditches occupied by abandoned womanhood, there opened out a great s.p.a.ce of light and blue color where could be seen little white sailboats, anch.o.r.ed at the foot of the hill, a sheet of sparkling water and the houses of the opposite wharf diminished by the distance. Through other gaps appeared the mountain of _Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde_ with its sharp pointed Basilica topped by its gleaming statue, like an immovable, twisted tongue of flame. Sometimes a torpedo destroyer entering the old harbor could be seen slipping by the mouth of one of these pa.s.sageways as shadowy as though pa.s.sing before the gla.s.s of a telescope.

Feeling fatigued by the bad smells and vicious misery of the old district, the sailor returned to the center of the city, strolling among the trees and flower stands of the avenues....

One evening while awaiting with others a street car in the Cannebiere, he turned his head with a presentiment that some one was looking at his back.

Sure enough! He saw behind him on the edge of the sidewalk an elegantly-dressed, clean-shaven gentleman whose aspect was that of an Englishman careful of his personal appearance. The dapper man had stopped in surprise as though he might have just recognized Ferragut.

The two exchanged glances without awakening the slightest echo in the captain's memory.... He could not recall this man. He was almost sure of never having seen him before. His shaven face, his eyes of a metallic gray, his elegant pomposity did not enlighten the Spaniard's memory. Perhaps the unknown had made a mistake.

This must have been the case, judging by the rapidity with which he withdrew his glance from Ferragut and went hastily away.

The captain attached no importance to this encounter. He had already forgotten it when, taking the car but a few minutes later, it recurred to him in a new light. The face of the Englishman presented itself to his imagination with the distinct relief of reality. He could see it more clearly than in the dying splendor of the Cannebiere.... He pa.s.sed with indifference over his features; in reality he had seen them for the first time. But the eyes!... He knew those eyes perfectly. They had often exchanged glances with him. Where?... When?...

The memory of this man accompanied him as an obsession even to his s.h.i.+p without giving the slightest answer to his questioning. Then, finding himself on board with Toni and the third officer, he again forgot it.

Upon going ash.o.r.e on the following days, his memory invariably experienced the same phenomena. The captain would be going through the city without any thought of that individual, but on entering the Cannebiere the same remembrance, followed by an inexplicable anxiety, would again surge up in his mind.

"I wonder where my Englishman is now," he would think. "Where have I seen him before?... Because there is no doubt that we are acquainted with each other."

From that time on, he would look curiously at all the pa.s.sersby and sometimes would hasten his step in order to examine more closely some one whose back resembled the haunting unknown. One afternoon he felt sure that he recognized him in a hired carriage whose horse was going at a lively trot through one of the avenues, but when he tried to follow it the vehicle had disappeared into a nearby street.

Some days pa.s.sed by and the captain completely forgot the meeting.

Other affairs more real and immediate were demanding his attention. His boat was ready; they were going to send it to England in order to load it with munitions destined for the army of the Orient.

The morning of its departure he went ash.o.r.e without any thought of going to the center of the city.

In one of the wharf streets there was a barber shop frequented by Spanish captains. The picturesque chatter of the barber, born in Cartagena, the gay, brilliant chromos on the walls representing bullfights, the newspapers from Madrid, forgotten on the divans, and a guitar in one corner made this shop a little bit of Spain for the rovers of the Mediterranean.

Before sailing, Ferragut wished to have his beard clipped by this verbose master. When, an hour later, he left the barber-shop, tearing himself away from the interminable farewells of the proprietor, he pa.s.sed down a broad street, lonely and silent, between two rows of docks.

The steel-barred gates were closed and locked. The warehouses, empty and resounding as the naves of a cathedral, still exhaled the strong odors of the wares which they had kept in times of peace,--vanilla, cinnamon, rolls of leather, nitrates and phosphates for chemical fertilizers.

In all the long street he saw only one man, coming toward him with his back to the inner harbor. Between the two long walls of brick appeared in the background the wharf with its mountains of merchandise, its squadrons of black stevedores, wagons and carts. On beyond were the hulls of the s.h.i.+ps sustaining their grove of masts and smokestacks and, at the extreme end, the yellow breakwater and the sky recently washed by the rain, with flocks of little clouds as white and placid as silky sheep.

The man who was returning from the dock and walking along with his eyes fixed on Ferragut suddenly stopped and, turning upon his tracks, returned again to the quay.... This movement awakened the captain's curiosity, sharpening his senses. Suddenly he had a presentiment that this pedestrian was his Englishman, though dressed differently and with less elegance. He could only see his rapidly disappearing back, but his instinct in this moment was superior to his eyes.... He did not need to look further.... It was the Englishman.

And without knowing why, he hastened his steps in order to catch up with him. Then he broke into a run, finding that he was alone in the street, and that the other one had disappeared around the corner.

When Ferragut reached the harbor he could see him hastening away with an elastic step which amounted almost to flight. Before him was a ridge of bundles piled up in uneven rows. He was going to lose sight of him; a minute later it would be impossible to find him.

The captain hesitated. "What motive have I for pursuing this unknown person?..." And just as he was formulating this question, the other one slowed down a little in order to turn his head and see if he were still being followed.

Suddenly a rapid phenomenal transformation took place in Ferragut. He had not recognized this man's glance when he had almost run into him on the sidewalk of the Cannebiere, and now that there was between the two a distance of some fifty yards, now that the other was fleeing and showing only a fugitive profile, the captain identified him despite the fact that he could not distinguish him clearly at such a distance.

With a sharp click a curtain of his memory seemed to be dashed aside, letting in torrents of light.... It was the counterfeit Russian count, he was sure of that,--shaven and disguised, who undoubtedly was "operating" in Ma.r.s.eilles, directing new services, months after having prepared the entrance of the submersibles into the Mediterranean.

Surprise held Ferragut spellbound. With the same imaginative rapidity with which a drowning person giddily recalls all the scenes of his former life, the captain now beheld his infamous existence in Naples, his expedition in the schooner carrying supplies to the submarines and then the torpedo which had opened a breach in the _Californian_.... And this man, perhaps, was the one who had made his poor son fly through the air in countless pieces!...

He also saw his uncle, the _Triton_, just as when a little chap he used to listen to him in the harbor of Valencia. He recalled his story of a certain night of Egyptian orgy in a low cafe in Alexandria where he had had to "sting" a man with his dagger in order to force his way.

Instinct made him carry his hand to his belt. Nothing!... He cursed modern life and its uncertain securities, which permit men to go from one side of the world to the other confident, disarmed, without means of attack. In other ports he would have come ash.o.r.e with a revolver in the pocket of his trousers.... But in Ma.r.s.eilles! He was not even carrying a penknife; he had only his fists.... At that moment he would have given his entire vessel, his life even, for an instrument that would enable him to kill ... kill with one blow!...

The bloodthirsty vehemence of the Mediterranean was overwhelming him.

To kill!... He did not know how he was going to do it, but he must kill.

The first thing was to prevent the escape of his enemy. He was going to fall upon him with his fists, with his teeth, staging a prehistoric struggle,--the animal fight before mankind had invented the club.

Perhaps that other man was hiding firearms and might kill him; but he, in his superb vengeance, could see only the death of the enemy, repelling all fear.

In order that his victim might not get out of his sight, he ran toward him without any dissimulation whatever, as though he might have been in the desert, at full speed. The instinct of attack made him stoop, grasp a piece of wood lying on the ground,--a kind of rustic handspike,--and armed in this primitive fas.h.i.+on he continued his race.

All this had lasted but a few seconds. The other one, perceiving the hostile pursuit, was also running frankly, disappearing among the hills of packages.

The captain saw confusedly that some shadows were leaping around him, preventing his progress. His eyes that were seeing everything red finally managed to distinguish a few black faces and some white ones.... They were the soldiers and civilian stevedores, alarmed by the aspect of this man who was running like a lunatic.

He uttered a curse upon finding himself stopped. With the instinct of the mult.i.tude, these people were only concerned with the aggressor, letting the one who was fleeing go free. Ferragut could not keep his wrath bottled up on that account. He had to reveal his secret.

"He is a spy!... A _Boche_ spy!..."

He said this in a dull, disjointed voice and never did his word of command obtain such a noisy echo.

"A spy!..."

The cry made men rise up as though vomited forth by the earth; from mouth to mouth it leaped, repeating itself incessantly, penetrating through the docks and the boats, vibrating even beyond the reach of the eye, permeating everywhere with the confusion and rapidity of sound waves. "A spy!..." Men came running with redoubled agility; the stevedores were abandoning their loads in order to join the pursuit; people were leaping from the steamers in order to unite in the human hunt.

The author of the noisy alarm, he who had given the cry, saw himself outdistanced and ignored by the pursuing streams of people which he had just called forth. Ferragut, always running, remained behind the negro sharpshooters, the stevedores, the harbor guard, the seamen that were hastening from all sides crowding in the alleyways between the boxes and bundles.... They were like the greyhounds that follow the windings of the forest, making the stag come out in the open field, like the ferrets that slip along through the subterranean valleys, obliging the hare to return to the light of day. The fugitive, surrounded in a labyrinth of pa.s.sageways, colliding with enemies at every turn, came running out through the opposite end and continued his race the whole length of the wharf. The chase lasted but a few instants after coming out on ground free of obstacles. "A spy!..." The voice, more rapid than the legs, out distanced him. The cries of the pursuers warned the people who were working afar off, without understanding the alarm.

Suddenly the fugitive was within a concave semi-circle of men who were awaiting him firmly, and a convex semi-circle following his footsteps in irregular pursuit. The two mult.i.tudes, closing their extremes, united and the spy was a prisoner.

Ferragut saw that he was intensely pale, panting, casting his eyes around him with the expression of an animal at bay, but still thinking of the possibility of defending himself.

His right hand was feeling around one of his pockets. Perhaps he was going to draw out a revolver in order to die, defending himself. A negro nearby raised a beam of wood which he was grasping as a club. The spy's hand, displaying a bit of paper between the fingers, was hastily raised toward his mouth; but the negro's blow, suspended in the air, fell upon his arm, making it hang inert. The spy bit his lips in order to keep back a roar of pain.

The paper had rolled upon the ground and several hands at once tried to pick it up. A petty officer smoothed it out before examining it. It was a piece of thin paper sketched with the outline of the Mediterranean.

The entire sea was laid out in squares like a chess board and in the center of each of these squares there was a number. These squares were charted sections whose numbers made the submarines know, by wireless, where they were to lie in wait for the allied vessels and torpedo them.

Another officer explained rapidly to the people crowding close, the importance of the discovery. "Indeed he was a spy!" This affirmation awakened the joy of capture and that impulsive desire for vengeance that at certain times crazes a crowd.

The men from the boats were the most furious, for the very reason that they were constantly encountering the treacherous submarine traps. "Ah, the bandit!..." Many cudgelings fell upon him, making him stagger under their blows.

When the prisoner was protected by the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of various sub-officers, Ferragut could see him close by, with one temple spotted with blood and a cold and haughty expression in his eye. Then he realized that the prisoner had dyed his hair.

He had fled in order to save himself; he had shown himself humble and timorous upon being approached, believing that it would still be possible to lie out of it. But the paper that he had tried to hide in his mouth was now in the hands of the enemy.... It was useless to pretend longer!...

And he drew himself up proudly like every army man who considers his death certain. The officer of the military caste reappeared, looking haughtily at his unknown pursuers, imploring protection only from the kepis with its band of gold.

Upon discovering Ferragut, he surveyed him fixedly with a glacial and disdainful insolence. His lips also curled with an expression of contempt.