"No, my captain."

Before the glance of astonishment which Ulysses flashed upon him, he found it necessary to explain himself.

"What am I ever going to do ash.o.r.e?... Who is expecting me there?... Or what business with my family would have any interest for me?..."

Ferragut seemed to be hearing an echo of his own thoughts. He, like the cook, would have nothing to do on land.... He was mortally bored when far from the sea, just as in those months when, still young, he had believed that he could create for himself a new profession in Barcelona. Besides, it was impossible to return to his home, taking up life again with his wife; it would be simply losing his last illusions.

It would be better to view from afar all that remained of his former existence.

Caragol, meanwhile, was going on talking. His nephews would not remember the poor old cook and he had no reason to trouble himself about their fate, making them rich. He would prefer to remain just where he was, without money but happy.

"Let the others go!" he said with childish selfishness. "Let Toni go!... I'm going to stay.... I've got to stay. When the captain goes, then Uncle Caragol will go."

Ulysses enumerated the great dangers that the boat was about to face.

The German submarines were lying in wait for it with deadly determination; there would be combats ... they would be torpedoed....

The old man's smile showed contempt of all such dangers. He was certain that nothing bad could possibly happen to the _Mare Nostrum_. The furies of the sea were unavailing against it and still less could the wickedness of man injure it.

"I know what I'm talking about, Captain.... I am sure that we shall come out safe and sound from all dangers."

He thought of his miracle-working amulets, of his sacred pictures, of the supernatural protection that his pious prayers were bringing him.

Furthermore, he was taking into consideration the Latin name of the ship which had always inspired him with religious respect. It belonged to the language used by the Church, to the idiom which brought about miracles and expelled the devil, making him run away aghast.

"The _Mare Nostrum_ will not suffer any misfortune. If it should change its t.i.tle ... perhaps. But while it is called _Mare Nostrum_,--how _could_ anything happen to it?..."

Smiling before this faith, Ferragut brought forth his last argument.

The entire crew was going to be made up of Frenchmen; how could they ever understand each other if he were ignorant of their language?...

"I know it all," affirmed the old man superbly.

He had made himself understood with men in all the different ports of the world. He was counting on something more than mere language,--on his eyes, his hands, the expressive cunning of an exuberant and gesticulating meridional.

"I am just like _San Vicente Ferrer_," he added with pride.

His saint had spoken only the Valencian dialect, and yet had traveled throughout half Europe preaching to throngs of different tongues, making them weep with mystic emotion and repent of their sins.

While Ferragut retained the command, he was going to stay. If he didn't want him for a cook, he would be the cabin boy, washing up the pots and pans. The important thing for him was to continue treading the deck of the vessel.

The captain had to give in. This old fellow represented a remnant of his past. He could betake himself from time to time to the galley to talk over the far-away days in which they first met.

And Caragol retired, content with his success.

"As for those Frenchmen," he said before departing, "just leave them to me. They must be good people.... We'll just see what they say about my rice dishes."

In the course of the week the _Mare Nostrum_ was de-organized and re-manned. Its former crew went marching away in groups. Toni was the last to leave, and Ulysses did not wish to see him, fearing to show his emotion. They'd surely write to each other.

A sympathetic curiosity impelled the cook toward the new marine force.

He saluted the officers affably, regretting not to know their language sufficiently to begin a friendly conversation with them. The captain had accustomed him to such familiarity.

There were two mates that the mobilization had converted into auxiliary lieutenants of the navy. The first day they presented themselves on board arrayed in their uniform; then they returned in civilian clothes in order to habituate themselves to being simply merchant officers on a neutral steamer. The two knew by hearsay, of Ferragut's former voyages and his services to the Allies, and they understood each other sympathetically without the slightest national prejudice. Caragol achieved equal success with the forty-five men who had taken possession of the machinery and the messrooms in the forecastle. They were dressed like seamen of the fleet, with a broad blue collar and a cap topped by a red pompom. Some displayed on the breast military medals and the recent _Croix de Guerre_. From their canvas bags which served them for valises, they unpacked their regulation suits, worn when they were working on the freight steamers, on the schooners plying to Newfoundland, or on the simple coasting smacks.

The galley at certain hours was full of men listening to the old cook.

Some knew the Spanish tongue on account of having sailed in brigs from Saint-Malo and Saint-Nazaire, going to the ports of the Argentine, Chili and Peru. Those who could not understand the old fellow's words, could guess at them from his gesticulations. They were all laughing, finding him bizarre and interesting. And this general gayety induced Caragol to bring forth liquid treasures that had been piling up in former voyages under Ferragut's careless and generous administration.

The strong alcoholic wine of the coast of the Levant began falling into the gla.s.ses like ink crowned with a circle of rubies. The old man poured it forth with a prodigal hand. "Drink away, boys; in your land you don't have anything like this...." At other times he would concoct his famous "refrescoes," smiling with the satisfaction of an artist at seeing the sensuous grin that began flashing across their countenances.

"When did you ever drink anything like that? What would ever become of you all without your Uncle Caragol?..."

These Bretons, accustomed to the discipline and sobriety of other vessels, admired greatly the extraordinary privileges of a cook who could display as much generosity as the captain himself. He frequently communicated to Ferragut his opinion regarding his new comrades. With good reason he had said that they would understand each other!... They were serious and religious men, and he preferred them to the former Mediterranean crews, blasphemers and incapable of resignation, who at the slightest vexation would rip out G.o.d's name, trying to affront him with their curses.

They were all muscular and well set-up with blue eyes and blonde mustaches, and were wearing hidden medallions. One of them had presented to the cook one of his religious charms which he had bought on a pilgrimage to _Ste. Anne d'Auray_. Caragol was wearing it upon his hairy chest, and experiencing a new-born faith in the miracles of this foreign image.

"To her sanctuary, Captain, the pilgrims go in thousands. Every day she performs a miracle.... There's a holy staircase there which the devout climb on their knees and many of these lads have mounted it. I should like ..."

On some of their voyages to Brest he was hoping that Ferragut would permit him to go to Auray long enough to climb that same stairway on his knees, to see _Ste. Anne_ and return aboard ship.

The vessel was no longer in a commercial harbor. It had gone to a military harbor,--a narrow river winding through the interior of the city, dividing it in two. A great drawbridge put in communication the two sh.o.r.es bordered with vast constructions and high chimneys, naval shops, warehouses, a.r.s.enals, and dry-docks for cleaning up the boats.

Tug-boats were continually stirring up its green and miry waters.

Steamers undergoing repairs were lined up the length of the break-waters undergoing a continual pounding that made their plates resound. Lighters topped with hills of pit coal were going slowly to take their position along the flanks of the ships. Under the drawbridge launches were coming and going from the warships, leaving on the floating piers the crews celebrating their sh.o.r.e-leave with scandalous uproar.

The _Mare Nostrum_ remained isolated while the workmen from the a.r.s.enal were installing on the p.o.o.p rapid-fire guns and the wireless telegraph apparatus. No one could come aboard that did not belong to the crew.

The sailors' families were waiting for them on the wharf, and Caragol had occasion to become acquainted with many Breton women,--mothers, sisters, or fiancees of his new friends. He liked these women: they were dressed in black with full skirts, and white, stiff caps which brought to his mind the wimples of the nuns.... Some tall, stout girls with blue and candid eyes laughed at the Spaniard without understanding a single word. The old women with faces as dark and wrinkled as winter apples touched gla.s.ses with Caragol in the low cafes near the port.

They all could do honor to a goblet in an opportune moment, and had great faith in the saints. The cook did not require anything more....

Most excellent and charming people!

Certain lads decorated with the _Croix de Guerre_ used to relate their experiences to him. They were survivors of the battalion of marines who defended Dixmude. After the battle of the Marne they had been sent to intercept the enemy on the side of Flanders. There were not more than six thousand of them and, aided by a Belgian division, they had sustained the onrush of an entire army. Their resistance had lasted for weeks:--a combat of barricades in the street, of struggles the length of the ca.n.a.l with the bloodiness of the ancient piratical forays. The officers had shouted their orders with broken swords and bandaged heads. The men had fought on without thinking of their wounds, covered with blood, until they fell down dead.

Caragol, hitherto little interested in military affairs, became most enthusiastic when relating this heroic struggle to Ferragut, simply because his new friends had taken part in it.

"Many died, Captain.... Almost half of them. But the Germans couldn't make any headway.... Then, on learning that the marines had been no more than six thousand, the generals tore their hair. So great was their wrath! They had supposed that they were confronted by dozens of thousands.... It was just great to hear the lads relate what they did there."

Among these "lads" wounded in the war, who had pa.s.sed to the naval reserve and were manning the _Mare Nostrum_, one was especially distinguished by the old man's partiality. He could talk to him in Spanish, because of his transatlantic voyages, and besides he had been born in Vannes.

If the youth ever approached the cook's dominions he was invariably met with a smile of invitation. "A refresco, Vicente?" The best seat was for him. Caragol had forgotten his name as not worth while. Since he came from Vannes, he could not have any other name but Vicente.

The first day that they chatted together, the marine, in love with his country, described to the cook the beauties of Morbihan,--a great interior sea surrounded with groves and with islands covered with pines. Among the venerable antiquities of the city was the Gothic cathedral with its many tombs, among them that of a Spanish saint,--St.

Vicente Ferrer.

This gave a tug at Caragol's heart-strings. He had never before bothered to find out where the famous apostle of Valencia was entombed.... He recalled suddenly a strophe of the songs of praise that the devotees of his land used to sing before the altars of this saint.

Sure enough he had gone to die in "Vannes, in Brittainy,"--a mere geographical name which until then had lacked any significance for him.... And so this lad was from Vannes? Nothing more was needed to make Caragol regard him with the respect due to one born in a miraculous country.

He made him describe many times the tomb of the saint, the only one in the transept of the cathedral, the moth-eaten tapestries that perpetuated his miracles, the silver bust which guarded his heart....

Furthermore, the princ.i.p.al portal of Vannes was called the gate of St.

Vicente and recollections of the saint were still alive in their chronicles.

Caragol proposed to visit this city also when the ship should return to Brest. Brittainy must be very holy ground, the holiest in the world, since the miracle-working Valencian, after traversing so many nations, had wished to die there.

It, therefore, did not produce the slightest astonishment that this slip of a boy who had been picked up at Dixmude covered with wounds, was now showing himself sane and vigorous.... On board the _Mare Nostrum_ he was the head gunner. He and two comrades had charge of the quickfirers. For Caragol there was not the slightest doubt as to the fate of every submarine that should venture to attack them; the "lad from Vannes" would send them to smithereens at the first shot. A picture post-card, a gift of the lad from Brittany, showing the tomb of the saint, occupied the position of honor in the galley. The old man used to pray before it as though it were a miracle-working print, and the _Cristo del Grao_ was relegated to second place.