Mare Nostrum (Our Sea)

It was not long before his desire was realized. One morning on the high seas near Lisbon, when he had just fallen asleep after a night on the bridge, the shouts and runnings of the crew awakened him.

A submarine had broken the surface about fifteen hundred yards astern and was coming toward the Mare Nostrum, evidently fearing that the merchant-boat would try to escape; but in order to oblige it to stop, its gun fired two shells which fell into the water.

The steamer moderated its pace but only to place itself in a more favorable position and to maneuver with more sea room, with its arms at the stern. At the first shot the submarine began to recede, keeping a more prudent distance, surprised to receive an answer to its aggression.

The combat lasted half an hour. The shots repeated themselves on both sides with the speed of rapid fire artillery. Ferragut was near the gun, admiring the calm coolness with which its servants manipulated it. One always had a projectile in his arms ready to give it to his companion who rapidly introduced it into the smoking chamber. The gunner was concentrating all his life in his eyes, and bending over the cannon, moved it carefully, seeking the sensitive part of that gray and prolonged body that was rising to the surface of the water as though it were a whale.

Suddenly a cloud of kindling wood flew near the steamer's prow. An enemy's projectile had just hit the edge of the roofs that covered the galley and mess rooms. Caragol, who was standing in the door of his dominions, raised his hands to his hat. When the yellowish and evil-smelling cloud dissolved, they saw him still standing there, scratching the top of his head, bare and red.

"It's nothing!" he cried. "Just a bit of wood that drew a little of my blood. Fire away!… Fire!"

He was yelling directions, inflamed by the shooting. The drug-like smell of the smokeless powder, the dull thud of the detonations appeared to intoxicate him. He was leaping and wringing his hands with the ardor of a war-dancer.

The gunners redoubled their activity; the shots became continuous.

"There it is!" yelled Caragol. "They have hit it…. They have hit it!"

Of all those aboard, he was the one who could least appreciate the effects of the shots for he could scarcely discern the silhouette of the submersible. But in spite of that he continued bellowing with all the force of his faith.

"Now you've hit it!… Hurrah! Hurrah!"

And the strange thing was that the enemy instantly disappeared from the blue surface. The gunners still sent some shots against their periscope. Then there was left in the place which they had occupied only a white and glistening expanse.

The steamer went toward this enormous spot of oil whose undulations were twinkling with sunflower-like reflections.

The marines uttered shouts of enthusiasm. They were sure of having sent the submersible to the bottom. The officers were less optimistic. They had never seen one raise itself up vertically, tilting its stern high in the air before sinking. Perhaps it simply had been damaged and obliged to hide.

The loss of the submarine was a sure thing in Caragol's estimation, and he considered it entirely unnecessary to ask the name of the one who had blown it to smithereens.

"It must have been that lad from Vannes…. He's the only one who could have done it."

For him the other gunners simply did not exist. And, inflamed by his enthusiasm, he wriggled out of the hands of the two seamen who had begun to bandage his head with a deftness learned in land combats.

Ferragut was entirely satisfied with this encounter. Although he could not be absolutely certain of the destruction of the enemy, the fact that his boat had saved itself would spread abroad the fact that the Mare Nostrum was entirely capable of self-defense.

His joy took him to Caragol's domains.

"Well done, old man! We're going to write to the Ministry of Marine to give you the Croix de Guerre."

The cook, taking his words in all seriousness, declined the honor. If such recompense were to be given to any one, let it be handed to "that lad from Vannes." Then he added as though reflecting the captain's thoughts:

"I like to sail in this fashion…. Our steamer has gotten its teeth, and now it will not have to run like a frightened rabbit…. They'll have to let it go on its way in peace because now it can bite."

The rest of the journey toward Salonica was without incident. Telegraphy kept it in contact with the instructions arriving from the shore. Gibraltar advised it to sail close to the African coast; Malta and Bizerta pointed out that it could continue forward since the passage between Tunis and Sicily was clear of enemies. From distant Egypt tranquillizing messages came to meet them while they were sailing among the Grecian Islands with the prow toward Salonica.

On their return, they were to take freight to the harbor of Marseilles.

Ferragut did not have to bother about the boat while it was at anchor. The French officials were the ones who made arrangements with the harbor authorities. He merely had to be the justification for the flag, a captain of a neutral country, whose presence certified to the nationality of the vessel. Only on the sea did he recover command, every one becoming obedient to those on the bridge.

He wandered through Marseilles as at other times, passing the first hours of the evening on the terraces of the Cannebière.

An old Marseillaise, captain of a merchant steamer, used to chat with him before returning to his office. One afternoon, while Ferragut was absent-mindedly glancing at a certain Paris daily that his friend was carrying, his attention was suddenly attracted by a name printed at the head of a short article. Surprise made him turn pale while at the same time something contracted within his breast. Again he spelled out the name, fearing that he had been under an hallucination. Doubt was impossible: it was very clear,—Freya Talberg. He took the paper from his comrade's hand, disguising his impatience by an assumption of curiosity.

"What is the war news to-day?…"

And while the old sailor was giving him the news, he read feverishly the few lines grouped beneath that name.

He was bewildered. The heading told little to one ignorant of the preceding facts to which the periodical alluded. These lines were simply voicing a protest against the government for not having made the famous Freya Talberg pay the penalty to which she had been sentenced. The paragraph terminated with mention of the beauty and elegance of the delinquent as though to these qualities might be attributed the delay in punishment.

Ferragut put forth all his efforts to give his voice a tone of indifference.

"Who is this individual?" he said, pointing to the heading of the article.

His companion had some difficulty in recalling her. So many things were happening because of the war….

"She is a boche, a spy, sentenced to death…. It appears that she did a great deal of work here and in other ports, sending word to the German submarines about the departure of our transports…. They arrested her in Paris two months ago when she was returning from Brest."

His friend said this with a certain indifference. These spies were so numerous!… The newspapers were constantly publishing notices of their shooting:—two lines, no more, as though treating of an ordinary casualty.

"This Freya Talberg," he continued, "has had enough said about her personality. It seems that she is a chic woman,—a species of lady from a novel. Many are protesting because she has not yet been executed. It is sad to have to kill one of her sex,—to kill a woman and especially a beautiful woman!… But nevertheless it is very necessary…. I believe that she is to be shot at any moment."

CHAPTER XII

AMPHITRITE!… AMPHITRITE!

The Mare Nostrum made another trip from Marseilles to Salonica.

Before sailing, Ferragut hunted vainly through the Paris periodicals for fresh news of Freya. For some days past, the attention of the public had been so distracted by various other events that for the time being the spy was forgotten.

On arriving at Salonica, he made discreet inquiries among his military and marine friends in the harbor cafés. Hardly any one had ever heard the name of Freya Talberg. Those who had read it in the newspapers merely replied with indifference.

"I know who she is: she is a spy who was an actress,—a woman with a certain chic. I think that they've shot her…. I don't know certainly, but they ought to have shot her."

They had more important things to think about. A spy!… On all sides they were discovering the intrigues of German espionage. They had to shoot a great many…. And immediately they forgot this affair in order to speak of the difficulties of the war that were threatening them and their comrades-at-arms.

When Ferragut returned to Marseilles two months afterwards, he was still ignorant as to whether his former mistress was yet among the living.

The first evening that he met his old comrade, the captain, in the café of the Cannebière, he skillfully guided the conversation around until he could bring out naturally the question in the back of his mind: "What was the fate of that Freya Talberg that there was so much talk about in the newspapers before I went to Salonica?…"

The Marseillaise had to make an effort to recall her.

"Ah, yes!… The boche spy," he said after a long pause. "They shot her some weeks ago. The papers said little of her death,—just a few lines. Such people don't deserve any more…."

Ferragut's friend had two sons in the army; a nephew had died in the trenches, another, a mate aboard a transport, had just perished in a torpedo attack. The old man was passing many nights without sleeping thinking of his sons battling at the front. And this uneasiness gave a hard and ferocious tone to his patriotic enthusiasm.

"It's a good thing she is dead…. She was a woman, and shooting a woman is a painful thing. It is always repugnant to be obliged to treat them like men…. But according to what they tell me, this individual with her spy-information brought about the torpedoing of sixteen vessels…. Ah, the wicked beast!…"

And he said no more, changing the subject. Every one evinced the same revulsion on recalling the spy.

Ferragut eventually shared the same sentiments, his brain having divested itself of the contradictory duality which had attended all the critical moments of his existence. Remembering only her crimes, he hated Freya. As a man of the sea, he recalled his nameless fellow-sailors killed by torpedoes. This woman had indirectly prepared the ground for many assassinations…. And at the same time he recalled another image of her as the mistress who knew so well how to keep him spellbound by her artifices in the old palace of Naples, making that voluptuous prison her best souvenir.

"Let's think no more about her," he said to himself energetically. "She has died…. She does not exist."

But not even after her death did she leave him in peace. Remembrance of her soon came surging back, binding her to him with a tragic interest.

The very evening that he was talking with his friend in the café of the Cannebière, he went to the post office to get the mail which had been forwarded to him at Marseilles. They gave him a great package of letters and newspapers. By the handwriting on the envelopes, and the postmarks on the postals, he tried to make out who was writing to him:—one letter only from his wife, evidently but a single sheet, judging from its slender flexibility, three very bulky ones from Toni,—a species of diary in which he continued relating his purchases, his crops, his hope of seeing the captain,—all this mixed in with abundant news about the war, and the wretched condition of the people. There were, besides, various sheets from the banking establishments at Barcelona, rendering Ferragut an account of the investment of his capital.

At the foot of the staircase he completed his examination of the outside of his correspondence. It was just what was always awaiting him on his return from his voyages.

He was about to put the package in his pocket and continue on his way when his attention was attracted by a voluminous envelope in an unknown handwriting, registered in Paris….

Curiosity made him open it immediately and he found in his hand a regular sheaf of loose leaves, a long account that far exceeded the limits of a letter. He looked at the engraved letter-head and then at the signature. The writer was a lawyer in Paris, and Ferragut suspected by the luxurious paper and address that he must be a celebrated maître. He even recalled having run across his name somewhere in the newspapers.

Then and there he began reading the first page, anxious to know why this distinguished personage had written to him. But he had scarcely run his eyes over some of the sheets before he stopped his reading. He had come across the name of Freya Talberg. This lawyer had been her defender before the Council of War.

Ferragut hastened to put the letter in a safe place, and curb his impatience. He felt that necessity for silent isolation and absolute solitude which a reader, anxious to delve into a new book, experiences. This bundle of papers doubtless contained for him the most interesting of stories.

Returning to his ship, the road seemed to him far longer than at other times. He longed to lock himself in his stateroom, away from all curiosity as though he were about to perform some mysterious rite.

Freya was not in existence. She had disappeared from the world in the infamous manner in which criminals disappear,—doubly condemned since even her memory was hateful to the people; and Ferragut within a few moments was going to resurrect her like a ghost, in the floating house that she had visited on two occasions. He now might know the last hours of her existence wrapped in disreputable mystery; he could violate the will of her judges who had condemned her to lose her life and after death to perish from every one's memory. With eager avidity he seated himself before his cabin table, arranging the contents of the envelope in order;—more than twelve sheets, written on both sides, and several newspaper clippings. In these clippings he saw portraits of Freya, a hard and blurred likeness which he could recognize only by her name underneath. He also beheld the portrait of her defender,—an old lawyer of fastidious aspect with white locks carefully combed, and sharp eyes.

From the very first lines, Ferragut suspected that the maître could neither write nor speak except in the most approved literary form. His letter was a moderated and correct account in which all emotion, however keen it might have been, was discreetly controlled so as not to disorganize the sweep of a majestic style.

He began by explaining that his professional duty had made him decide to defend this spy. She was in need of a lawyer; she was a foreigner; public opinion, influenced by the exaggerated accounts given by the newspapers of her beauty and her jewels, was ferociously inimical, demanding her immediate punishment. Nobody had wished to take charge of her defense. And for this very reason he had accepted it without fear of unpopularity.

Ferragut believed that this sacrifice might be attributed to the impulse of a gallant old beau, attracted to Freya because of her beauty. Besides, this criminal process represented a typical Parisian incident and might give a certain romantic notoriety to the one intervening in its developments.

A few paragraphs further on the sailor became convinced that the maître had fallen in love with his client. This woman even in her dying moments shed around her most amazing powers of seduction. The professional success anticipated by the lawyer disappeared on his first questioning. Defense of Freya would be impossible. When he questioned her regarding the events of her former life, she either wept for every answer, or else remained silent, immovable, with as unconcerned a glance as though the fate of some other woman were at stake.

The military judges did not need her confessions: they knew, detail for detail, all her existence during the war and in the last years of peace. Never had the police agents abroad worked with such rapidity and success. Mysterious and omnipotent good fortune had crowned every investigation. They knew all of Freya's doings. They had even received from a secret agent exact data regarding her personality, the number by which she was represented in the director's office at Berlin, the salary that she was paid, as well as her reports during the past month. Documents written by her personally, of an irrefutable culpability, had poured in without any one's knowing from what point they were sent or by whom.

Every time that the judge had placed before Freya's eyes one of these proofs, she looked at her lawyer in desperation.

"It is they!" she moaned. "They who desire my death!"

Her defender was of the same opinion. The police had learned of her presence in France by a letter that her superiors in Barcelona had sent, stupidly disguised, written with regard to a code whose mystery had been discovered some time before by the French counter-spies. To the maître it was only too evident that some mysterious power had wished to rid itself of this woman, dispatching her to an enemy's country, intending to send her to death.

Ulysses suspected in the defender a state of mind similar to his own,—the same duality that had tormented him in all his relations with Freya.

"I, sir," wrote the lawyer, "have suffered much. One of my sons, an officer, died in the battle of the Aisne. Others very close to me, nephews and pupils, died in Verdun and with the expeditionary army of the Orient…."

As a Frenchman, he had felt an irresistible aversion upon becoming convinced that Freya was a spy who had done great harm to his country…. Then as a man, he had commiserated her inconsequence, her contradictory and frivolous character, amounting almost to a crime, and her egoism as a beautiful woman and lover of luxury that had made her willing to suffer moral vileness in exchange for creature comfort.

Her story had attracted the lawyer with the palpitating interest of a novel of adventure. Commiseration had finally developed the vehemence of a love affair. Besides, the knowledge that the exploiters of this woman were the ones that had denounced her, had aroused his knightly enthusiasm in the defense of her indefensible cause.

Appearance before the Council of War had proved painful and dramatic. Freya, who until then, had seemed brutalized by the regime of the prison, roused herself upon being confronted by a dozen grave and uniformed men.

Her first moves were those of every handsome and coquettish female. She knew perfectly well her physical influence. These soldiers transformed into judges were recalling those other flirts that she had seen at the teas and grand balls at the hotels…. What Frenchman can resist feminine attraction?…

She had smiled, she had replied to the first questions with graceful modesty, fixing her wickedly guileless eyes upon the officials seated behind the presidential table, and on those other men in blue uniform, charged with accusing her or reading the documents of her prosecution.

But something cold and hostile existed in the atmosphere and paralyzed her smiles, leaving her words without echo and making ineffectual the splendors of her eyes. All foreheads were bowed under the weight of severe thought: all the men in that instant appeared thirty years older. They simply would not see such a one as she was, however much effort she might make. They had left their admiration and their desires on the other side of the door.

Freya perceived that she had ceased to be a woman and was no more than one accused. Another of her sex, an irresistible rival, was now engrossing everything, binding these men with a profound and austere love. Instinct made her regard fixedly the white matron of grave countenance whose vigorous bust appeared over the head of the president. She was Patriotism, Justice, the Republic, contemplating with her vague and hollow eyes this female of flesh and blood who was beginning to tremble upon realizing her situation.

"I do not want to die!" cried Freya, suddenly abandoning her seductions and becoming a poor, wretched creature crazed by fear. "I am innocent."

She lied with the absurd and barefaced illogicalness of one finding herself in danger of death. It was necessary to re-read her first declarations, which she was now denying, of presenting afresh the material proofs whose existence she did not wish to admit, of making her entire past file by supported by that irrefutable data of anonymous origin.

"It is they who have done it all!… They have mis-represented me!…

Since they have brought about my ruin, I am going to tell what I know."

In his account the lawyer passed lightly over what had occurred in the Council of War. Professional secrecy and patriotic interest prevented greater explicitness. The session had lasted from morning till night, Freya revealing to her judges all that she knew…. Then her defender had spoken for five hours, trying to establish a species of interchange in the application of the penalty. The guilt of this woman was undeniable and the wickedness that she had carried through was very great, but they should spare her life in exchange for her important confessions…. Besides, the inconsequence of her character should be taken into consideration … also, that vengeance of which the enemy had made her the victim….

With Freya he had waited, until well on into the night, the decision of the tribunal. The defendant appeared animated by hope. She had become a woman again: she was talking placidly with him and smiling at the gendarmes and eulogizing the army…. "Frenchmen, gentlemen, were incapable of killing a woman…."

The maître was not surprised at the sad and furrowed brows of the officers as they came out from their deliberations. They appeared discontented with their recent vote, and yet at the same time showed the serenity of a tranquil countenance. They were soldiers who had just fulfilled their full duty, suppressing every purely masculine instinct. The one deputed to read the sentence swelled his voice with a fictitious energy…. "Death!…" After a long enumeration of crimes Freya was condemned to be shot:—she had given information to the enemy that represented the loss of thousands of men and boats, torpedoed because of her reports, on which had perished defenseless families.

The spy nodded her head upon listening to her own acts, for the first time appreciating their enormity and recognizing the justice of their tremendous punishment. But at the same time she was relying upon a good-natured reprieve in exchange for all which she had revealed, upon a gallant clemency … because she was she.

As the fatal word sounded, she uttered a cry, became ashy pale, and leaned upon the lawyer for support.

"I do not want to die!… I ought not to die!… I am innocent."

She continued shrieking her innocence, without giving any other proof of it than the desperate instinct of self-preservation. With the credulity of one who wishes to save herself, she accepted all the problematical consolations of her defender. There remained the last recourse of appealing to the mercy of the President of the Republic: perhaps he might pardon her…. And she signed this appeal with sudden hope.

The lawyer managed to delay the fulfillment of the sentence for two months, visiting many of his colleagues who were political personages. The desire of saving the life of his client was tormenting him as an obsession. He had devoted all his activity and his personal influence to this affair.

"In love!… In love, as you were!" said, with scornful accent, the voice of Ferragut's prudent counselor.

The periodicals were protesting against this delay in the execution of the sentence. The name of Freya Talberg was beginning to be heard in conversation as an argument against the weakness of the government. The women were the most implacable.

One day, in the Palace of Justice, the maître Became convinced of this general animosity that was pushing the defendant toward the day of execution. The woman who had charge of the gowns, a verbose old wife, on a familiar footing with the illustrious lawyers, had rudely made known their opinions.