CHAPTER VII.
THE SIN OF ULYSSES Every morning on awaking at the first streak of dawn, Toni felt a sensation of surprise and discouragement.
"Still in Naples!" he would say, looking through the port-hole of his cabin.
Then he would count over the days.

Ten had passed by since the _Mare Nostrum_, entirely repaired, had anchored in the commercial harbor.
"Twenty-four hours more," the mate would add mentally.
And he would again take up his monotonous life, strolling over the empty and silent deck of the vessel, without knowing what to do, looking despondently at the other steamers which were moving their freighting antennae, swallowing up boxes and bundles and beginning to send out through their chimneys the smoke announcing departure.
He suffered great remorse in calculating what the boat might have gained were it now under way.

The advantage was all for the captain, but he could not avoid despairing over the money lost.
The necessity of communicating his impressions to somebody, of protesting in chorus against this lamentable inertia, used to impel him toward Caragol's dominions.

In spite of their difference in rank, the first officer always treated the cook with affectionate familiarity.
"An abyss is separating us!" Toni would say gravely.
This "abyss" was a metaphor extracted from his reading of radical papers and alluded to the old man's fervid and simple beliefs.

But their common affection for the captain, all being from the same land, and the employment of the Valencian dialect as the language of intimacy, made the two seek each other's company instinctively.