he scorpion of the Valencian sea that Ferragut had known
in his childhood, the animal beloved by his uncle, the _Triton_,
because of its substantial flesh which thickened the seamen's soup, the
precious component sought by Uncle Caragol for the broth of his
succulent rice dishes. The enormous head had a pair of eyes entirely
red. Its great swimming bladders stung venomously. The heavy body with
its dark bands and stripes was covered with singular appendages in the
form of leaves and could easily take the color of the deep where, in
the semi-obscurity, it looked like a stone covered with plants. With
this mimicry it was accustomed to escape its enemies and could better
detect its prey.

A gloomy creature, in Ferragut's opinion like a beadle of the Holy
Office, was parading through the upper part of the tanks, passing from
glass to glass, reflected like a double animal when it approached the
surface. It was the ray-fish with a flat head, ferocious eyes, and
thong-like tail, moving the black mantle of its fleshy wings with a
deliberation that rippled the edges.

From the sandy bottom was struggling forth a convex shield that, when
floating, showed its lower face smooth and yellow. The four wrinkled
paws and the serpent-like head of the turtle were emerging from its
cuirass of tortoise-shell. The little sea horses, slender and graceful
as chess-pieces, were rising and descending in the bluish environment,
wiggling their tails and twisting themselves in the form of
interrogation points.

When the captain approached the end of the four galleries of the
Aquarium without having seen more than the maritime animals behind the
glistening glasses and a few uninteresting people in the greenish
semi-light, he felt all the discouragement of a day lost.

"She won't come now!..."

In passing from this damp, cellar-like atmosphere to the sunlit garden,
the report of the midday gun struck him like an atmospheric blow. Lunch
hour!... And surely Freya was not going to lunch in the hotel!

During the afternoon his footsteps strayed instinctively toward the
hill streets of the district of Chiaja. All old buildings of manorial
aspect invariably attracted his attention. These were great, reddish
houses of the time of the Spanish viceroys, or palaces of the reign of
Charles III. Their broad staircases were adorned with polychrome busts
brought from the first excavations in Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Ulysses had faint hopes of running acro