What could we do, we poor peaceable sailors ?..." Toni did not add anything further but his silent thoughts were divined by Ulysses.
He was thinking about his family over there in the _Marina_, enduring an existence of continual anxiety while he was aboard a vessel for which irresistible menace was lying in wait.

He was thinking also of the wives and mothers of all the men of the crew who were suffering the same anguish.

And Toni was asking himself for the first time whether Captain Ferragut had the right to drag them all to a sure death just because of his vengeful and crazy stubbornness.
"No; I have not the right," Ulysses told himself mentally.
But at the same time his mate, repentant of his former reflection, was affirming in a loud voice with heroic simplicity: "If I counsel you to retire, it is for your own good; don't think it is because I am afraid....

I will follow you wherever you sail.

I've got to die some time and it would be far better that it should be in the sea.