have played, had he not considered
the honour of "Navarra la bella" to be at stake, represented in his
person. Again, when the ball fell near the wall, he would sometimes
swing his arm as though about to strike it a violent blow, and, whilst
the dragoon was already beginning to retire in the direction he
expected it to take, he would change his apparent intention, and drop
it gently just above the line, so that his opponent, although rushing
up in desperate haste, could scarcely arrive in time to avoid being
put out. It was by a feint of this description that the second game
was decided in favour of the Navarrese.

"_Viva la Navarra!_" shouted the winner, bounding like a startled
roebuck three or four feet from the ground, in front of the
discomfited soldier.

"_Viva el demonio!_" growled the latter in reply. "Do you think that
because you have beaten me to-day, thanks to your herring guts and
dog's hide, that you could do the same if I were in training, or had a
month's practice? You would find it very different, Master Paco."

"Viva la Navarra!" repeated Paco, chucking the small hard ball up into
the air, to a height at which it appeared scarcely bigger than a
bullet. Then replying to the words of the dragoon; "At your orders,
Senor Velasquez," said he, "I shall pass through Tudela some time next
month, and shall be ready to give you your revenge."

And catching the ball as it fell, the Navarrese, whom victory had put
into extravagant spirits, began tossing it from one hand to the other,
catching it behind his back, and performing various other small feats
of address, looking the while at the corporal with a sort of jeering
smile, which greatly aggravated the irritation of the latter.

"_Pues_," said Velasquez at last, after gazing at Paco for the space
of a minute with a stern look, which was insufficient, however, to
make the other lower his eyes, or alter the expression of his
countenance; "Well, what do you stare at? Oh! I forgot--you may well
stare. It is the first time that you have seen an Asturian caballero
beaten at any thing by a cur of a Navarrese."

"Not at all," replied the muleteer coolly; "your Senoria is mistaken.
It is only the first time that I have seen an Asturian _caballero_
with a pipeclayed belt over his shoulder, and a corporal's bars upon
his arm."

And he broke out into one of those wild shrill laughs of scorn and
defiance with which the peasant soldiers of Navarre have so often,
dur