e girls, did she? All right--clap her into jail.
You're just a bit too ready with your hands, my girl," the captain
cries as Jose takes her into the guard-house.

Jose is set to guard her; which is about as wise as setting the cream
where the cat can dip her whiskers.

If it pleased the girl a moment before to stab a companion, it pleases
her best now to get out of jail. She begins ably.

"I love you," she remarks to Jose.

"It does not concern me," replies the heroic Jose.

"It should," Carmen persists.

"Ah!" replies Jose, noncommittally. This is unsatisfactory to Carmen.
However, she is equal to the occasion. When is she so fascinating as
when quite preoccupied?--she will try it now. She will sing:

[Music:

Near to the walls of Sevilla
With my good friend Lillas Pastia
I'll soon dance the gay Seguidilla
And I'll drink manzanilla--
I'll go see my good friend Lillas Pastia!]

Jose is disturbed. Carmen is conscious of it. She continues to sing,
meanwhile coquetting with him. Before he is aware of his own mood, he
has cut the cord that he bound her hands with, and has disgraced
himself forever. In the fascination Carmen has for him, he has
forgotten that he is a soldier. Presently Zuniga enters. Carmen is to
be transferred in charge of Jose, with a guard detailed to go with
him. It is arranged. Carmen also makes some arrangements.

"When we have started, and are about to cross the bridge, I'll give
you a push. You must fall--you could not see me locked up--one so
young and gay!--and when you fall I shall run. After you can get away,
meet me at Lillas Pastia's inn." Jose seems to himself to be doing
things in a dream. He has earned a court-martial already if it were
known what he has done. A corporal's guard start under Jose; the
bridge is reached. Carmen makes a leap; down goes Jose. The others are
taken unawares and she rushes at them. They too fall, head over heels,
one down the bank. Carmen is up, and off! She flies up the path,
laughing at them as they pick themselves up.

"This is a good business, eh?" Zuniga sneers. "On the whole, Don Jose,
I think you will shine rather better under lock and key, in the
guard-house, than you will as a soldier at large. Men, arrest him!" he
orders sharply, and Jose has made the first payment on the score Fate
has chalked up against him.

ACT II

Flying to Lillas Pastia's inn, as she had agreed with Jose, Carmen is
joined by her old comr