s.

At one of these gates, leading out of the town in a northerly direction,
several of the men on guard were assembled, amusing themselves at the
expense of the departing peasantry, whose uncouth physiognomy and
strange clownish appearance afforded abundant food for the quaint jokes
and comical remarks of the soldiers. The market people were, for the
most part, women, old men, and boys; the able-bodied men from the
country around Pampeluna, having, with few exceptions, left their homes,
either voluntarily or by compulsion, to take service in the Carlist
ranks. Beneath the projecting portico of the guard-house, sat a
sergeant, occupied, in obedience to orders given since the escape of
Baltasar, in surveying the peasants as they passed with a keen and
scrutinizing glance. For some time, however, this military Cerberus
found no object of suspicion in any of the passers-by. Lithe active
lads, greyhaired old men, and women whose broad shoulders and brawny
limbs might well have belonged to disguised dragoons, but who,
nevertheless, were unmistakeably of the softer sex, made up the
different groups which successively rode or walked through the gate.
Gradually the departures became less numerous, and the sergeant less
vigilant; he yawned, stretched himself in his chair, rolled up a most
delicate cigarrito between his large rough fingers, and lighting it,
puffed away with an appearance of supreme beatitude.

"Small use watching," said he to a corporal. "The fellow's not likely to
leave the town in broad daylight, with every body on the look-out for
him."

"True," was the answer. "He'll have found a hiding-place in the house of
some rascally Carlist. There are plenty in Pampeluna."

"Well," said the first speaker, "I'm tired of this, and shall punish my
stomach no longer. Whilst I take my dinner, do you take my place. Stay,
let yonder cabbage-carriers pass."

The peasants referred to by the sergeant, were a party of half a dozen
women, and nearly as many lads and men, who just then showed themselves
at the end of the street, coming towards the gate. Most of them were
mounted on rough mountain ponies and jackasses, although three or four
of the women trudged afoot, with pyramids of baskets balanced upon their
heads, the perspiration streaming down their faces from the combined
effects of the sun and their load. The last of the party was a stout
man, apparently some five-and-forty years of age, dressed in a jacket
and breech