and _tuum_. The band of one Belcha, which was
hovering in the neighbourhood of San Sebastian, had a shady reputation.
It would be unjust to tempt these simple-minded guerrilleros with the
sight of a Derringer, a hunting-watch, a tobacco-pouch, or a
reconnoitring-glass. All these articles are useful on the hills. But
even Belcha's looters had some conscience; they drew the line at money
and wedding-rings. Besides, in cases of robbery restitution was
invariably made when the chiefs of the revolt were appealed to in proper
form, so that on the whole the Carlists did not deserve the name the
German doctor had given them. Regular soldiers do not always carry the
Decalogue in their kit; there was marauding in the Peninsula,
notwithstanding the iron discipline of the Iron Duke; the Summer Palace
at Pekin was despoiled of its treasures by gentlemen in epaulettes, and
the Franco-German War was not entirely unconnected with stories about
vanishing clocks. So I would not be diverted from my purpose.

Before leaving San Sebastian I tried to obtain permission for a second
visit to the citadel-prison in order to see the crew of the _San
Margarita_, but without avail. Yet the officers in charge (all of the
regular army), and indeed the privates of the local militia, were
anything but truculent gaolers; they seemed willing to strain a point to
oblige. The Republicanism of the officers was of a very pale red; but
there was one hirsute Volunteer of Liberty who acted as chief warder,
and took a delight in the occupation. He rattled his bunch of keys as if
their metallic dissonance were music, grumbled at the urbanity of his
superiors, and bore himself altogether as if their politics were
suspicious; and he, a pure of the pure, were there as warder over that
too. I nicknamed him the hyena in my own mind; but I could not conceive
him laughing anywhere save in front of a garrote with a Royalist neck in
the rundel, and then his laugh at best would be but the inward chuckle
of a Modoc.

Stuart took the hyena coolly, regarding him as an amusing phenomenon;
Travers surveyed him as he would the portrait of the Nabob on London
hoardings, and pronounced him a whimsical illustration of Republican
sauce. Stuart, I should have stated, was anxious that it should be
known that he had caused the name of the whilom _Deerhound_ to be erased
from the list of yachts, when he chartered her as a merchant-steamer,
renamed her, and went into the contraband-of-w