her waist, and a
nut-brown maid with laughing eyes stood under the porch, embowered in
tamarisk and laurel-rose. The driver strode over to them, crying out
triumphantly:

"El primero! Lo! I am the first."

"How valiant you are, Pedro!" said the nut-brown maid, advancing to meet
him.

"How lucky you are!" said the matron, with a grave shake of the head.

"How rash you are!" mumbled the grandfather; "you were always so."

I envied that driver, for the nut-brown maid kissed him, as she had the
right to do, for she was his affianced, and had not seen him for five
days.

From the Irun station to Hendaye was free from danger. I walked down
through a field of maize to the Bidassoa, crossed by a ferry-boat to the
other side, where a post of the 49th of the French Line were peacefully
playing cards for buttons in the shade of a chestnut, and a few minutes
afterwards was seated in front of a bottle of Dublin stout with the
countryman who forwarded my letters and telegrams from over the border.

Naturally I had a desire to ascertain the whereabouts of Santa Cruz. The
man had almost grown mythical with me. I had heard at San Sebastian that
ten thousand crowns had been offered for his scalp at Tolosa, and the
fondest yearning--the one satisfying aspiration of the hyena--was to
tear him into shreds, chop him into sausage-meat, gouge out his eyes, or
roast him before a slow fire. Which form of torment he would prefer, he
had not quite settled. A sort of intuitive faculty, which has seldom
led me astray, said to me that Santa Cruz was somewhere near. I revolved
the matter in my mind, and fixed upon the man under whose roof he was
most likely to be concealed. I went to that man and requested him
bluntly to take me to the outlawed priest--I wished very much to speak
to him.

He smiled and answered, "He is not here."

"The bird is flown," I said, "but the nest is warm. He is not far away."

"True," he said, "come with me."

We drove some miles--I will not say how many--and drew up at an enclosed
villa, which may have been in France, but was not of it. To be plain, it
was neutral territory, and my host, who knew me thoroughly, disappeared
for a few moments, and said Santa Cruz was sleeping, but that he had
roused him, and that he would be with us presently.

I was sitting on a garden-seat in front of the house where he was
stopping, when he presented himself on the threshold, bareheaded, and in
his shirt-sleeves. The outlaw