, has said joyfully, a moment ago, in Basque tongue to Itchoua's
folks:

"It is all right! They are all drunk, you can go out!"

Go out! It is easier to advise than to do! You are drenched at the first
steps and your feet slip on the mud, despite the aid of your sticks,
on the stiff slopes of the paths. They do not see one another; they see
nothing, neither the walls of the hamlet along which they pass nor the
trees afterward, nor the rocks; they are like blind men, groping and
slipping under a deluge, with the music of rain in their ears which
makes them deaf.

And Ramuntcho, who makes this trip for the first time, has no idea of
the passages which they are to go through, strikes here and there his
load against black things which are branches of beeches, or slips with
his two feet, falters, straightens up, catches himself by planting at
random his iron-pointed stick in the soil. They are the last on the
march, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, following the band by ear;--and those
who precede them make no more noise with their sandals than wolves in a
forest.

In all, fifteen smugglers on a distance of fifty metres, in the thick
black of the mountain, under the incessant sprinkling of the shower;
they carry boxes full of jewels, of watches, of chains, of rosaries,
or bundles of Lyons silk, wrapped in oilcloth; in front, loaded with
merchandise less valuable, walk two men who are the skirmishers, those
who will attract, if necessary, the guns of the Spaniards and will then
take flight, throwing away everything. All talk in a low voice, despite
the drumming of the rain which already stifles sounds--

The one who precedes Ramuntcho turns round to warn him:

"Here is a torrent in front of us--" (Its presence would have been
guessed by its noise louder than that of the rain--) "We must cross it!"

"Ah!--Cross it how? Wade in the water?--"

"No, the water is too deep. Follow us. There is a tree trunk over it."

Groping, Ramuntcho finds that tree trunk, wet, slippery and round. He
stands, advancing on this monkey's bridge in a forest, carrying his
heavy load, while under him the invisible torrent roars. And he crosses,
none knows how, in the midst of this intensity of black and of this
noise of water.

On the other shore they have to increase precaution and silence. There
are no more mountain paths, frightful descents, under the night, more
oppressing, of the woods. They have reached a sort of plain wherein the
feet penetr