t, that she will be perhaps there, at his side, very near,
on that narrow seat, enveloped with him in the same travelling
blanket, flying in the midst of night, to belong to him, at once and
forever;--and in thinking of this too much, he feels again a shudder and
a dizziness--

"I tell you that she will follow you," repeats his friend, striking
him rudely on the leg in protective encouragement, as soon as he sees
Ramuntcho sombre and lost in a dream. "I tell you that she will follow
you, I am sure! If she hesitates, well, leave the rest to me!"

If she hesitates, then they will be violent, they are resolved, oh, not
very violent, only enough to unlace the hands of the old nuns retaining
her.--And then, they will carry her into the small wagon, where
infallibly the enlacing contact and the tenderness of her former friend
will soon turn her young head.

How will it all happen? They do not yet know, relying a great deal on
their spirit of decision which has already dragged them out of dangerous
passes. But what they know is that they will not weaken. And they go
ahead, exciting each other; one would say that they are united now unto
death, firm and decided like two bandits at the hour when the capital
game is to be played.

The land of thick branches which they traverse, under the oppression of
very high mountains which they do not see, is all in ravines, profound
and torn up, in precipices, where torrents roar under the green night of
the foliage. The oaks, the beeches, the chestnut trees become more
and more enormous, living through centuries off a sap ever fresh and
magnificent. A powerful verdure is strewn over that disturbed geology;
for ages it covers and classifies it under the freshness of its
immovable mantle. And this nebulous sky, almost obscure, which is
familiar to the Basque country, adds to the impression which they have
of a sort of universal meditation wherein the things are plunged; a
strange penumbra descends from everywhere, descends from the trees at
first, descends from the thick, gray veils above the branches, descends
from the great Pyrenees hidden behind the clouds.

And, in the midst of this immense peace and of this green night, they
pass, Ramuntcho and Arrochkoa, like two young disturbers going to break
charms in the depths of forests. At all cross roads old, granite
crosses rise, like alarm signals to warn them; old crosses with this
inscription, sublimely simple, which is here something l