re caught--?"

"Sure not," replied Arrochkoa, in a tone of infantile bravado, "Sure
not! In such a case to take the life of a carabinero no one would
hesitate!--"

The debonair Florentino, turned from Itchoua his disapproving eyes.
Florentino would hesitate; he would not kill. This is divined in the
expression of his face.

"You would not hesitate," repeated Itchoua, scrutinizing Ramuntcho this
time in a special manner; "you would not hesitate, either, I suppose, if
you were caught, would you?"

"Surely," replied Ramuntcho, submissively. "Oh, no, surely--"

But his look, like that of Florentino, has turned from Itchoua. A terror
comes to him of this man, of this imperious and cold influence, so
completely felt already; an entire soft and refined side of his nature
is awakened, made disquiet and in revolt.

Silence has followed the tale, and Itchoua, discontented with the effect
of it, proposes a song in order to change the course of ideas.

The purely material well-being which comes after dinner, the cider which
has been drunk, the cigarettes which are lighted and the songs that
begin, bring back quickly confident joy in these children's heads.
And then, there are in the band the two brothers Iragola, Marcos and
Joachim, young men of the mountain above Mendiazpi, who are renowned
extemporary speakers in the surrounding country and it is a pleasure to
hear them, on any subject, compose and sing verses which are so pretty.

"Let us see," says Itchoua, "you, Marcos, are a sailor who wishes to
pass his life on the ocean and seek fortune in America; you, Joachim,
are a farm hand who prefers not to quit his village and his soil here.
Each of you will discuss alternately, in couplets of equal length, the
pleasures of his trade to the tune--to the tune of the 'Iru Damacho'. Go
on."

They looked at each other, the two brothers, half turned toward each
other on the oak bench where they sit; an instant of reflection, during
which an imperceptible agitation of the eyelids alone betrays the
working of their minds; then, brusquely Marcos, the elder, begins, and
they will never stop. With their shaven cheeks, their handsome profiles,
their chins which advance somewhat imperiously above the powerful
muscles of the neck, they recall, in their grave immobility, the figures
engraved on the Roman medals. They sing with a certain effort of the
throat, like the muezzins in the mosques, in high tones. When one has
finished his coup