g, throwing more peace on the tranquil
village which was warming itself in the winter sun; then, bending their
heads, they made naively together their sign of the cross--

Then, when ceased to vibrate the holy bell, which in the Basque villages
interrupts life as in the Orient the song of the muezzins, Ramuntcho
decided to say:

"It frightens me, Gatchutcha, to see you in their company always--I
cannot but ask myself what ideas are in your head--"

Fixing on him the profound blackness of her eyes, she replied, in a tone
of soft reproach:

"It is you talking to me in that way, after what we have said to each
other Sunday night!--If I were to lose you, yes then, perhaps--surely,
even!--But until then, oh! no--oh! you may rest in peace, my
Ramuntcho--"

He bore for a long time her look, which little by little brought back to
him entire delicious confidence, and at last he smiled with a childish
smile:

"Forgive me," he asked--"I say silly things often, you know!--"

"That, at least, is the truth!"

Then, one heard the sound of their laughter, which in two different
intonations had the same freshness and the same youthfulness. Ramuntcho,
with an habitual brusque and graceful gesture, changed his waistcoat
from one shoulder to the other, pulled his cap on the side, and, with no
other farewell than a sign of the head, they separated, for Dolores was
coming from the end of the road.

CHAPTER VIII.

Midnight, a winter night, black as Hades, with great wind and whipping
rain. By the side of the Bidassoa, in the midst of a confused extent of
ground with treacherous soil that evokes ideas of chaos, in slime that
their feet penetrate, men are carrying boxes on their shoulders and,
walking in the water to their knees, come to throw them into a long
thing, blacker than night, which must be a bark--a suspicious bark
without a light, tied near the bank.

It is again Itchoua's band, which this time will work by the river. They
have slept for a few moments, all dressed, in the house of a receiver
who lives near the water, and, at the needed hour, Itchoua, who never
closes but one eye, has shaken his men; then, they have gone out with
hushed tread, into the darkness, under the cold shower propitious to
smuggling.

On the road now, with the oars, to Spain whose fires may be seen at a
distance, confused by the rain. The weather is let loose; the shirts of
the men are already wet, and, under the caps pulled over their eye