The night falls, falls, the last golden colors scatter with serene melancholy over the highest summits of the Basque country. In the deserted church, profound silence is established and antique images regard one another alone through the invasion of night—Oh! the sadness of ends of festivals, in very isolated villages, as soon as the sun sets—!
Meanwhile Ramuntcho is more and more the great conqueror. And the plaudits, the cries, redouble his happy boldness; each time he makes a point the men, standing now on the old, graded, granite benches, acclaim him with southern fury.
The last point, the sixtieth—It is Ramuntcho's and he has won the game!
Then there is a sudden crumbling into the arena of all the Basque caps which ornamented the stone amphitheatre; they press around the players who have made themselves immovable, suddenly, in tired attitudes. And Ramuntcho unfastens the thongs of his glove in the middle of a crowd of expansive admirers; from all sides, brave and rude hands are stretched to grasp his or to strike his shoulder amicably.
“Have you asked Gracieuse to dance with you this evening?” asks Arrochkoa, who in this instant would do anything for him.
“Yes, when she came out of the high mass I spoke to her—She has promised.”
“Good! I feared that mother—Oh! I would have arranged it, in any case; you may believe me.”
A robust old man with square shoulders, with square jaws, with a beardless, monkish face, before whom all bowed with respect, comes also: it is Haramburu, a player of the olden time who was celebrated half a century ago in America for the game of rebot, and who earned a small fortune. Ramuntcho blushes with pleasure at the compliment of this old man, who is hard to please. And beyond, standing on the reddish benches, among the long grasses and the November scabwort, his little friend, whom a group of young girls follows, turns back to smile at him, to send to him with her hand a gentle adios in the Spanish fashion. He is a young god in this moment, Ramuntcho; people are proud to know him, to be among his friends, to get his waistcoat for him, to talk to him, to touch him.
Now, with the other pelotaris, he goes to the neighboring inn, to a room where are placed the clean clothes of all and where careful friends accompany them to rub their bodies, wet with perspiration.
And, a moment afterward, elegant in a white shirt, his cap on the side, he comes out of the door, under the plane-trees shaped like vaults, to enjoy again his success, see the people pass, continue to gather compliments and smiles.
The autumnal day has declined, it is evening at present. In the lukewarm air, bats glide. The mountaineers of the surrounding villages depart one by one; a dozen carriages are harnessed, their lanterns are lighted, their bells ring and they disappear in the little shady paths of the valleys. In the middle of the limpid penumbra may be distinguished the women, the pretty girls seated on benches in front of the houses, under the vaults of the plane-trees; they are only clear forms, their Sunday costumes make white spots in the twilight, pink spots—and the pale blue spot which Ramuntcho looks at is the new gown of Gracieuse.—Above all, filling the sky, the gigantic Gizune, confused and sombre, is as if it were the centre and the source of the darkness, little by little scattered over all things. And at the church, suddenly the pious bells ring, recalling to distracted minds the enclosure where the graves are, the cypress trees around the belfry, and the entire grand mystery of the sky, of prayer, of inevitable death.
Oh! the sadness of ends of festivals in very isolated villages, when the sun ceases to illuminate, and when it is autumn—
They know very well, these men who were so ardent a moment ago in the humble pleasures of the day, that in the cities there are other festivals more brilliant, more beautiful and less quickly ended; but this is something separate; it is the festival of the country, of their own country, and nothing can replace for them these furtive instants whereof they have thought for so many days in advance—Lovers who will depart toward the scattered houses flanking the Pyrenees, couples who to-morrow will begin over their monotonous and rude life, look at one another before separating, look at one another under the falling night, with regretful eyes that say: “Then, it is finished already? Then, that is all?—”
Eight o'clock in the evening. They have dined at the cider mill, all the players except the vicar, under the patronage of Itchoua; they have lounged for a long time afterward, languid in the smoke of smuggled cigarettes and listening to the marvellous improvisations of the two Iragola brothers, of the Mendiazpi mountain—while outside, on the street, the girls in small groups holding one another's arms, looked at the windows, found pleasure in observing on the smoky panes the round shadows of the heads of the men covered with similar caps—
Now, on the square, the brass band plays the first measures of the fandango, and the young men, the young girls, all those of the village and several also of the mountain who have remained to dance, arrive in impatient groups. There are some dancing already on the road, not to lose anything.
And soon the fandango turns, turns, in the light of the new moon the horns of which seem to pose, lithe and light, on the enormous and heavy mountain. In the couples that dance without ever touching each other, there is never a separation; before one another always and at an equal distance, the boy and the girl make evolutions with a rhythmic grace, as if they were tied together by some invisible magnet.
It has gone into hiding, the crescent of the moon, fallen, one would think, in the black mountain; then lanterns are brought and hooked to the trunks of the plane-trees and the young men can see better their partners who, opposite them swing with an air of fleeing continually, but without increasing their distance ever: almost all pretty, their hair elegantly dressed, a kerchief on the neck, and wearing with ease gowns in the fashion of to-day. The men, somewhat grave always, accompany the music with snaps of their fingers in the air: shaven and sunburnt faces to which labor in the fields, in smuggling or at sea, has given a special thinness, almost ascetic; still, by the ampleness of their brown necks, by the width of their shoulders, one divines their great strength, the strength of that old, sober and religious race.
The fandango turns and oscillates, to the tune of an ancient waltz. All the arms, extended and raised, agitate themselves in the air, rise or fall with pretty, cadenced motions following the oscillations of bodies. The rope soled sandals make this dance silent and infinitely light; one hears only the frou-frou of gowns, and ever the snap of fingers imitating the noise of castanets. With a Spanish grace, the girls, whose wide sleeves expand like wings, swing their tightened waists above their vigorous and supple hips—
Facing one another, Ramuntcho and Gracieuse said nothing at first, captivated by the childish joy of moving quickly in cadence, to the sound of music. It is very chaste, that manner of dancing without the slightest touch of bodies.
But there were also, in the course of the evening, waltzes and quadrilles, and even walks arm-in-arm during which the lovers could touch each other and talk.
“Then, my Ramuntcho,” said Gracieuse, “it is of that game that you expect to make your future, is it not?”
They were walking now arm-in-arm, under the plane-trees shedding their leaves in the night of November, lukewarm as a night of May, during an interval of silence when the musicians were resting.
“Yes,” replied Ramuntcho, “in our country it is a trade, like any other, where one may earn a living, as long as strength lasts—and one may go from time to time to South America, you know, as Irun and Gorosteguy have done, and bring back twenty, thirty thousand francs for a season, earned honestly at Buenos Ayres.”
“Oh, the Americas—” exclaimed Gracieuse in a joyful enthusiasm—“the Americas, what happiness! It was always my wish to go across the sea to those countries!—And we would look for your uncle Ignacio, then go to my cousin, Bidegaina, who has a farm on the Uruguay, in the prairies—”
She ceased talking, the little girl who had never gone out of thatvillage which the mountains enclose; she stopped to think of thesefar-off lands which haunted her young head because she had, like mostBasques, nomadic ancestors—folks who are called here Americans orIndians, who pass their adventurous lives on the other side of the oceanand return to the cherished village only very late, to die. And, whileshe dreamed, her nose in the air, her eyes in the black of the cloudsand of the summits, Ramuntcho felt his blood running faster, hisheart beating quicker in the intense joy of what she had just said sospontaneously. And, inclining his head toward her, he asked, as if tojest, in a voice infinitely soft and childish:“We would go? Is that what you said: we would go, you with me? Thissignifies therefore that you would consent, a little later, when webecome of age, to marry me?”
He perceived through the darkness the gentle black light of Gracieuse's eyes, which rose toward him with an expression of astonishment and of reproach.
“Then—you did not know?”
“I wanted to make you say it, you see—You had never said it to me, do you know?—”
He held tighter the arm of his little betrothed and their walk became slower. It is true that they had never said it, not only because it seemed to them that it was not necessary to say, but especially because they were stopped at the moment of speaking by a sort of terror—the terror of being mistaken about each other's sentiment—and now they knew, they were sure. Then they had the consciousness of having passed together the grave and solemn threshold of life. And, leaning on one another, they faltered, almost, in their slackened promenade, like two children intoxicated by youthfulness, joy and hope.
“But do you think your mother will consent?” said Ramuntcho timidly, after the long, delightful silence—
“Ah, that is the trouble,” replied the little girl with a sigh of anxiety—“Arrochkoa, my brother, will be for us, it is probable. But mother?—Will mother consent?—But, it will not happen soon, in any case—You have to serve in the army.”
“No, if you do not want me to! No, I need not serve! I am a Guipuzcoan, like my mother; I shall be enrolled only if I wish to be—Whatever you say, I'll do—”
“My Ramuntcho, I would like better to wait for you longer and that you become naturalized, and that you become a soldier like the others. I tell you this, since you ask—”
“Truly, is it what you wish? Well, so much the better. Oh, to be a Frenchman or a Spaniard is indifferent to me. I shall do as you wish. I like as well one as the other: I am a Basque like you, like all of us; I care not for the rest! But as for being a soldier somewhere, on this side of the frontier or on the other, yes, I prefer it. In the first place, one who goes away looks as if he were running away; and then, it would please me to be a soldier, frankly.”
“Well, my Ramuntcho, since it is all the same to you, serve as a soldier in France, to please me.”
“It is understood, Gatchutcha!—You will see me wearing red trousers. I shall call on you in the dress of a soldier, like Bidegarray, like Joachim. As soon as I have served my three years, we will marry, if your mother consents!”
After a moment of silence Gracieuse said, in a low, solemn voice:
“Listen, my Ramuntcho—I am like you: I am afraid of her—of my mother—But listen—if she refuses, we shall do together anything, anything that you wish, for this is the only thing in the world in which I shall not obey her—”
Then, silence returned between them, now that they were engaged, the incomparable silence of young joys, of joys new and not yet tried, which need to hush, which need to meditate in order to understand themselves better in their profoundness. They walked in short steps and at random toward the church, in the soft obscurity which the lanterns troubled no longer, intoxicated by their innocent contact and by feeling that they were walking together in the path where no one had followed them—
But the noise of the brass instruments suddenly arose anew, in a sort of slow waltz, oddly rhythmic. And the two children, at the fandango's appeal, without having consulted each other, and as if it was a compulsory thing which may not be disputed, ran, not to lose a moment, toward the place where the couples were dancing. Quickly, quickly placing themselves opposite each other, they began again to swing in measure, without talking to each other, with the same pretty gestures of their arms, the same supple motions of their hips. From time to time, without loss of step or distance, both ran, in a direct line like arrows. But this was only an habitual variation of the dance,—and, ever in measure, quickly, as if they were gliding, they returned to their starting point.
Gracieuse had in dancing the same passionate ardor as in praying at the white chapels,—the same ardor which later doubtless, she would have in embracing Ramuntcho when caresses between them would not be forbidden. And at moments, at every fifth or sixth measure, at the same time as her light and strong partner, she turned round completely, the bust bent with Spanish grace, the head thrown backward, the lips half open on the whiteness of the teeth, a distinguished and proud grace disengaging itself from her little personality, still so mysterious, which to Ramuntcho only revealed itself a little.
During all this beautiful evening of November, they danced before each other, mute and charming, with intervals of promenade in which they hardly talked—intoxicated in silence by the delicious thought with which their minds were filled.
And, until the curfew rang in the church, this dance under the branches of autumn, these little lanterns, this little festival in this corner closed to the world, threw a little light and joyful noise into the vast night which the mountains, standing everywhere like giants of shadow, made more dumb and more black.
There is to be a grand ball-game next Sunday, for the feast of Saint Damasus, in the borough of Hasparitz.
Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, companions in continual expeditions through the surrounding country, travelled for the entire day, in the little wagon of the Detcharry family, in order to organize that ball-game, which to them is a considerable event.
In the first place, they had to consult Marcos, one of the Iragola brothers. Near a wood, in front of his house in the shade, they found him seated on a stump of a chestnut tree, always grave and statuesque, his eyes inspired and his gesture noble, in the act of making his little brother, still in swaddling clothes, eat soup.
“Is he the eleventh?” they have asked, laughing.
“Oh! Go on!” the big eldest brother has replied, “the eleventh is running already like a hare in the heather. This is number twelve!—little John the Baptist, you know, the latest, who, I think, will not be the last.”
And then, lowering their heads not to strike the branches, they had traversed the woods, the forests of oaks under which extends infinitely the reddish lace of ferns.
And they have traversed several villages also,—Basque villages, all grouped around these two things which are the heart of them and which symbolize their life: the church and the ball-game. Here and there, they have knocked at the doors of isolated houses, tall and large houses, carefully whitewashed, with green shades, and wooden balconies where are drying in the sun strings of red peppers. At length they have talked, in their language so closed to strangers of France, with the famous players, the titled champions, the ones whose odd names have been seen in all the journals of the southwest, on all the posters of Biarritz or of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and who, in ordinary life, are honest country inn-keepers, blacksmiths, smugglers, with waistcoat thrown over the shoulder and shirt sleeves rolled on bronze arms.
Now that all is settled and that the last words have been exchanged, it is too late to return that night to Etchezar; then, following their errant habits, they select for the night a village which they like, Zitzarry, for example, where they have gone often for their smuggling business. At the fall of night, then, they turn toward this place, which is near Spain. They go by the same little Pyrenean routes, shady and solitary under the old oaks that are shedding their leaves, among slopes richly carpeted with moss and rusty ferns. And now there are ravines where torrents roar, and then heights from which appear on all sides the tall, sombre peaks.
At first it was cold, a real cold, lashing the face and the chest. But now gusts begin to pass astonishingly warm and perfumed with the scent of plants: the southern wind, rising again, bringing back suddenly the illusion of summer. And then, it becomes for them a delicious sensation to go through the air, so brusquely changed, to go quickly under the lukewarm breaths, in the noise of their horse's bells galloping playfully in the mountains.
Zitzarry, a smugglers' village, a distant village skirting the frontier. A dilapidated inn where, according to custom, the rooms for the men are directly above the stables, the black stalls. They are well-known travelers there, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, and while men are lighting the fire for them they sit near an antique, mullioned window, which overlooks the square of the ball-game and the church; they see the tranquil, little life of the day ending in this place so separated from the world.
On this solemn square, the children practice the national game; grave and ardent, already strong, they throw their pelota against the wall, while, in a singing voice and with the needful intonation, one of them counts and announces the points, in the mysterious tongue of the ancestors. Around them, the tall houses, old and white, with warped walls, with projecting rafters, contemplate through their green or red windows those little players, so lithe, who run in the twilight like young cats. And the carts drawn by oxen return from the fields, with the noise of bells, bringing loads of wood, loads of gorse or of dead ferns—The night falls, falls with its peace and its sad cold. Then, the angelus rings—and there is, in the entire village, a tranquil, prayerful meditation—
Then Ramuntcho, silent, worries about his destiny, feels as if he were a prisoner here, with his same aspirations always, toward something unknown, he knows not what, which troubles him at the approach of night. And his heart also fills up, because he is alone and without support in the world, because Gracieuse is in a situation different from his and may never be given to him.
But Arrochkoa, very brotherly this time, in one of his good moments, slaps him on the shoulder as if he had understood his reverie, and says to him in a tone of light gaiety:
“Well! it seems that you talked together, last night, sister and you—she told me about it—and that you are both prettily agreed!—”
Ramuntcho lifts toward him a long look of anxious and grave interrogation, which is in contrast with the beginning of their conversation:
“And what do you think,” he asks, “of what we have said?”
“Oh, my friend,” replied Arrochkoa, become more serious also, “on my word of honor, it suits me very well—And even, as I fear that there shall be trouble with mother, I promise to help you if you need help—”
And Ramuntcho's sadness is dispelled as a little dust on which one has blown. He finds the supper delicious, the inn gay. He feels himself much more engaged to Gracieuse, now, when somebody is in the secret, and somebody in the family who does not repulse him. He had a presentiment that Arrochkoa would not be hostile to him, but his co-operation, so clearly offered, far surpasses Ramuntcho's hope—Poor little abandoned fellow, so conscious of the humbleness of his situation, that the support of another child, a little better established in life, suffices to return to him courage and confidence!
At the uncertain and somewhat icy dawn, he awoke in his little room in the inn, with a persistent impression of his joy on the day before, instead of the confused anguish which accompanied so often in him the progressive return of his thoughts. Outside, were sounds of bells of cattle starting for the pastures, of cows lowing to the rising sun, of church bells,—and already, against the wall of the large square, the sharp snap of the Basque pelota: all the noises of a Pyrenean village beginning again its customary life for another day. And all this seemed to Ramuntcho the early music of a day's festival.
At an early hour, they returned, Arrochkoa and he, to their little wagon, and, crushing their caps against the wind, started their horse at a gallop on the roads, powdered with white frost.
At Etchezar, where they arrived at noon, one would have thought it was summer,—so beautiful was the sun.
In the little garden in front of her house, Gracieuse sat on a stone bench:
“I have spoken to Arrochkoa!” said Ramuntcho to her, with a happy smile, as soon as they were alone—“And he is entirely with us, you know!”
“Oh! that,” replied the little girl, without losing the sadly pensive air which she had that morning, “oh, that!—my brother Arrochkoa, I suspected it, it was sure! A pelota player like you, you should know, was made to please him, in his mind there is nothing superior to that—”
“But your mother, Gatchutcha, for several days has acted much better to me, I think—For example, Sunday, you remember, when I asked you to dance—”
“Oh! don't trust to that, my Ramuntcho! you mean day before yesterday, after the high mass?—It was because she had just talked with the Mother Superior, have you not noticed?—And the Mother Superior had insisted that I should not dance with you on the square; then, only to be contrary, you understand—But, don't rely on that, no—”
“Oh!” replied Ramuntcho, whose joy had already gone, “it is true that they are not very friendly—”
“Friendly, mama and the Mother Superior?—Like a dog and a cat, yes!—Since there was talk of my going into the convent, do you not remember that story?”
He remembered very well, on the contrary, and it frightened him still. The smiling and mysterious black nuns had tried once to attract to the peace of their houses that little blonde head, exalted and willful, possessed by an immense necessity to love and to be loved—
“Gatchutcha! you are always at the sisters', or with them; why so often? explain this to me: they are very agreeable to you?”
“The sisters? no, my Ramuntcho, especially those of the present time, who are new in the country and whom I hardly know—for they change them often, you know—The sisters, no—I will even tell you that I am like mama about the Mother Superior. I cannot endure her—”
“Well, then, what?—”
“No, but what will you? I like their songs, their chapels, their houses, everything—I cannot explain that to you—Anyway, boys do not understand anything—”
The little smile with which she said this was at once extinguished, changed into a contemplative expression or an absent expression, which Ramuntcho had often seen in her. She looked attentively in front of her, although there were on the road only the leafless trees, the brown mass of the crushing mountain; but it seemed as if Gracieuse was enraptured in melancholy ecstasy by things perceived beyond them, by things which the eyes of Ramuntcho could not distinguish—And during their silence the angelus of noon began to ring, 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.
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 eyes, the wind slashes the ears. Nevertheless, thanks to the vigor of their arms, they were going quickly and well, when suddenly appeared in the obscurity something like a monster gliding on the waters. Bad business! It is the patrol boat which promenades every night. Spain's customs officers. In haste, they must change their direction, use artifice, lose precious time, and they are so belated already.
At last they have arrived without obstacle near the Spanish shore, among the large fishermen's barks which, on stormy nights, sleep there on their chains, in front of the “Marine” of Fontarabia. This is the perilous instant. Happily, the rain is faithful to them and falls still in torrents. Lowered in their skiff to be less visible, having ceased to talk, pushing the bottom with their oars in order to make less noise, they approach softly, softly, with pauses as soon as something has seemed to budge, in the midst of so much diffuse black, of shadows without outlines.
Now they are crouched against one of these large, empty barks and almost touching the earth. And this is the place agreed upon, it is there that the comrades of the other country should be to receive them and to carry their boxes to the receiving house—There is nobody there, however!—Where are they?—The first moments are passed in a sort of paroxysm of expectation and of watching, which doubles the power of hearing and of seeing. With eyes dilated, and ears extended, they watch, under the monotonous dripping of the rain—But where are the Spanish comrades? Doubtless the hour has passed, because of this accursed custom house patrol which has disarranged the voyage, and, believing that the undertaking has failed this time, they have gone back—
Several minutes flow, in the same immobility and the same silence. They distinguish, around them, the large, inert barks, similar to floating bodies of beasts, and then, above the waters, a mass of obscurities denser than the obscurities of the sky and which are the houses, the mountains of the shore—They wait, without a movement, without a word. They seem to be ghosts of boatmen near a dead city.
Little by little the tension of their senses weakens, a lassitude comes to them with the need of sleep—and they would sleep there, under this winter rain, if the place were not so dangerous.
Itchoua then consults in a low voice, in Basque language, the two eldest, and they decide to do a bold thing. Since the others are not coming, well! so much the worse, they will go alone, carry to the house over there, the smuggled boxes. It is risking terribly, but the idea is in their heads and nothing can stop them.
“You,” says Itchoua to Ramuntcho, in his manner which admits of no discussion, “you shall be the one to watch the bark, since you have never been in the path that we are taking; you shall tie it to the bottom, but not too solidly, do you hear? We must be ready to run if the carbineers arrive.”
So they go, all the others, their shoulders bent under the heavy loads, the rustling, hardly perceptible, of their march is lost at once on the quay which is so deserted and so black, in the midst of the monotonous dripping of the rain. And Ramuntcho, who has remained alone, crouches at the bottom of the skiff to be less visible becomes immovable again, under the incessant sprinkling of the rain, which falls now regular and tranquil.
They are late, the comrades—and by degrees, in this inactivity and this silence, an irresistible numbness comes to him, almost a sleep.
But now a long form, more sombre than all that is sombre, passes by him, passes very quickly,—always in this same absolute silence which is the characteristic of these nocturnal undertakings: one of the large Spanish barks!—Yet, thinks he, since all are at anchor, since this one has no sails nor oars—then, what?—It is I, myself, who am passing!—and he has understood: his skiff was too lightly tied, and the current, which is very rapid here, is dragging him:—and he is very far away, going toward the mouth of the Bidassoa, toward the breakers, toward the sea—
An anxiety has taken hold of him, almost an anguish—What will he do?—What complicates everything is that he must act without a cry of appeal, without a word, for, all along this coast, which seems to be the land of emptiness and of darkness, there are carbineers, placed in an interminable cordon and watching Spain every night as if it were a forbidden land—He tries with one of the long oars to push the bottom in order to return backward;—but there is no more bottom; he feels only the inconsistency of the fleeting and black water, he is already in the profound pass—Then, let him row, in spite of everything, and so much for the worse—!
With great trouble, his forehead perspiring, he brings back alone against the current the heavy bark, worried, at every stroke of the oar, by the small, disclosing grating that a fine ear over there might so well perceive. And then, one can see nothing more, through the rain grown thicker and which confuses the eyes; it is dark, dark as in the bowels of the earth where the devil lives. He recognizes no longer the point of departure where the others must be waiting for him, whose ruin he has perhaps caused; he hesitates, he waits, the ear extended, the arteries beating, and he hooks himself, for a moment's reflection, to one of the large barks of Spain—Something approaches then, gliding with infinite precaution on the surface of the water, hardly stirred: a human shadow, one would think, a silhouette standing:—a smuggler, surely, since he makes so little noise! They divine each other, and, thank God! it is Arrochkoa; Arrochkoa, who has untied a frail, Spanish skiff to meet him—So, their junction is accomplished and they are probably saved all, once more!
But Arrochkoa, in meeting him, utters in a wicked voice, in a voice tightened by his young, feline teeth, one of those series of insults which call for immediate answer and sound like an invitation to fight. It is so unexpected that Ramuntcho's stupor at first immobilizes him, retards the rush of blood to his head. Is this really what his friend has just said and in such a tone of undeniable insult?—
“You said?”
“Well!” replies Arrochkoa, somewhat softened and on his guard, observing in the darkness Ramuntcho's attitudes. “Well! you had us almost caught, awkward fellow that you are!—”
The silhouettes of the others appear in another bark.
“They are there,” he continues. “Let us go near them!”
And Ramuntcho takes his oarsman's seat with temples heated by anger, with trembling hands—no—he is Gracieuse's brother; all would be lost if Ramuntcho fought with him; because of her he will bend the head and say nothing.
Now their bark runs away by force of oars, carrying them all; the trick has been played. It was time; two Spanish voices vibrate on the black shore: two carbineers, who were sleeping in their cloaks and whom the noise has awakened!—And they begin to hail this flying, beaconless bark, not perceived so much as suspected, lost at once in the universal, nocturnal confusion.
“Too late, friends,” laughs Itchoua, while rowing to the uttermost. “Hail at your ease now and let the devil answer you!”
The current also helps them; they go into the thick obscurity with the rapidity of fishes.
There! Now they are in French waters, in safety, not far, doubtless, from the slime of the banks.
“Let us stop to breathe a little,” proposes Itchoua.
And they raise their oars, halting, wet with perspiration and with rain. They are immovable again under the cold shower, which they do not seem to feel. There is heard in the vast silence only the breathing of chests, little by little quieted, the little music of drops of water falling and their light rippling. But suddenly, from this bark which was so quiet, and which had no other importance than that of a shadow hardly real in the midst of so much night, a cry rises, superacute, terrifying: it fills the emptiness and rents the far-off distances—It has come from those elevated notes which belong ordinarily to women only, but with something hoarse and powerful that indicates rather the savage male; it has the bite of the voice of jackals and it preserves, nevertheless, something human which makes one shiver the more; one waits with a sort of anguish for its end, and it is long, long, it is oppressive by its inexplicable length—It had begun like a stag's bell of agony and now it is achieved and it dies in a sort of laughter, sinister and burlesque, like the laughter of lunatics—
However, around the man who has just cried thus in the front of the bark, none of the others is astonished, none budges. And, after a few seconds of silent peace, a new cry, similar to the first, starts from the rear, replying to it and passing through the same phases,—which are of a tradition infinitely ancient.
And it is simply the “irrintzina”, the great Basque cry which has been transmitted with fidelity from the depth of the abyss of ages to the men of our day, and which constitutes one of the strange characteristics of that race whose origins are enveloped in mystery. It resembles the cry of a being of certain tribes of redskins in the forests of America; at night, it gives the notion and the unfathomable fright of primitive ages, when, in the midst of the solitudes of the old world, men with monkey throats howled.
This cry is given at festivals, or for calls of persons at night in the mountains, and especially to celebrate some joy, some unexpected good fortune, a miraculous hunt or a happy catch of fish in the rivers.
And they are amused, the smugglers, at this game of the ancestors; they give their voices to glorify the success of their undertaking, they yell, from the physical necessity to be compensated for their silence of a moment ago.
But Ramuntcho remains mute and without a smile. This sudden savagery chills him, although he has known it for a long time; it plunges him into dreams that worry and do not explain themselves.
And then, he has felt to-night once more how uncertain and changing is his only support in the world, the support of that Arrochkoa on whom he should be able to count as on a brother; audacity and success at the ball-game will return that support to him, doubtless, but a moment of weakness, nothing, may at any moment make him lose it. Then it seems to him that the hope of his life has no longer a basis, that all vanishes like an unstable chimera.
All the day had endured that sombre sky which is so often the sky of the Basque country—and which harmonizes well with the harsh mountains, with the roar of the sea, wicked, in the depths of the Bay of Biscay.
In the twilight of this last day of the year, at the hour when the fires retain the men around the hearths scattered in the country, at the hour when home is desirable and delicious, Ramuntcho and his mother were preparing to sit at the supper table, when there was a discreet knock at the door.
The man who was coming to them from the night of the exterior, at the first aspect seemed unknown to them; only when he told his name (Jose Bidegarray, of Hasparitz) they recalled the sailor who had gone several years ago to America.
“Here,” he said, after accepting a chair, “here is the message which I have been asked to bring to you. Once, at Rosario in Uruguay, as I was talking on the docks with several other Basque immigrants there, a man, who might have been fifty years old, having heard me speak of Etchezar, came to me.
“'Do you come from Etchezar?' he asked.
“'No,' I replied, 'but I come from Hasparitz, which is not far from Etchezar.'
“Then he put questions to me about all your family. I said:
“'The old people are dead, the elder brother was killed in smuggling, the second has disappeared in America; there remain only Franchita and her son, Ramuntcho, a handsome young fellow who must be about eighteen years old today.'
“He was thinking deeply while he was listening to me.
“'Well,' he said at last, 'since you are going back there, you will say good-day to them for Ignacio.'
“And after offering a drink to me he went away—”
Franchita had risen, trembling and paler than ever. Ignacio, the most adventurous in the family, her brother who had disappeared for ten years without sending any news—!
How was he? What face? Dressed how?—Did he seem happy, at least, or was he poorly dressed?
“Oh!” replied the sailor, “he looked well, in spite of his gray hair; as for his costume, he appeared to be a man of means, with a beautiful gold chain on his belt.”
And that was all he could say, with this naive and rude good-day of which he was the bearer; on the subject of the exile he knew no more and perhaps, until she died, Franchita would learn nothing more of that brother, almost non-existing, like a phantom.
Then, when he had emptied a glass of cider, he went on his road, the strange messenger, who was going to his village. Then, they sat at table without speaking, the mother and the son: she, the silent Franchita, absent minded, with tears shining in her eyes; he, worried also, but in a different manner, by the thought of that uncle living in adventures over there.
When he ceased to be a child, when Ramuntcho began to desert from school, to wish to follow the smugglers in the mountain, Franchita would say to him:
“Anyway, you take after your uncle Ignacio, we shall never make anything of you!—”
And it was true that he took after his uncle Ignacio, that he was fascinated by all the things that are dangerous, unknown and far-off—
To-night, therefore, if she did not talk to her son of the message which had just been transmitted to them, the reason was she divined his meditation on America and was afraid of his answers. Besides, among country people, the little profound and intimate dramas are played without words, with misunderstandings that are never cleared up, with phrases only guessed at and with obstinate silence.
But, as they were finishing their meal, they heard a chorus of young and gay voices, coming near, accompanied by a drum, the boys of Etchezar, coming for Ramuntcho to bring him with them in their parade with music around the village, following the custom of New Year's eve, to go into every house, drink in it a glass of cider and give a joyous serenade to an old time tune.
And Ramuntcho, forgetting Uruguay and the mysterious uncle, became a child again, in the pleasure of following them and of singing with them along the obscure roads, enraptured especially by the thought that they would go to the house of the Detcharry family and that he would see again, for an instant, Gracieuse.