The family house has been sold, at the notary's money questions have been settled; all the goods of Ramuntcho have been transformed into gold pieces which are in his hand—

And now is the day of the supreme attempt, the great day,—and already the thick foliage has returned to the trees, the clothing of the tall grass covers anew the prairies; it is May.

In the little wagon, which the famous fast horse drags, they roll on the shady mountain paths, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, toward that village of Amezqueta. They roll quickly; they plunge into the heart of an infinite region of trees. And, as the hour goes by, all becomes more peaceful around them, and more savage; more primitive, the hamlets; more solitary, the Basque land.

In the shade of the branches, on the borders of the paths, there are pink foxgloves, silences, ferns, almost the same flora as in Brittany; these two countries, the Basque and the Breton, resemble each other by the granite which is everywhere and by the habitual rain; by the immobility also, and by the continuity of the same religious dream.

Above the two young men who have started for the adventure, thicken the big, customary clouds, the sombre and low sky. The route which they follow, in these mountains ever and ever higher, is deliciously green, dug in the shade, between walls of ferns.

Immobility of several centuries, immobility in beings and in things,—one has more and more the consciousness of it as one penetrates farther into this country of forests and of silence. Under this obscure veil of the sky, where are lost the summits of the grand Pyrenees, appear and run by, isolated houses, centenary farms, hamlets more and more rare,—and they go always under the same vault of oaks, of ageless chestnut trees, which twist even at the side of the path their roots like mossy serpents. They resemble one another, those hamlets separated from one another by so much forest, by so many branches, and inhabited by an antique race, disdainful of all that disturbs, of all that changes: the humble church, most often without a belfry, with a simple campanila on its gray facade, and the square, with its wall painted for that traditional ball-game wherein, from father to son, the men exercise their hard muscles. Everywhere reigned the healthy peace of rustic life, the traditions of which in the Basque land are more immutable than elsewhere.

The few woolen caps which the two bold young men meet on their rapid passage, incline all in a bow, from general politeness first, and from acquaintance above all, for they are, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, the two celebrated pelota players of the country;—Ramuntcho, it is true, had been forgotten by many people, but Arrochkoa, everybody, from Bayonne to San Sebastian, knows his face with healthy colors and the turned up ends of his catlike mustache.

Dividing the journey into two stages, they have slept last night at Mendichoco. And at present they are rolling quickly, the two young men, so preoccupied doubtless that they hardly care to regulate the pace of their vigorous beast.

Itchoua, however, is not with them. At the last moment, a fear has come to Ramuntcho of this accomplice, whom he felt to be capable of everything, even of murder; in a sudden terror, he has refused the aid of that man, who clutched the bridle of the horse to prevent it from starting; and feverishly, Ramuntcho has thrown gold into his hands, to pay for his advice, to buy the liberty to act alone, the assurance, at least, of not committing a crime: piece by piece, to break his engagement, he has given to Itchoua a half of the agreed price. Then, when the horse is driven at a gallop, when the implacable figure has vanished behind a group of trees, Ramuntcho has felt his conscience lighter—

"You will leave my carriage at Aranotz, at Burugoity, the inn-keeper's, who understands," said Arrochkoa, "for, you understand, as soon as you have accomplished your end I will leave you.—We have business with the people of Buruzabal, horses to lead into Spain to-night, not far from Amezqueta, and I promised to be there before ten o'clock—"

What will they do? They do not know, the two allied friends; this will depend on the turn that things take; they have different projects, all bold and skilful, according to the cases which might present themselves. Two places have been reserved, one for Ramuntcho and the other for her, on board a big emigrant vessel on which the baggage is embarked and which will start tomorrow night from Bordeaux carrying hundreds of Basques to America. At this small station of Aranotz, where the carriage will leave both of them, Ramuntcho and Gracieuse, they will take the train for Bayonne, at three o'clock in the morning, and, at Bayonne afterward, the Irun express to Bordeaux. It will be a hasty flight, which will not give to the little fugitive the time to think, to regain her senses in her terror,—doubtless also in her intoxication deliciously mortal—

A gown, a mantilla of Gracieuse are all ready, at the bottom of the carriage, to replace the veil and the black uniform: things which she wore formerly, before her vows, and which Arrochkoa found in his mother's closets. And Ramuntcho thinks that it will be perhaps real, in a moment, 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 like the device of an entire race: "O crux, ave, spes unica!"

Soon the night will come. Now they are silent, because the hour is going, because the moment approaches, because all these crosses on the road are beginning to intimidate them—

And the day falls, under that sad veil which covers the sky. The valleys become more savage, the country more deserted. And, at the corners of roads, the old crosses appear, ever with their similar inscriptions: "O crux, ave, spes unica!"

Amezqueta, at the last twilight. They stop their carriage at an outskirt of the village, before the cider mill. Arrochkoa is impatient to go into the house of the sisters, vexed at arriving so late; he fears that the door may not be opened to them. Ramuntcho, silent, lets him act.

It is above, on the hill; it is that isolated house which a cross surmounts and which one sees in relief in white on the darker mass of the mountain. They recommend that as soon as the horse is rested the wagon be brought to them, at a turn, to wait for them. Then, both go into the avenue of trees which leads to that convent and where the thickness of the May foliage makes the obscurity almost nocturnal. Without saying anything to each other, without making a noise with their sandals, they ascend in a supple and easy manner; around them the profound fields are impregnated by the immense melancholy of the night.

Arrochkoa knocks with his finger on the door of the peaceful house:

"I would like to see my sister, if you please," he says to an old nun who opens the door, astonished—

Before he has finished talking, a cry of joy comes from the dark corridor, and a nun, whom one divines is young in spite of the envelopment of her dissembling costume, comes and takes his hand. She has recognized him by his voice,—but has she divined the other who stays behind and does not talk?—

The Mother Superior has come also, and, in the darkness of the stairway, she makes them go up to the parlor of the little country convent; then she brings the cane-seat chairs and everyone sits down, Arrochkoa near his sister, Ramuntcho opposite,—and they face each other at last, the two lovers, and a silence, full of the beating of arteries, full of leaps of hearts, full of fever, descends upon them—

Truly, in this place, one knows not what peace almost sweet, and a little sepulchral also, envelopes the terrible interview; in the depth of the chests, the hearts beat with great blows, but the words of love or of violence, the words die before passing the lips.—And this peace, more and more establishes itself; it seems as if a white shroud little by little is covering everything, in order to calm and to extinguish.

There is nothing very peculiar, however, in this humble parlor: four walls absolutely bare under a coat of whitewash; a wooden ceiling; a floor where one slips, so carefully waxed it is; on a table, a plaster Virgin, already indistinct, among all the similar white things of the background where the twilight of May is dying. And a window without curtains, open on the grand Pyrenean horizons invaded by night.—But, from this voluntary poverty, from this white simplicity, is exhaled a notion of definitive impersonality, of renunciation forever; and the irremediability of accomplished things begins to manifest itself to the mind of Ramuntcho, while bringing to him a sort of peace, of sudden and involuntary resignation.

The two smugglers, immovable on their chairs, appear as silhouettes, of wide shoulders on all this white of the walls, and of their lost features one hardly sees the black more intense of the mustache and the eyes. The two nuns, whose outlines are unified by the veil, seem already to be two spectres all black—

"Wait, Sister Mary Angelique," says the Mother Superior to the transformed young girl who was formerly named Gracieuse, "wait sister till I light the lamp in order that you may at least see your brother's face!"

She goes out, leaving them together, and, again, silence falls on this rare instant, perhaps unique, impossible to regain, when they are alone—

She comes back with a little lamp which makes the eyes of the smugglers shine,—and with a gay voice, a kind air, asks, looking at Ramuntcho:

"And this one? A second brother, I suppose?—"

"Oh, no," says Arrochkoa in a singular tone. "He is only my friend."

In truth, he is not their brother, that Ramuntcho who stays there, ferocious and mute.—And how he would frighten the quiet nuns if they knew what storm brings him here—!

The same silence returns, heavy and disquieting, on these beings who, it seems, should talk simply of simple things; and the old Mother Superior remarks it, is astonished by it.—But the quick eyes of Ramuntcho become immovable, veil themselves as if they are fascinated by some invisible tamer. Under the harsh envelope, still beating, of his chest, the calmness, the imposed calmness continues to penetrate and to extend. On him, doubtless, are acting the mysterious, white powers which are here in the air; religious heredities which were asleep in the depths of his being fill him now with unexpected respect and submissiveness; the antique symbols dominate him: the crosses met in the evening along the road and that plaster Virgin of the color of snow, immaculate on the spotless white of the wall—

"Well, my children, talk of the things of Etchezar," says the Mother Superior to Gracieuse and to her brother. "We shall leave you alone, if you wish," she adds with a sign to Ramuntcho to follow her.

"Oh, no," protests Arrochkoa, "Let him stay.—No, he is not the one—who prevents us—"

And the little nun, veiled in the fashion of the Middle Age, lowers her head, to maintain her eyes hidden in the shade of her austere headdress.

The door remains open, the window remains open; the house, the things retain their air of absolute confidence, of absolute security, against violations and sacrilege. Now two other sisters, who are very old, set a small table, put two covers, bring to Arrochkoa and to his friend a little supper, a loaf of bread, cheese, cake, grapes from the arbor. In arranging these things they have a youthful gaiety, a babble almost childish—and all this is strangely opposed to the ardent violence which is here, hushed, thrown back into the depth of minds, as under the blows of some mace covered with white—

And, in spite of themselves, they are seated at the table, the two smugglers, opposite each other, yielding to insistence and eating absent-mindedly the frugal things, on a cloth as white as the walls. Their broad shoulders, accustomed to loads, lean on the backs of the little chairs and make their frail wood crack. Around them come and go the Sisters, ever with their discreet talk and their puerile laugh, which escape, somewhat softened, from under their veils. Alone, she remains mute and motionless, Sister Mary Angelique: standing near her brother who is seated, she places her hand on his powerful shoulder; so lithe beside him that she looks like a saint of a primitive church picture. Ramuntcho, sombre, observes them both; he had not been able to see yet the face of Gracieuse, so severely her headdress framed it. They resemble each other still, the brother and the sister; in their very long eyes, which have acquired expressions more than ever different remains something inexplicably similar, persists the same flame, that flame which impelled one toward adventures and the life of the muscles, the other toward mystic dreams, toward mortification and annihilation of flesh. But she has become as frail as he is robust; her breast doubtless is no more, nor her hips; the black vestment wherein her body remains hidden falls straight like a furrow enclosing nothing carnal.

And now, for the first time, they are face to face, Gracieuse and Ramuntcho; their eyes have met and gazed on one another. She does not lower her head before him; but it is as from an infinite distance that she looks at him, it is as from behind white mists that none may scale, as from the other side of an abyss, as from the other side of death; very soft, nevertheless, her glance indicates that she is as if she were absent, gone to tranquil and inaccessible other places.—And it is Ramuntcho at last who, still more tamed, lowers his ardent eyes before her virgin eyes.

They continue to babble, the Sisters; they would like to retain them both at Amezqueta for the night: the weather, they say, is so black, and a storm threatens.—M. the Cure, who went out to take communion to a patient in the mountain, will come back; he has known Arrochkoa at Etchezar when a vicar there; he would be glad to give him a room in the parish house—and one to his friend also, of course—

But no, Arrochkoa refuses, after a questioning glance at Ramuntcho. It is impossible to stay in the village; they will even go at once, or after a few moments of conversation, for they are expected on the Spanish frontier.—Gracieuse who, at first, in her mortal disturbance of mind, had not dared to talk, begins to question her brother. Now in Basque, then in French, she asks for news of those whom she has forever abandoned:

"And mother? All alone now in the house, even at night?"

"Oh, no," says Arrochkoa, "Catherine watches over her and sleeps at the house."

"And how is your child, Arrochkoa, has he been christened? What is his name? Lawrence, doubtless, like his grandfather."

Etchezar, their village, is separated from Amezqueta by some sixty kilometres, in a land without more means of communication than in the past centuries:

"Oh, in spite of the distance," says the little nun, "I get news of you sometimes. Last month, people here had met on the market place of Hasparren, women of our village; that is how I learned—many things.—At Easter I had hoped to see you; I was told that there would be a ball-game at Erricalde and that you would come to play there; then I said to myself that perhaps you would come here—and, while the festival lasted, I looked often at the road through this window, to see if you were coming—"

And she shows the window, open on the blackness of the savage country—from which ascends an immense silence, with, from time to time, the noise of spring, intermittent musical notes of crickets and tree-toads.

Hearing her talk so quietly, Ramuntcho feels confounded by this renunciation of all things; she appears to him still more irrevocably changed, far-off—poor little nun!—Her name was Gracieuse; now her name is Sister Mary Angelique, and she has no relatives; impersonal here, in this little house with white walls, without terrestrial hope and without desire, perhaps—one might as well say that she has departed for the regions of the grand oblivion of death. And yet, she smiles, quite serene now and apparently not even suffering.

Arrochkoa looks at Ramuntcho, questions him with a piercing eye accustomed to fathom the black depths—and, tamed himself by all this unexpected peace, he understands very well that his bold comrade dares no longer, that all the projects have fallen, that all is useless and inert in presence of the invisible wall with which his sister is surrounded. At moments, pressed to end all in one way or in another, in a haste to break this charm or to submit to it and to fly before it, he pulls his watch, says that it is time to go, because of the friends who are waiting for them.—The Sisters know well who these friends are and why they are waiting but they are not affected by this: Basques themselves, daughters and granddaughters of Basques, they have the blood of smugglers in their veins and consider such things indulgently—

At last, for the first time, Gracieuse titters the name of Ramuntcho; not daring, however, to address him directly, she asks her brother, with a calm smile:

"Then he is with you, Ramuntcho, now? You work together?"

A silence follows, and Arrochkoa looks at Ramuntcho.

"No," says the latter, in a slow and sombre voice, "no—I, I go to-morrow to America—"

Every word of this reply, harshly scanned, is like a sound of trouble and of defiance in the midst of that strange serenity. She leans more heavily on her brother's shoulder, the little nun, and Ramuntcho, conscious of the profound blow which he has struck, looks at her and envelopes her with his tempting eyes, having regained his audacity, attractive and dangerous in the last effort of his heart full of love, of his entire being of youth and of flame made for tenderness.—Then, for an uncertain minute, it seems as if the little convent had trembled; it seems as if the white powers of the air recoiled, went out like sad, unreal mists before this young dominator, come here to hurl the triumphant appeal of life. And the silence which follows is the heaviest of all the silent moments which have interrupted already that species of drama played almost without words—

At last, Sister Mary Angelique talks, and talks to Ramuntcho himself. Really it does not seem as if her heart had just been torn supremely by the announcement of that departure, nor as if she had just shuddered under that lover's look.—With a voice which little by little becomes firmer in softness, she says very simple things, as to any friend.

"Oh, yes—Uncle Ignacio?—I had always thought that you would go to rejoin him there.—We shall all pray the Holy Virgin to accompany you in your voyage—"

And it is the smuggler who lowers the head, realizing that all is ended, that she is lost forever, the little companion of his childhood; that she has been buried in an inviolable shroud.—The words of love and of temptation which he had thought of saying, the projects which he had revolved in his mind for months, all these seemed insensate, sacrilegious, impossible things, childish bravadoes.—Arrochkoa, who looks at him attentively, is under the same irresistible and light charm; they understand each other and, to one another, without words, they confess that there is nothing to do, that they will never dare—

Nevertheless an anguish still human appears in the eyes of Sister Mary Angelique when Arrochkoa rises for the definite departure: she prays, in a changed voice, for them to stay a moment longer. And Ramuntcho suddenly feels like throwing himself on his knees in front of her; his head on the hem of her veil, sobbing all the tears that stifle him; like begging for mercy, like begging for mercy also of that Mother Superior who has so soft an air; like telling both of them that this sweetheart of his childhood was his hope, his courage, his life, and that people must have a little pity, people must give her back to him, because, without her, there is no longer anything.—All that his heart contains that is infinitely good is exalted at present into an immense necessity to implore, into an outbreak of supplicating prayer and also into a confidence in the kindness, in the pity of others—

And who knows, if he had dared formulate that great prayer of pure tenderness, who knows what he might have awakened of kindness also, and of tenderness and of humanity in the poor, black-veiled girl?—Perhaps this old Mother Superior herself, this old, dried-up girl with childish smile and grave, pure eyes, would have opened her arms to him, as to a son, understanding everything, forgiving everything, despite the rules and despite the vows? And perhaps Gracieuse might have been returned to him, without kidnapping, without deception, almost excused by her companions of the cloister. Or at last, if that was impossible, she would have bade him a long farewell, consoling, softened by a kiss of immaterial love—

But no, he stays there mute on his chair. Even that prayer he cannot make. And it is the hour to go, decidedly. Arrochkoa is up, agitated, calling him with an imperious sign of the head. Then he straightens up also his proud bust and takes his cap to follow Arrochkoa. They express their thanks for the little supper which was given to them and they say good-night, timidly. During their entire visit they were very respectful, almost timid, the two superb smugglers. And, as if hope had not just been undone, as if one of them was not leaving behind him his life, they descend quietly the neat stairway, between the white walls, while the good Sisters light the way with their little lamp.

"Come, Sister Mary Angelique," gaily proposes the Mother Superior, in her frail, infantile voice, "we shall escort them to the end of our avenue, you know, near the village."

Is she an old fairy, sure of her power, or a simple and unconscious woman, playing without knowing it, with a great, devouring fire?—It was all finished; the parting had been accomplished; the farewell accepted; the struggle stifled under white wadding,—and now the two who adored each other are walking side by side, outside, in the tepid night of spring!—in the amorous, enveloping night, under the cover of the new leaves and on the tall grass, among all the saps that ascend in the midst of the sovereign growth of universal life.

They walk with short steps, through this exquisite obscurity, as in silent accord, to make the shaded path last longer, both mute, in the ardent desire and the intense fear of contact of their clothes, of a touch of their hands. Arrochkoa and the Mother Superior follow them closely, on their heels; without talking, nuns with their sandals, smugglers with their rope soles, they go through these soft, dark spots without making more noise than phantoms, and their little cortege, slow and strange, descends toward the wagon in a funereal silence. Silence also around them, everywhere in the grand, ambient black, in the depth of the mountains and the woods. And, in the sky without stars, sleep the big clouds, heavy with all the water that the soil awaits and which will fall to-morrow to make the woods still more leafy, the grass still higher; the big clouds above their heads cover all the splendor of the southern summer which so often, in their childhood, charmed them together, disturbed them together, but which Ramuntcho will doubtless never see again and which in the future Gracieuse will have to look at with eyes of one dead, without understanding nor recognizing it—

There is no one around them, in the little obscure alley, and the village seems asleep already. The night has fallen quite; its grand mystery is scattered everywhere, on the mountains and the savage valleys.—And, how easy it would be to execute what these two young men have resolved, in that solitude, with that wagon which is ready and that fast horse—!

However, without having talked, without having touched each other, they come, the lovers, to that turn of the path where they must bid each other an eternal farewell. The wagon is there, held by a boy; the lantern is lighted and the horse impatient. The Mother Superior stops: it is, apparently, the last point of the last walk which they will take together in this world,—and she feels the power, that old nun, to decide that it will be thus, without appeal. With the same little, thin voice, almost gay, she says:

"Come, Sister, say good-bye."

And she says that with the assurance of a Fate whose decrees of death are not disputable.

In truth, nobody attempts to resist her order, impassibly given. He is vanquished, the rebellious Ramuntcho, oh, quite vanquished by the tranquil, white powers; trembling still from the battle which has just come to an end in him, he lowers his head, without will now, and almost without thought, as under the influence of some sleeping potion—

"Come, Sister, say good-bye," the old, tranquil Fate has said. Then, seeing that Gracieuse has only taken Arrochkoa's hand, she adds:

"Well, you do not kiss your brother?—"

Doubtless, the little Sister Mary Angelique asks for nothing better, to kiss him with all her heart, with all her soul; to clasp him, her brother, to lean on his shoulder and to seek his protection, at that hour of superhuman sacrifice when she must let the cherished one leave her without even a word of love.—And still, her kiss has in it something frightened, at once drawn back; the kiss of a nun, somewhat similar to the kiss of one dead.—When will she ever see him again, that brother, who is not to leave the Basque country, however? When will she have news of her mother, of the house, of the village, from some passer-by who will stop here, coming from Etchezar?—

"We will pray," she says again, "to the Holy Virgin to protect you in your long voyage—" And how they go; slowly they turn back, like silent shades, toward the humble convent which the cross protects, and the two tamed smugglers, immovable on the road, look at their veils, darker than the night of the trees, disappearing in the obscure avenue.

Oh! she is wrecked also, the one who will disappear in the darkness of the little, shady hill.—But she is nevertheless soothed by white, peaceful vapors, and all that she suffers will soon be quieted under a sort of sleep. To-morrow she will take again, until death, the course of her strangely simple existence; impersonal, devoted to a series of daily duties which never change, absorbed in a reunion of creatures almost neutral, who have abdicated everything, she will be able to walk with eyes lifted ever toward the soft, celestial mirage—

O crux, ave, spes unica—!

To live, without variety or truce to the end, between the white walls of a cell always the same, now here, then elsewhere, at the pleasure of a strange will, in one of those humble village convents to which one has not even the leisure to become attached. On this earth, to possess nothing and to desire nothing, to wait for nothing, to hope for nothing. To accept as empty and transitory the fugitive hours of this world, and to feel freed from everything, even from love, as much as by death.—The mystery of such lives remains forever unintelligible to those young men who are there, made for the daily battle, beautiful beings of instinct and of strength, a prey to all the desires; created to enjoy life and to suffer from it, to love it and to continue it—

O crux, ave, spes unica!—One sees them no longer, they have re-entered their little, solitary convent.

The two men have not exchanged even a word on their abandoned undertaking, on the ill-defined cause which for the first time has undone their courage; they feel, toward one another, almost a sense of shame of their sudden and insurmountable timidity.

For an instant their proud heads were turned toward the nuns slowly fleeing; now they look at each other through the night.

They are going to part, and probably forever: Arrochkoa puts into his friends hands the reins of the little wagon which, according to his promise, he lends to him:

"Well, my poor Ramuntcho!" he says, in a tone of commiseration hardly affectionate.

And the unexpressed end of the phrase signifies clearly:

"Go, since you have failed; and I have to go and meet my friends—"

Ramuntcho would have kissed him with all his heart for the last farewell,—and in this embrace of the brother of the beloved one, he would have shed doubtless good, hot tears which, for a moment at least, would have cured him a little.

But no, Arrochkoa has become again the Arrochkoa of the bad days, the gambler without soul, that only bold things interest. Absentmindedly, he touches Ramuntcho's hand:

"Well, good-bye!—Good luck—"

And, with silent steps, he goes toward the smugglers, toward the frontier, toward the propitious darkness.

Then Ramuntcho, alone in the world now, whips the little, mountain horse who gallops with his light tinkling of bells.—That train which will pass by Aranotz, that vessel which will start from Bordeaux—an instinct impels Ramuntcho not to miss them. Mechanically he hastens, no longer knowing why, like a body without a mind which continues to obey an ancient impulsion, and, very quickly, he who has no aim and no hope in the world, plunges into the savage country, into the thickness of the woods, in all that profound blackness of the night of May, which the nuns, from their elevated window, see around them—

For him the native land is closed, closed forever; finished are the delicious dreams of his first years. He is a plant uprooted from the dear, Basque soil and which a breath of adventure blows elsewhere.

At the horse's neck, gaily the bells tinkle, in the silence of the sleeping woods; the light of the lantern, which runs hastily, shows to the sad fugitive the under side of branches, fresh verdure of oaks; by the wayside, flowers of France; from distance to distance, the walls of a familiar hamlet, of an old church,—all the things which he will never see again, unless it be, perhaps, in a doubtful and very distant old age—

In front of his route, there is America, exile without probable return, an immense new world, full of surprises and approached now without courage: an entire life, very long, doubtless, during which his mind plucked from here will have to suffer and to harden over there; his vigor spend and exhaust itself none knows where, in unknown labors and struggles—

Above, in their little convent, in their sepulchre with walls so white, the tranquil nuns recite their evening prayers—

O crux, ave, spes unica—!

THE END.