* * * * *

Here follow a repudiation of free trade as applied to Spain, and a few well-turned periods dealing in the usual Spanish manner with the duties of the ruler, laying down, among other axioms, that "virtue and knowledge are the chiefest nobility," and that the person of the mendicant should be as sacred as that of the patrician.

At the close there is a very sensible sentence, affirming that one Christian monarch in Spain would be better than three hundred petty kings disputing in a noisy assembly. "The chiefs of parties," continues the letter, "naturally yearn for honours or riches or place; but what in the world can a Christian king desire but the good of his people? What could he want to be happy but the love of his people?"

The letter winds up by the affirmation that Don Carlos is faithful to the good traditions of the old and glorious Spanish monarchy, and that he believed he would be found to act also as "a man of the present age." The last sentence is a prayer to his brother, "who had the enviable privilege of serving in the Papal army," to ask their spiritual king at Rome for his apostolic benediction for Spain and the writer.

If this document was written propria manu, by Don Carlos, he must be endowed with higher intellectual faculties than most Kings or Pretenders possess. It is undeniably clever, and is more progressive than one would expect from an upholder of the doctrine of Divine right. It may be, as Tennyson sings, that the thoughts of men (even when they are Bourbons) are widened with the process of the suns. But I protest that there is such a masterly mistiness in it here and there, such a careful elusion of rocks and ruggednesses political, and such a fine wind-beating flourish of the banner of glittering generality, that I think there were more heads than one engaged in the concoction of the manifesto. I have studiously refrained from the introduction of the religious topic as far as I could in this work—it is outside my sphere; but I should be unjust to the reader did I not give him some information (not from the controversial standpoint) on a subject which will obtrude itself in any discussion on the merits of the conflict which has twice distracted Spain and may divide the country again. It is unfortunately indisputable that religion was poked into the quarrel. The struggle was described in El Cuartel Real as a religious war; the theological allegiance of the partisans of Don Carlos was appealed to, and their ardent attachment to the Papacy was worked upon, as in the concluding sentence of the proclamation of Don Carlos. In those portions of the north where Carlism was all-powerful, the authorities were emphatically showing that those who served under them must be practical Roman Catholics nolentes volentes. An austere placard, signed by Barona, member of the Carlist war committee, was posted in the province of Alava, and ordained among other articles: Firstly, that the town councillors of every municipality should assist in a body at High Mass; secondly, that the mayors should interdict, under the most severe penalties, all games and public diversions, and the opening of all public establishments during Divine service; and thirdly, that all blasphemers, and all who worked on a holiday, who gave scandal, or who danced indecently, should be scourged. The first of these articles is lawful enough in a country which is almost exclusively Roman Catholic. In England nothing can be said against it, seeing that British soldiers of all denominations are compelled to attend Church parade, and the prisoners in all gaols have to register themselves as belonging to some religion. There is just this theoretical objection, however—the article implies that municipal honours are to be limited to members of one creed, which is intolerant. That which underlay the antipathy of numerous Conservatives outside Spain to the Royalist cause, was the belief entertained that the success of Don Carlos would lead to the re-assertion of clerical preponderance, would destroy liberty of conscience as understood in most European nations, and would set up a political priesthood. The manifesto of Don Carlos does not deal with those points in the full and categorical manner desirable. I was told there were two parties in the Carlist camp, the clerical and—for want of a better name, let it be called—the non-clerical The former, the Basques, and those who gave Carlism its great primary impulsion, were as zealously Roman Catholic as ever Manuel Santa Cruz was. They looked forward to the re-acquisition of the ecclesiastical domains and the re-establishment of the Catholic Church in all its ancient supremacy of wealth and power. The non-clericals knew that the Basques, even assuming them all to be Carlists, were but 660,000 in number, a small minority of the population, and that the existence of a State unduly influenced by a Church—things temporal controlled by personages bound to things spiritual—was antagonistic to the feelings of the majority of Spaniards.

Having met a nobleman distinguished for his services to Carlism, I put it to him bluntly, "Would Don Carlos on the throne mean a relapse into religious bigotry?"

He answered me with candour, "I am a Roman Catholic, and if I thought so I should be the last man to lend a penny to his cause."

"But," I urged, "that is the general impression in England, where he is trying to negotiate a loan, and if it is left uncorrected it does him injury. Why does he not repel the impeachment?"

"The truth is," he said, "Don Carlos has made too many public explanations."

I returned to the charge, challenging my acquaintance to deny that many of the supporters of Don Carlos would fall away if they had not the thorough belief that his cause was as much identified with the triumph of Roman Catholicism as with that of legitimacy. His reply was not a denial, but an admission of the fact, with the addition that in war one must not be too particular as to the means of enlisting aid, and stimulating the enthusiasm of supporters, which is an argument as true as it is old. Don Carlos, in his manifesto, goes on the assumption that the Republicans are all atheists, or something very like it. It is only fair to let the Republicans speak for themselves, and explain what is the Republican estimate of the Carlist religion. The San Sebastian newspaper, El Diario, may be assumed to be a fair exponent of the sentiments of the anti-Carlists, and thus emphatically, and not without a spice of antithesis, it delivers itself:

"The religion which has the commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill,' forbids murder.

"The religion which has the commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal,' forbids robbery.

"The religion which is peace, obedience, and love, is no friend of war, rebellion, and massacre.

"Resigned and joyous in other days, its martyrs went to death in the amphitheatre of Rome, and on the plains of Saragossa, pardon in their souls and prayer on their lips; to-day pardon is exchanged for wrath, and prayer for reproach. Instead of the martyr's palm, we have the Berdan breech-loader and the flash of petroleum.

"Anointed of the Lord, ministers of Him who died invoking blessings on His enemies, kindle the fires of fratricidal strife, which they call a sacred war, and lead on and inflame their dupes by the pretence that the gates of Paradise are to be forced open by gunshot.

"Meanwhile the bishops are silent, Rome is dumb, the moral law sleeps, the canon law is forgotten; and these pastors, transforming their flocks into packs of wolves, scour the plains, blessing murder and sanctifying conflagration.

"'King by Divine right,' they cry, like the legists of the Lower Empire; 'Die or believe,' like the sons of the Prophet. Apostles without knowing it, they seek to achieve the triumph of a Pagan principle by a Saracenic process.

"They say that religion is lost, because it is shorn of the honour and power their kings gave it; that the portals of heaven are barred, because they have forfeited their tithes and first-fruits, their rents and fat benefices; and they try to convince us by discharges of musketry that our whole future life depends, on the one hand, on a question of vanity, and on the other, on a question of stomach.

"Holy Apostles, disciples of Him who had not a stone whereon to lay His head, you who conquered the earth with no arms but those of word and example, oh! would you not say if you returned here below, 'Those who preach by the voice of platoons; those who evangelize from the mouth of cannon; those are not, cannot be, our disciples and successors, for they are not fishers of souls, but fishers of snug posts under government'?

"And you, glorious martyrs of the Roman circus and Saragossan fields, oh! would you not say, 'No, this Christianity, which goes about sowing battle; desolation, tears, and blood wherever it passes, is not ours—no, this Christianity at the bottom of the slaughter of Endarlasa, of the hecatomb of Cirauqui, of the sack of Igualada, and of a hundred other cruelties, is not ours. Our religion says "Kill not," and this murders; says "Steal not," and this robs. No, this is not the Christian, but the Carlist religion'?"

That is a good specimen of the rhetorical school of writing popular in Spanish newspapers; but all that is written is not gospel. From personal observation it was evident to me that these Republicans of the Spanish towns of the north were not so scrupulous in the outward observances of religion as the tone of this indignant Christian leading article would convey; neither were the Carlists the "packs of wolves" they were represented to be.

Let us see how this inflamed sense of so-called religion affected the rank and file among the adherents of Don Carlos.

Indubitably the Royalists, with a very few exceptions, were more than moral—they were sincerely pious, and esteemed it a grateful incense to the Most High to kill as many of their Republican countrymen as they could without over-exertion. They bowed their heads and repeated prayers with the chaplains who accompanied them; as the echoes of the Angelus bell were heard they were marched to Divine worship every evening, when they were in the neighbourhood of a church; they were palpably impressed with deep devotional convictions, and yet they were not sour-faced like the grim Covenanters of Argyle, nor puritanically uncharitable like the stern propounders of the Blue Laws of Connecticut. Their beads returned to the pocket or the prayers finished, they laughed and jested, were frolicsome as schoolboys in their playhour, and the slightest tinkle of music set them dancing. Hospitable and fanatic, faithful and ignorant, temperate and dirty—such are some prominent traits in the character of the brave Basque people of the rural districts who wished to govern Spain, but who were Spaniards neither by race, nor language, nor temperament, nor feeling.

Taken all in all, they are a right manly breed, and, with education to correct inevitable prejudices, would be capable of great things. But before they could become efficient soldiers, they needed a severe course of training. In the flat country, south of the Ebro, it would be cruel and foolish to oppose them to regular troops. As guerrilleros, they were without parallel, being content with short commons, and ever ready to play ball after the longest march; but they were ignorant of soldiering as technically understood. In the copses and crags of their own provinces they were invincible, and could carry on the struggle while there was a cartridge or an onion left in the land. But where the tactics of the "contrabandista" no longer availed, where surprises were impossible and mysterious disappearances not easy, and where the bulk of the people were not willing spies, the aspect of affairs was different. They were mediocre marksmen with long-range arms of precision, and had no proper conception of allowances for wind or sun. Target-practice was not encouraged, and yet it was not through thrift of ammunition, for the waste of powder in every skirmish was extravagant, and one could not rest a night in a village held by the Carlists without being disturbed by frequent careless discharges.

With the bayonet, as far as I could learn, they were impetuous in the onset, and stubborn, especially the Navarrese. But bayonet-charges cannot carry stone walls or mud-banks; and in the face of the almost incessant peppering of breech-loaders, rushes of the kind have become slightly old-fashioned. To the Carlists, in any case, was due the credit of readiness to have recourse to the steel whenever there was a rift for hand-to-hand fighting. Their military education unfortunately confined itself to the rudiments of the drill-book. They fell in, dressed up, formed fours by the right, extended into sections on column of march and went through the like movements very well—so well that it was a pity they had not an opportunity of adding to their stock of knowledge. They had an instinctive aptitude for skirmishing, and were expert at forming square, the utility of which, by the way, is as questionable nowadays as that of charging.

More attention was paid to discipline than to drill. Pickets patrolled the towns into which they entered, and repressed all disorder after nightfall; outpost duty was strictly enforced; "larking" was not tolerated, and punishments were always inflicted for known and grave breaches of order.



CHAPTER XII.

Barbarossa—Royalist-Republicans—Squaring a Girl—At Iron—"Your Papers?"—The Barber's Shop—A Carlist Spy—An Old Chum—The Alarm—A Breach of Neutrality—Under Fire—Caught in the Toils—The Heroic Tomas—We Slope—A Colleague Advises Me—"A Horse! a Horse!"—State of Bilbao—Don Carlos at Estella—Sanchez Bregua Recalled—Tolosa Invites—Republican Ineptitude—Do not Spur a Free Horse—Very Ancient Boys—Meditations in Bed—A Biscay Storm.

BARBAROSSA, who had never been over the border, suggested to me that I should take a trip to Irun, which was held by the anti-Carlists. It would be incorrect to write them down as Republicans; they were sprung from the Cristinos of the previous generation, and as such were opposed to any scion of the house against which their fathers had fought for years. All of them were de facto Republicans, and had more knowledge and enjoyment of Republican freedom than those who prattled and raved of Republicanism in Madrid and the south; but they did not take kindly to the name. As my friend the late J. A. MacGahan wittily said of them—"They were the Royalist-Republicans of Spain." They were as fond of their fueros as any Carlist in the crowd, but they stood up for Madrid less that they cared for the policy or personages of the central government, than that they had a deep-seated hereditary hatred of their neighbours of the rural districts. At heart they were in favour of a restoration of the throne, and on that throne they would fain seat the young Prince of the Asturias. In those latitudes the lines of John Byrom a century before would well apply:

"God bless the King, I mean the faith's defender; God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender; But who Pretender is, or who is King, God bless us all—that's quite another thing!"

"If you go to Irun," said Barbarossa, stroking his moustache, "I am game to go with you."

"I am satisfied," said I; "but recollect, you undertake the job at your own risk. You are known as an associate of Carlists, and suspected to be a Carlist agent. I am a stranger and comparatively safe."

He had weighed all that, and was ready to face possible perils. But he was not fit to undergo probable fatigues. He could sit at a green table in an ill-ventilated atmosphere the night long, but he could not walk three miles at a stretch. Neither could he (on account of his illness) venture on horseback. To effect a crossing by the railway bridge from Hendaye to Irun was out of the question; it was barrier impenetrable. The Frenchman would not allow you to pass in your own interest; the Spaniard declined to admit you in his so-considered interest. To take the mountain-route was tedious, and in the case of Barbarossa not to be thought of; the bridge of Endarlasa was broken—a most contorted specimen of artistic dilapidation. To be sure, one could manage to creep to the other side by the submerged coping of the parapet, if endowed with the balancing powers of a rope-walker and the lustihood of the navvy. But Barbarossa was not a Blondin, and had not a physical constitution proof against a wetting. I had got across that bridge once, holding on by my teeth and nails, and retained recollection of it in a fit of the cold shivers; but I did not care to repeat the operation. In our dilemma, Barbarossa, who was a plucky knave, hit upon the plan which ought to have commended itself to us at first.

"Let us stray up the river-bank a few hundred yards," he said, "seize a boat, and row ourselves across."

No sooner was the proposition made than it was adopted; but we were saved from the ephemeral disgrace of posing as petty amphibious pirates, degenerate Schinderhannes of the Bidassoa. We saw a boat; a girl was near. The boat was her father's; she engaged to take us over for a consideration—I am certain she had set her heart on a string of straw-coloured ribbons and a sky-blue feather in a shop-window in Hendaye—and to await our return at nightfall. We arranged the signal, and stealthily stole across, drifting diagonally most of the way; and I entrusted the speculative French damsel with my revolver and my Carlist pass, and paid her a farewell compliment on her face and figure as I stepped ashore. Giving her the revolver and pass enlisted her confidence. We strolled along with apparent carelessness, entered a posada on the road by the waterside and had refreshments. I said I should feel much obliged if they could let us have a trap to Irun and back, as we had business there, and my friend was tired and not much of a pedestrian. An open carriage was provided, and off we drove by the skirt of the hill of St. Marcial, where the Spaniards gave Soult such a dressing in 1813, passed a series of outer defences with their covering and working parties, and entered one of the gates of the town, and never a question was asked. Ditches had been dug round the place and earthworks thrown up; but the principal reliance of the garrison seemed to be in loophooled breastworks made of sand-bags superimposed. Here and there were walls of loose stones—more of a danger than a protection—rude shelter-trenches, and mud-built, wattle-knitted refuges, round-topped, and disguised with branches. They had made the position strong; but they should have gone in for more spade and less stones, more mole and less beaver.

We trotted over the narrow paved street, with its flagged sidepaths, and drew up on the Plaza, overlooked by the solid square-stone mansion of the Ayuntamiento. The windows were screened with planks, and armed groups lounged in front; there were barrels of water and heaps of gravel at intervals upon the ground; memories of Paris rose to my mind—Irun was preparing for bombardment. If the Carlists had no serious artillery in fact, they had a powerful ordnance in the apprehensions of their adversaries. Perhaps this was the explanation of the rhodomontade about the batteries in El Cuartel Real. We were congratulating ourselves on the ease with which we had run the blockade, when an officer of the Miqueletes approached our carriage and demanded our papers. I showed my Foreign Office passport, with the visa of the Spanish Consulate at London upon it. He gave a cursory look at it, bowed, and returned it to me. Then came the turn of Barbarossa, and there was a flash of shrewd spitefulness in his eyes.

"Your papers, senor?"

"I have none. I didn't think any were required."

"Ah! doubtless you thought Irun was in Carlist occupation. You are wrong."

"No; I knew it was not in Carlist occupation. What has that to do with me? I am an Englishman," producing a packet of letters.

"I don't want to see them. I know you. What do you want here?"

"To see a friend."

"Who is your friend?"

Barbarossa was not in the least nonplussed. He said he had heard a fellow-countryman, a comrade of his, was in the town.

"You will have to turn back the way you came, and thank your stars you are permitted."

"But I am hungry."

"And the horse wants a feed," interposed the driver, who no doubt had his own object to serve.

"Well, you may stay here for refreshment, but you must get outside our gates before dark."

We drove to the principal inn, where we alighted and ordered dinner. Barbarossa sat down, and I went out to look at the place and search for a barber's shop, for I sorely needed a shave. Irun is a well-constructed town on the shelving slope of a smaller rise between Mounts Jaizquivel and Aya, not far from the coast. It has a population of some 5,000, and in ordinary years does a good trade in tiles and bricks, tanned leather, and smith's work, besides sending wood to Los Pasages for the purposes of the boat-builders. The Bidassoa at its base branches, and thus forms the islet of Faisanes, off which the prosperous fisherman can fill his basket with trout, salmon, and mullet, aye, and lumpish eels, if his predilections so tend.

But I have no intention to describe Irun. Theophile Gautier has done that before me, and I am not sacrilegious. There was another customer in the barber's shop. As I left after the shave he followed, and accosted me on the flagway confidentially.

"How are you, captain?"

"You are in error," I answered. "I am no captain."

"What! Did I not see you take a boat for the San Margarita at Socoa?"

"That may be; but I only boarded her through curiosity."

"Do not be afraid," he whispered. "How is Don Guillermo?"

"What Don Guillermo?"

"Senor Leader. I was with him when he was wounded; I am a Carlist. I am here on the same mission as yourself; to spy what the vermin are doing."

"Ha! good; ramble on, and don't notice me. It is dangerous."

He sauntered along the causeway, hands in pockets and whistling, and presently popped into a tavern, and I re-entered the fonda. Hardly had I set foot over the threshold when I was stupefied by a welcome in a familiar voice, none other than that of Mr. William O'Donovan, who had been my comrade and amanuensis throughout the irksome beleaguerment of Paris.[F] We did not throw our arms round our respective necks, hug and kiss each other—I reserve my kisses for pretty girls, newly-washed babes, and dead male friends, and then kiss only the brow—but we did join hands cordially and long. In answer to my query as to what had brought him to this queer corner at the back of God-speed, he explained that he was acting as correspondent of a Dublin paper; for, it appeared, the people of Ireland were consumed with anxiety as to the progress of the Carlist rising—details of which, of course, they could not obtain in the mere London papers—and were particularly desirous to have record of the doings of the Foreign Legion, a great majority of whom were sons of the Emerald Isle. His younger brother, a medical student, was likely to come out to join that Legion, and as for Kaspar (a name by which we knew his brother Edmond, afterwards triumvir at Merv), he was sure to turn up. Mother Carey's chicken hovers near when the elements are at strife. He was immensely satisfied with his diggings, he said, liked the natives, and considered this a splendid chance for improving his Spanish. He was reading "Don Quixote" in the vernacular. In a sense, I looked upon his presence as a perfect godsend to us, as he came in most appropriately as a Deus ex machina to create the character of Barbarossa's invented friend. O'Donovan was in good standing with the Republicans of the town, as he was a staunch Republican himself, and could spin yarns of the Republics of antiquity, and of the greatness of Paris, and the glories of the United States. He was getting on famously with Castilian, and was charmed with the redundancy of its vocabulary of vituperation, which was only to be equalled by the Irish, of which his father had been such a master. I made Barbarossa and my old chum known to one another, and we dined together, pledging the past in a cup of wine tempered with the living waters which bubbled up in the sacristy of the parish church, and were distributed in bronze conduits through Irun. After the meal and the meditative smoke of custom, O'Donovan sat down to write a letter, which I guaranteed to post for him in France, and Barbarossa and I sallied forth for a walk.

We were lounging about the Calle Mayor gazing at the escutcheons over every hall-door—your bellows-mender and cobbler in this democratic town were invariably of the seed of Noah in right line—when the alarm was raised that fifty horses had been carried off by the Carlists almost at the gates, and that two shots had been heard. The bugler sounded the call "To arms," and forthwith a little company consisting of thirty-two men, the bugler aforesaid, and a captain, set out at a quick step for a high ground beside a signal-tower at one end of the town. We hurried forward with them, and passed out through one of the four gates, on the side next the mountains. The soldiers took a position on the slope of a hill a couple of hundred yards from the gate, and Barbarossa and I sheltered ourselves behind an orchard-wall, from which there was an uninterrupted view of the billowy tract of meadow and pasture land beneath, cut into patches by thick hedges. Quick on our heels emerged from the town some half-dozen intrepid "volunteers of liberty," and the inevitable small boy, a red cap stuck jauntily on three hairs of his head and a large cigarette in his mouth. One of the volunteers—he who had demanded our papers on the Plaza—looked viciously at Barbarossa, who assumed a most artistic pretence of stolidity.

"Come here, senor, and you will have a better vision of your friends," he said with mock suavity.

Barbarossa smiled, thanked him, and walked quietly to the place indicated, an exposed opening beside the wall.

"I can see nothing," he said.

I adjusted my long-distance glass, and ranged over the wide stretch of landscape, but could see nothing either. As I shut it up and returned it to the case, a sergeant advanced from the party of soldiers on the slope and marched directly towards me. I was puzzled and, I own, a trifle unnerved.

"Senor," he said to me, "I carry the compliments of my captain, and his request that you would lend him your glass, as he has forgotten his own."

"With pleasure," I answered readily, much relieved. "I will take it to him myself, as it is London-made, and he may not understand how it is sighted."

This may have been a breach of neutrality, but what was I to do? If I refused, the glass would have been taken from me, and I should have been compromised. I handed it to the officer with my best bow, explained its mechanism to him; he bowed to me, and from that moment I felt that I was under his wing. I may be wrong, but I have a notion that in a skirmish it is much better to be near regulars than volunteers, and I stood in a line with the military a few paces away.

Suddenly there was a spark and a report away down in a field of maize, some six hundred yards below us, and the whizz of a bullet was heard.

"Steady, men!" said the captain; "don't discharge your rifles."

The sight was very pretty as they stood in a group on the green hillside in attitude of suspense, their weapons held at the ready, and all eyes fixed on the front, from which the smoke was rising. It was very like to the celebrated picture by Protais, familiar in every cabaret in France, "Avant le Combat;" but even more picturesque than that, for these soldiers were dressed most irregularly—some in tattered capote, others in shirt-sleeves, some in shako, others in bonnet de police. A few civilians had crept out of the town by this time, and the chief of the Miqueletes roared peremptorily to have that gate shut. This was not an agreeable position for Barbarossa and myself. Our retreat was cut off. We were unarmed. If one of those amateur warriors were killed, we ran the imminent hazard of being massacred by his comrades. On the other hand, there was the liability of being ourselves shot by the Carlists. How were they to distinguish a neutral or a sympathizer from their foes? I confess I could not help smiling as the thought occurred to me what a piece of irony in action it would be if Barbarossa were to be helped to a morsel of lead by his friends, the enemy. With a cheerful equanimity I contemplated the prospect of his receiving a very slight contusion from a spent bullet on a soft part of his frame.

Ping, ping, came a few reports, but evidently out of range. Each smoke-wreath was in a different direction.

"This may get hot," I said to myself; "the Carlists may not be sharpshooters, but this clump of uniforms in relief on the grass must present a blur that will be an enticing target for them. I dare not go back to the wall, but it might be discreet to lie down. There is no disgrace in offering them a small elevation of corpus." I stretched myself on the sward, acted nonchalance, and lit a cigar.

The volunteers could no longer be held in control. They opened action on their own account, one fellow distinguishing himself by the rapidity of his fire, and the intensity with which he aimed at something—or nothing.

"Ah, that's Tomas!" said a portly civilian connoisseur, with his hands in his pockets. "We know him, he is making music; he wants to get himself remarked."

The soldiers did not deliver a shot, but the volunteers kept cracking away, and the invisible Carlists replied. Nobody was hit, though bullets could be heard whizzing overhead for twenty minutes, and one did actually knock a chip off a wall. That was the sole damage done to the Republican position; the damage to the Carlist must have been less. Two of the Miqueletes ventured stealthily down a road leading towards the point from which the nearest jets of smoke curled, following the ditch by the side, stooping and peering through the bushes. There was a volley from afar. They hesitated and stood, as if undecided whether to advance.

"Sound the retire for those men," said the captain; and as the call rang out they returned.

That volley was the last sign the Carlists gave; and after waiting ten minutes, the captain shut up my glass, returned it to me, and remarked that the attack was a feint, and had no object beyond worrying his men. He gave the order "March," the gate was opened, Barbarossa rejoined me, and we returned to Irun, taking care to keep as near the regulars as we could. "Nada—nothing," cried the captain to an inquiring lady on a balcony, and the town-gates were closed after the volunteers had returned and tramped to the Plaza with the proud bearing of citizens who had done their duty.

How that heroic Tomas did strut! A fighter he of the choicest brand, one not to stop at trifles; there was martial ire in his flaming glance; defiance breathed from his nostrils; triumph sat on his lips; he swung his arms like destructive flails; and as he entered a tavern one could only fancy him calling in a voice of Stentor for a jug of rum and blood plentifully besprinkled with gunpowder and cayenne pepper to assuage the thirst of combat.

O'Donovan gave me his letter. Barbarossa hinted that it was our best course to slope, and slope we did, as soon as the horse was harnessed. As we passed down the street a grinning face saluted me from a doorway. It was that of my acquaintance from the barber's shop. He gave me a meaning wink. The artful Carlists had evidently succeeded in their object, whatever it might have been. On the river-bank our fair and faithful ferry-maid awaited us. We were conveyed over in safety, and at the hotel of Hendaye soon forgot the perils we had encountered.

Barbarossa was dead-beat, and threw himself on a sofa, where he sank back heavy-eyed and exhausted; and I, almost feared that he would drop into a coma, as the penalty of overstraining nature, until the sight of a pack of cards restored him as if by a spell to his normal wakefulness.

Even in a disturbed region it is needful to have a change of linen, so we got back next morning to St. Jean de Luz, where I had left my baggage. There I met M. Thieblin, a colleague, whom I had seen last at Metz, previous to the siege of that fortress in the Franco-German war. He was now representing the New York Herald, and had just returned from Estella, at the taking of which place, the most important the Carlists had yet seized, he had the luck to be present. He assured me that it was utter fatuity to dream of following the Carlists, except I had at least one horse—but that it would be sensible to take two if I could manage to procure them. It was more than an ordinary man was qualified to cope with, to make his observations, write his letters, and look after their transmission, without having to attend to his nag, and do an odd turn of cooking at a pinch. The riddle was how to get the horse—a sound hardy animal that would not call for elaborate grooming, or refuse a feed of barley. Horse-flesh was at a premium, but he thought I might be able to have what I wanted at Bayonne, on payment of an extravagant price. A requisition for forage and corn could be had through the Junta; and I should have no trouble in getting an orderly on applying with my credentials to the chief of staff of any of the Carlist columns to which I might attach myself. We had a long conversation, and Thieblin frankly informed me that in his opinion the Carlists had not the ghost of a chance outside their own territory. There they were cocks of the walk. What the end might be he could not pretend to vaticinate, but "El Pretendiente" would never reign in Madrid. The conflict might last for months—might last for years; but the Carlists owed the vitality they had as much to the divisions and inefficiency of their adversaries as to their own strength. There would be no important engagements—to dignify them by the epithet—until the organization of the insurrectionary forces was regularized, and they had a stronger artillery and an adequate cavalry. M. Thieblin did not stray far from the bull's-eye in his prophecy.

I went to bed in the mood of Crookback on Bosworth Field, and felt that my dream-talk would shape itself into the cry, "A horse! a horse!"

Until that coveted steed had been lassoed, stolen, or bought, I must only endeavour to justify my existence—that is to say, render value for the money expended on me by picking up "copy" anywhere and everywhere.

I was advised to go to Bilbao by sea, but the advice came too late. The last steamer from Bayonne had ventured there four-and-twenty hours before I sought my passage, and even on that last steamer the few voyagers were unable to insure their lives with the Accidental Company, although they consented to promise that they would descend into the hold the instant they heard a shot. It was almost as full of jeopardy to travel to Bilbao by sea as to sail down the Mississippi with a racing captain and a lading of rye-whisky on board. One Monsieur Gueno, master of the barque Numa, of Vannes, made moan that he was seriously knocked about while he lay in the Nervion, off the Luchana bridge, during a skirmish between the Carlists and the troops. They both fought vigorously, but they gave him most of the blows. One of his crew, in a punt behind, was killed, and twenty-five bullets were embedded in a single mast. He had the tricolour flying all the time. A fellow-countryman of his, Monsieur Jarmet, of the ship Pierre-Alcide, of Nantes, sent in a claim for an indemnity of L160 for damages sustained by his vessel much in the like manner. A Spanish war-craft, moored behind him, began pelting the Carlists with shot; the Carlists replied, and the Pierre-Alcide came in for the bulk of the favours distributed. Three bullets penetrated the captain's cabin, and four rent holes in the French flag. Neither pilots nor tugs were for hire at Bilbao, and captains of sailing vessels had only to whistle for a favouring wind and rely on their own good fortune and skill. Bilbao had to be dismissed on the merits.

Taking it for granted that I had that evasive horse, I reasoned, as I tossed on my bed, to the restless whimper of the Bay of Biscay, over which a storm was brewing, that "el Cuartel Real," the headquarters of the King, was the natural goal. There first information was to be had, and it was felt that it was about the safest place to be; but the King seldom stopped under the same roof two nights successively, and no one could tell where he would be two days beforehand. If he was at Estella when one started, he might be at Vera or Durango, or goodness knows where, when one got to Estella. So far his progress had been a success; he was present at the taking of Estella, and exercised his Royal clemency by releasing the captured prisoners. It would have been more politic to have demanded an exchange, for there were partisans of his own in Republican dungeons (Englishmen amongst them); but then prisoners have to be fed and guarded, so on the whole it was as well they were set free. It was very much the case of the man who won the elephant at a raffle. If the stories, spread assiduously by the Republicans, of the massacre and maltreatment of captives by the Carlists were correct, here was the opportunity for the exercise of wholesale cruelty; but there was not a particle of truth in such charges, which, by the way, one hears in every civil war. Where Don Carlos might advance next, or where severe fighting—not such brushes as that I witnessed at Irun—might take place, was a mystery. The movements of the Republican leaders were inexplicable, and conducted in contravention of all known principles of the art of war. They harassed their men by long and objectless marches. They ordered towns to be put in a state of defence at first, and then withdrew the garrisons. They engaged whole columns in defiles, where a company of invisible guerrilleros could tease them. They acted, in most instances, as if they had no information or wrong information. The latter, I believe, was nearer the truth. Their system of espionage was inefficient, as the information they got was untrustworthy, and always would be, in the northern provinces, for the feeling of the masses of the people was against them. Instead of making headway they were losing ground every day, and would so continue until they received reinforcements with fibre, and were commanded by officers who really meant to win, and had the knowledge or the instinct to conceive a proper plan of campaign. The generals could hardly be censured, for their hands were tied; they were forbidden to be severe; they dared not squelch insubordination. Capital punishment, even in the army, and at such a crisis as this, was abolished. There had been, I heard, something suspiciously resembling a mutiny in the column of Sanchez Bregua. A certain Colonel Castanon was put under arrest on a charge of Alfonsist proclivities; but the Cazadores and Engineers threatened to rebel unless he was liberated; and Sanchez Bregua, instead of decimating the Cazadores and Engineers, as Lord Strathnairn would have done, liberated the Colonel.

But to that question of my route. Peradventure the presence to my dozing vision of the General commanding the Republican troops of the north that had been might help me towards a solution.

"That had been" is written advisedly, for Sanchez Bregua had been recalled to Madrid, not a day too soon. He was one of those generals whose spine had been curved by lengthened bending over a desk. Loma, who was active and dashing, and had the rare gift of confidence in himself, had taken his stand at Tolosa, and was awaiting the advent of Lizarraga. All his men, and every able-bodied male in the town, were diligently excavating ditches and making entrenchments. Until Tolosa was captured by the Carlists, no serious attack on Pampeluna was probable; and that attack was likely to assume the form of an investment. Estella was to the south of Pampeluna, and all the country round, from which provisions could be drawn, was in the occupation of the Carlists. Tolosa was the objective point of the moment, and to Tolosa I determined to go. An attempt on San Sebastian could not enter into the calculations of the Carlist leaders at this stage of their revolt. The stronghold was almost inaccessible on the land side, and men, munitions, and provisions could be easily thrown into it by water. Irun, Fontarabia, and even Renteria (were artillery available) could be seized whenever the comparatively small sacrifice of lives involved would be advisable. But the game was not worth the candle yet. Were Irun or Fontarabia in the hands of the Carlists, there was the always-present danger of shells being pitched into them from a gunboat in the Bidassoa; and Renteria, outside of which the Republican troops only stirred on sufferance, was to all intents as serviceable to the Carlists as if it were tenanted by a Carlist garrison, which would thereby be condemned to idleness.

That whirlwind ride from Renteria to Irun would come before me as the storm battalions mustered outside, and the waves began lashing themselves into violence of temper. What if I had to go to Madrid while such weather as this was brooding? To get to the capital one is obliged to embark at Bayonne for Santander, and proceed thence by rail—so long as no Carlist partidas meddle with the track. Romantic Spain!

But are not those Republicans who affect that they know how to govern a country primarily and principally to blame? Only consider the continued interruption of that short piece of road between San Sebastian and Irun. Is it not disgraceful to them? One of our old Indian officers, I dare venture to believe, with eighteen horsemen and a couple of companies of foot, could hold it open in spite of the Carlists. But such a simple idea as the establishment of cavalry patrols of three, keeping vigil backwards and forwards along the line of eighteen miles, with stout infantry posts always on the alert in blockhouses at intervals, seems never to have entered into the obtuse heads of those officers lately promoted from the ranks. Seeing that the intercourse of different towns with each other and with the coast and abroad has been so long broken up, I cannot fathom the secret of how the population lives. The troops arrive in a village one day and levy contributions, the guerrilleros arrive the next and do the same; the fields must be neglected, trade must droop, yet nobody apparently wants food. True, the land is wonderfully fat; but some day the cry of famine will be heard. No land could bear this perpetual drain on its resources. And then I thought of Carlists whom I met in France, who had given of their goods to support the cause. With them I talked on this very subject. They were respectable and respected men; they prayed for success to Don Carlos with sincere heart; but they had left Spain, and they complained that this condition of disturbance was lasting too long.

"You ask me why I did not remain," said one to me; "wait, and you shall see."

He opened a door and pointed to three lovely little girls at play, and continued, "These are my reasons; I have made more sacrifices than I was able for the Royal cause, and they asked me at last for another contribution, which would have ruined me. I love my King; but for no King, senor, could I afford to make those darlings paupers."

Had these Carlists any glimmer of the sunshine of a victorious issue to their uprising? (egad, that was a strong blast, and the waves do swish as if they were enraged at last!). Thieblin thinks not. And yet they are active, and, like the storm outside, they are gaining strength. Those of them under arms are four times as numerous as the Republicans in the northern provinces. Leader swears to me that everyone who can shoulder a musket is a Carlist. There are no more Chicos to be had, unless the volunteers of liberty come over, rifles, accoutrements and all, to Prince Charlie—a liberty they are volunteering to take somewhat freely.

I was rash in saying there were no more Chicos. Did not a company of "bhoys" trudge over to Lesaca to offer their services recently? But they were very ancient boys. The youngest of them was sixty-five. They were veterans of the Seven Years' War, and mostly colonels. Their fidelity was thankfully acknowledged, but their services were not gratefully accepted. The aged and ferocious fire-eaters were sent back to their arrowroot and easy-chairs. At all events, they had more of the timber of heroism in them than those diplomatic Carlists of the gandin order, who are Carlists because it makes them interesting in the sight of the ladies, but whose campaigning is confined to an occasional three days' incursion on Spanish territory, with a cook and a valet, saddle-bags full of potted lobster and pate de foie gras, and a dressing-case newly packed with au Botot and essence of Jockey Club. There are personages of this class not unknown to society at Biarritz and Bayonne, who have been going to the front for the last three months, and have not got there yet. One would think their game of chivalry ought to be pretty well "played out;" but to the folly of the vain man, as to the appetite of the lean pig, there is no limit.

By Jove! There is a clatter; the casement is blown open, and the light is blown out, and through the gap whistles the cool, briny breath of the Atlantic, and I can almost feel the wash of the white spray in my hair. Better a stable cell in the Castle of the Mota to-night than a tumbling berth in the San Margarita. This was the close of my interview with myself, and I turned over on my pillow and fell precipitately into a profound dreamless sleep.



CHAPTER XIII.

Nearing the End—Firing on the Red Cross—Perpetuity of War—Artistic Hypocrites—The Jubilee Year—The Conflicts of a Peaceful Reign—Major Russell—Quick Promotion—The Foreign Legion—An Aspiring Adventurer—Leader's Career—A Piratical Proposal—The "Ojaladeros" of Biarritz—A Friend in Need—Buying a Horse—Gilpin Outdone—"Fred Burnaby."

AND now I take up the last chapter of this book, and I have not half finished with the subject I had set before myself at starting. By the figures at the head of the last page I perceive that I have almost reached the orthodox length of a volume, and perforce must stop. For some weeks past I have been looking and longing for the end, for I have been ill, weary and worried, and my labour has become a task. Slowly toiling day by day, I knew I must be nearing the goal; yet, like the strenuous Webb on his swim from Dover to Calais, the horizon seemed to come no closer. The land in sight grew no plainer, although each breast-stroke—the pleasure of a while agone, but oh! such a tax now—must have lessened the distance. Even to that excursion there came an hour of accomplishment and repose; but to this, of pen over paper, I cannot flatter myself that the hour is yet. I have to abandon the work incomplete. As it has happened to me before, the theme has expanded under my hands, and I shall have to rise from my desk before I penetrate to the Carlist headquarters, of which I had to say much, or have experiences of that strangest of Communes in Murcia, with its sea and land skirmishes and its motley rabble of mutineers, convicts, and nondescripts, of which I had to say much likewise.

Whether I shall have the privilege of recounting my adventures at the court and camp of Don Carlos, and by the side of the General directing the siege of Cartagena, who admitted me as a sort of supernumerary on his staff, will depend on the reception of this, the first instalment of my experiences in Spain.

An act of unjustifiable barbarism or stupidity, or both—for barbarism is but another form of stupidity—was perpetrated by some Carlists outside Irun while I was negotiating for that indispensable horse. An ambulance-waggon, displaying the Red Cross of Geneva, had sallied from the town, and was fired upon. The Paris delegate I had met at Hendaye was in charge of it, and averred that it was wantonly and wilfully attacked. I thought it, singular that nobody was hurt, and reasoned that the man was excitable, and got into range unconsciously. The duty of the Geneva Society properly begins after, and not during a combat; and when gentlemen are busy at the game of professional manslaughter, no philanthropic outsider has any right to distract them from their occupation by indiscreet obstruction. The Parisian did not view it in that light, and downfaced me that these rustics, to whose aid he was actually going, tried to murder him of malice prepense. It was useless to represent to him that these rustics may have never heard of the modern benevolent institution for the softening of strife, and may have regarded the huge Red Cross as a defiant symbol of Red Republicanism, and perhaps a parody of what is sacred. So in the estimation of that citizen of the most enlightened capital in the universe, these Basques were ruthless boobies with an insatiable passion for lapping blood. But mistakes and exaggerations will occur in every war. The only way to obviate them is to put an end to war altogether—which will never be done! When Christ came into the world, peace was proclaimed; when He left it, peace was bequeathed. War has been the usual condition of mankind since, as it had been before; and Christians cut each other's throats with as much alacrity and expertness as Pagans, often in the name of the religion of peace.

I heard two eminent war-correspondents lecture recently, and I noticed that those passages where fights were described were applauded to the echo. The more ferocious the combat the more vigorous the cheers. The faces of small boys flushed, and their hands clinched at the vivid recital. The nature of the savage, which has not been extirpated by School Boards, was betraying itself in them. Yet these two war-correspondents thought it an acquittal of conscience after their kindling periods to dwell on the immorality of war. The one spoke of the beauty of Bible precepts, the other disburdened himself on the cruelty and wickedness of a battle. What artistic hypocrisy! It was as if one were to strike up the "Faerie Voices" waltz, and tell a girl to keep her feet still; as if one were to lend "Robinson Crusoe" to a boy, and warn him not to think of running away to sea. Still, I must even add my voice to the orthodox chorus, and affirm that warfare is bad, brutal, fraudful, a thing of meretricious gauds, a clay idol, fetish of humbug and havoc, whose feet are soaking in muddy gore and salt tears; yet in the privacy of my own study I might sadly admit that the Millennium is remote, that the Parliament of Nations exists but in the dreams of the poet, and that Longfellow's forecast of the days down through the dark future when the holy melodies of love shall oust the clangours of conflict is a pretty conceit—and no more.

War is inexcusable, and is foolish and ugly; but, like the poor and the ailing, we shall have it always with us. It is criminal, except as protest against intolerable persecution, or in maintenance of national honour or defence of national territory; and even in these cases it should be undertaken only when all devices of conciliation have been tried in vain. Next to the vanquished, it does most harm to the victor. Yet about it, as about high play, there is a fascination, and I have to plead guilty to the weak feeling that I would not look with overwhelming aversion on an order, should it come to me to-morrow, to prepare to chronicle a new campaign and face the chronicler's risks; and they are real. But I should not go into it with a light heart, like M. Emile Ollivier. I might be, in a quiet way, happy as Queen Victoria was (according to Count Vitzthum) for she danced much the night before the declaration of hostilities against Russia, but spoke of what was coming with amiable candour and great regret.

We are on the eve of a Jubilee Year, when the halcyon shall plume his wing, and we shall hear much oratorical trash and hebetude about the peacefulness of this happy reign.

Does the reader reflect how many wars we have had in the pacific half-century which is lapsing? The tale will astonish him, and should silence the thoughtless word-spinners of the platforms. The door of the temple of Janus has been seldom closed for long. Our campaigns, great and small, and military enterprises of the lesser sort, could not be counted on the fingers of both hands. We have had fighting with Afghans and Burmese (twice); Scinde, Gwalior, and Sikh wars; hostilities with Kaffirs, Russians, Persians, Chinese, and Maoris (twice), Abyssinians, Ashantis, Zulus, Boers, and Soudanese, not to mention the repression of the most stupendous of mutinies, a martial promenade in Egypt, and expeditions against Jowakis, Bhootanese, Looshais, Red River rebels, and such pitiful minor fry.

In St. Jean de Luz, the nearest point to the disputed ground and the best place from which to transmit information, there was a small and select British colony, mostly consisting of retired naval and military officers. A dear friend of mine amongst them was Major Russell, who had spent a lengthened span of years in the East—an admirable type of the calm, firm, courteous Anglo-Indian—who had never soured his temper and spoiled his liver with excessive "pegs," who understood and respected the natives, who had shown administrative ability, and who, like many another honest, dutiful officer, had not shaken much fruit off the pagoda-tree, or even secured the C.B. which is so often given to tarry-at-home nonentities. Russell used to pay me a regular visit to the Fonda de la Playa. One morning as we were chatting, Leader strode into the coffee-room, a vision of splendour. He had got on his uniform as Commandant of the Foreign Legion—a uniform which did much credit to his fancy, for he had designed it himself. He wore a white boina with gold tassel, a blue tunic with black braid, red trousers, and brown gaiters. He had donned the gala-costume with the object of getting himself photographed. Commandant is the equivalent of Major in the British service, so we agreed to dub the young Irishman henceforth and for ever, until he became colonel or captain-general, Major Leader.

"Promotion is quick in this army," murmured Russell. "I served all my active life under the suns of India, and here I am only a major at the close. Leader joined the Carlists less than three months ago, and he is already my equal in rank."

"The fortune of war, Russell," said I; "don't be jealous. I was offered command of a brigade under the Commune, but I declined the tribute to my merit, or I would not be here to-day. I met a man in Bayonne yesterday, and he was ready to assume control of the entire insurrectionary forces."

"Who? Cabrera?"

"No," I answered; "catch Cabrera coming here. He is too much afraid of a ruler who is no pretender. The renowned Commander-in-Chief of Aragon and Valencia, Don Ramon the Rough and Ready, is Conde Something-or-other now, a willing slave to petticoat government. He is to be seen any day pottering about Windsor."

"And who is this speculator in bloodshed?"

"A foreign adventurer," I explained, "who does not know a word of Spanish, much less Basque, is unacquainted with the topography of the country, and has not the faintest inkling of the idiosyncrasies of the lieutenants who would serve under him, or of the mode of humouring the prejudices of the people of the different provinces in revolt."

"What answer did they give to his application for employment?"

"A polite negative. They told him they could not appoint him a leader without offending the susceptibilities of adherents with claims upon them men of local influence, and so forth. Behind his back, they laughed at his entertaining temerity."

That Foreign Legion never came to maturity. Leader showed me a commission authorizing him to organize it. Lesaca was to be the depot, French the language of command, and Smith Sheehan the adjutant. It might have developed into a very fine Foreign Legion, but no volunteers presented themselves to join it but two young Englishmen, one of whom was sick when he was not drunk, and the other of whom felt it to be a grievance on a campaign that a cup of tea could not be got at regular hours. How Sheehan did chaff this amiable amateur!

"You will have nothing to do but draw your pay, my lad," he said. "The cookery is hardly A 1, but 'twill pass. Think of the beds, pillows of hops under your head; and every regiment has its own set of billiard-markers and a select string-band, every performer an artist."

After an arduous service of one day and a half that gentleman returned to the maternal apron-strings, laden to the ground with the most harrowing legends of the horrors of war. Leader was not a warrior of this stamp—far from it; he had vindicated his manliness at Ladon outside Orleans, where Ogilvie, of the British Royal Artillery, had met his fate by his side, and there was something soldierly in the way he bore himself in his vanity of dress. Not that I think the dandies are the best soldiers—that is merest popular paradox. To me it is as ridiculous for a man to array himself in fine clothes when he is going to kill or be killed, as it would be for him to put on gewgaws when he was going to be hanged. As Leader disappears from my account of Carlist doings after this—we were associated with different columns—it may be of interest to tell of his subsequent career. He served in a cavalry squadron on the staff of the King, and when the cause collapsed came to London. His uncle tried to induce him to settle down to some steady employment in the City. Leader expressed himself satisfied to make an experiment at desk-work.

"It was useless," said Leader with a hearty crow as he related the story to me. "The friend who had promised to create a vacancy for me in his office ordered his chief clerk to lock the safe and send for the police when he heard of my antecedents. He invited me to dinner, but candidly told me that a rifle was more in my line than a quill."

And yet it was in the service of the quill the young soldier ended his days. He got an appointment as an auxiliary correspondent to a great London daily paper during the Russo-Turkish war. He was elate; the road to fame and fortune now lay open before him. The next I heard of him was that he had succumbed to typhoid fever at Philippopolis.

A Scotch spadassin arrived in our midst about this period. He was most anxious to draw a blade for Don Carlos, but he had a decided objection to serve in any capacity but that of command. He did not appreciate the fun of losing the number of his mess as an obscure hero of the rank and file, though he would not mind sacrificing an arm, I do think, at the head of a charging column, provided that he had a showy uniform on, and that the fact of his valour was properly advertised in the despatches. He had an idea that would commend itself to Belcha's bushwhackers, but it was not entertained. It was to take passage with a few trusty men on the tug for San Sebastian when she was reported to be conveying specie for the payment of the Spanish Republican troops, to drive the voyagers down the hold, throttle the skipper, intimidate the crew, take the wheel and turn her head to the coast, seize and land the money under Carlist protection, and then scuttle her. The least recompense, he calculated, which could be awarded to him for that exploit by his Majesty Charles VII. was the Order of the Golden Fleece; and a very appropriate order too.

There was a set of Carlist sympathizers known to the fighting-men as "ojaladeros," or warriors with much decoration in the shape of polished buttons. Their depot was at Biarritz, an aristocratic watering-place born under the second French Empire, and not ignorant of some of the vices of the Byzantine Empire. There are healthful breezes there, but they do not quite sweep away the scent of frangipani. Warlike, with a proviso, the Scot might have been designated, but he was not to be compared with these ojaladeros; he would fight if he had a lime-lit stage to posture upon; they would not fight at all, but they moved about mysteriously, as if their bosoms were big with the fate of dynasties, held hugger-mugger caucus, and were the oracles of boudoirs.

At Bayonne there was a better class of Carlist sympathizers; such of them as were of the fighting age were there in the intervals of duty. To a job-master's in the city by the Adour I was recommended as the most likely place to procure a steed. At the Hotel St. Etienne, where I stopped, I was gratified by an unexpected encounter with the genial captain[G] (Ronald Campbell), who had brought a juicy leg of mutton at his saddle-skirts to the relief of my household after the siege of Paris. He went with me to the job-master's—it is as well to have a friend with you when you do a horse-deal. I had no choice but Hobson's. The job-master was desolated, but he had sold three animals the day before to an English milord, a very big gentleman, and his party. He had just one horse, but it was a beauty. The horse was trotted out. It was well groomed—they always are, and arsenic does impart a nice gloss to the hide—and looked imposing, a tall three-quarter-bred bay gelding.

"You'll have to take it," said the captain, "though I fear it will not be a great catch for mountain-work. Seems to me that it stumbles—that lie-back of the ears is vicious—ha! rears too—and by Jove! it has been fired. No matter. Where needs must, you know, there's no alternative. Buy it by all means."

I closed with the bargain, got a loan of a saddle, bought a pair of jack-boots, and ordered my purchase to be brought round to the door of the hotel within half-an-hour. I am no rough-rider, and I had not counted on the high mettle of this, which was literally a "fiery, untamed steed." It had been fed for the market, and had had no exercise for two days previous. I meant to try its paces to St. Jean de Luz, and show off before the damsels of Biarritz; but, lack-a-day! what a declension was in store for me. It had best be given in the words of a letter to my kindly compatriot, written while defeat was fresh in my mind. Thus the epistle runs:

* * * * *

"DEAR CAMPBELL,

"My first essay on my eight hundred francs' worth of horse-power was a sight to see.

"Imprimis, the stirrup-leathers were long enough for you.

"En suite, I gave the dear gelding his head because he took it, and he incontinently faced a post of the French army at the Porte d'Espagne. The sentry came to the charge and cried, On ne passe pas ici. The blood-horse went at him, the sentry funked, and then, as if satisfied with his demonstration, the blood-horse—the bit always in his mouth—made a demi-tour, and faced a post of douaniers. This also was sacred ground, it appears, but the douaniers let the blood-horse pass, not even making the feint to prod his inside for contraband. The scene now changes to the Place de la Comedie (there's something in a name), where by virtue of vigorous tugging at curb and snaffle I just succeeded in keeping my gallant gelding off the cobble-stones. He went a burster over the bridge by a short turn down a street and to the door of his stable, and there he positively stopped, and I swear I felt his sides shaking with laughter. I called the groom; said I thought it would rain; besides, I did not know the road. On the whole, I had reconsidered the matter, and would go to St. Jean de Luz by train. The groom was awfully polite, pretended to believe me, and provided a man to take forward my eight—oh, hang it! we shan't think of the price.

"Humiliation! you will say. Yes, sir, and I feel it; but that horse will feel it too. When I get him somewhere that none can see, and where sentries, douaniers, and stables of refuge don't abound, I shall ask him to try how long he can keep up a gallop; but, by the body of the Claimant, I shall have sixteen stone on his back.

"Yours with knees unwearied and soul unsubdued."

* * * * *

At St. Jean de Luz I learned at the principal hotel that the English milord was Captain Frederick Burnaby of "the Queen of England's Blue Guards." He was supposed to have some secret official mission to Don Carlos, to whose headquarters he had directed his steps, and I at once took measures to follow in his tracks.



THE END.

* * * * *

BILLING & SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "ROMANTIC SPAIN."

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"The great charm of his pages is the entire absence of dulness, and the evidence they afford of a delicate sense of humour, considerable powers of observation, a store of apposite and racy anecdote, and a keen enjoyment of life."—Standard.

"Redolent of stories throughout, told with such a cheery spirit, in so genial a manner, that even those they sometimes hit hard cannot, when they read, refrain from laughing, for Mr. O'Shea is a modern Democritus; and yet there runs a vein of sadness, as if, like Figaro, he made haste to laugh lest he should have to weep."—Society.

"Delightful reading.... A most enjoyable book.... It is kinder to readers to leave them to find out the good things for themselves. They will find material for amusement and instruction on every page; and if the lesson is sometimes in its way as melancholy as the moral of Firmin Maillard's 'Les Derniers Bohemes,' it is conveyed after a fashion that recalls the light-hearted gaiety of Paul de Kock's 'Damoiselle du Cinquieme' and the varied pathos and humour of Henri Murger."—Whitehall Review.

WARD AND DOWNEY, PUBLISHERS, LONDON.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Gibraltar is no longer a penal settlement.

[B] That has all been changed since. There are serviceable rifled guns at Tangier now, and the Sultan has some approach to a regular army, organized by an ex-English soldier.

[C] Stuart married Lady Alice Hay, grand-daughter of William IV., in London, in 1874, and is now dead. He left no heir, so that the House of Hanover may rest easy. The story that the Cardinal of York ("Henry IX."), who died in 1807, was the last of the Stuart line, is all bosh. Charles-Edward had a son by the daughter of Prince Sobieski.

[D] Review of the social and political state of the Basque Provinces, at the end of a book on "Portugal and Galicia," published in 1848 by John Murray.

[E] It should be noted that in July, 1876, directly after the war was over, the fueros were entirely done away with by a special law.

[F] See my last book, "An Iron-Bound City." Poor Willie died in New York of a complication of diseases on last Easter Sunday—an anniversary of hopefulness. His path of existence here was thorny. Unsurfeiting happiness be his portion in the meads of asphodel!

[G] Now Colonel the Baron Craignish, Equerry to his Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha.

* * * * *

NOTES OF THE TRANSCRIBER OF THIS ETEXT.

The following typographical errors in the book have been corrected in making this etext:

Abd-es-Salem changed to Abd-es-Salam

Dorregarray changed to Dorregaray

Ojoladeros changed to Ojaladeros

Enderlasa changed to Endarlasa

Enderlaza changed to Endarlasa

I deserve no creditor changed to I deserve no credit for

THE END