and you see our Basque peasants hastening to the pretender and supplying him with an army. That means wearing a fine uniform, with the flat cap cocked over the ear, and coming into the villages with trumpets sounding and, when they have stacked muskets, giving the girls a dance on the green to the accompaniment of their singing. It means, too, that they will hear the bullets whistle, for our Basques are brave, live frugally and die well. But good-by to the harvests, to the apple trees, to the daily life of their poor world! They fought all day long; they fought for three years. At a given moment, sir, you might have seen all these miry roads filled with men of the same country whose only thought it was to cut one another’s throat.
“You know the story of the siege of Bilbao, that the Carlists squeezed as if they had it in a vise. The city had to be relieved, and Don Carlos’ soldiers held the passes between Saint Sebastian and Bilbao, repelled the attacks that were made on them and thrashed the columns of troops that were hurled against them with the bayonet. The Carlist chief who commanded in this quarter was named Zucarraga. He was a hero, sir! An old army officer, who had returned his sword to the government of Madrid, saying: ‘Give it to some one else and let it be turned against my breast; the sword that I shall carry henceforth I will receive from my rightful king.’ Thirty years old he was, and handsome, tall, superb. He held the mountains about here, and never let go his hold. They sent their best troops against him, and every day they sent fresh troops. We saw them come back, the poor halting, crippled soldiers, with their decimated ranks and their officers borne on bloody litters, shaking their heads
