e 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 populat