ion 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 chick