r own countrywoman?'

* Field, garden.

** Bravos, boasters.

"She was lying then, sir, as she has always lied. I don't know that that
girl ever spoke a word of truth in her life, but when she did speak, I
believed her--I couldn't help myself. She mangled her Basque words, and
I believed she came from Navarre. But her eyes and her mouth and her
skin were enough to prove she was a gipsy. I was mad, I paid no more
attention to anything, I thought to myself that if the Spaniards had
dared to speak evil of my country, I would have slashed their faces just
as she had slashed her comrade's. In short, I was like a drunken man, I
was beginning to say foolish things, and I was very near doing them.

"'If I were to give you a push and you tumbled down, good
fellow-countryman,' she began again in Basque, 'those two Castilian
recruits wouldn't be able to keep me back.'

"Faith, I forgot my orders, I forgot everything, and I said to her,
'Well, then, my friend, girl of my country, try it, and may our Lady of
the Mountain help you through.'

"Just at that moment we were passing one of the many narrow lanes one
sees in Seville. All at once Carmen turned and struck me in the chest
with her fist. I tumbled backward, purposely. With a bound she sprang
over me, and ran off, showing us a pair of legs! People talk about a
pair of Basque legs! but hers were far better--as fleet as they were
well-turned. As for me, I picked myself up at once, but I stuck out my
lance* crossways and barred the street, so that my comrades were checked
at the very first moment of pursuit. Then I started to run myself, and
they after me--but how were we to catch her? There was no fear of that,
what with our spurs, our swords, and our lances.

* All Spanish cavalry soldiers carry lances.

"In less time than I have taken to tell you the story the prisoner
had disappeared. And besides, every gossip in the quarter covered her
flight, poked scorn at us, and pointed us in the wrong direction. After
a good deal of marching and countermarching, we had to go back to the
guard-room without a receipt from the governor of the jail.

"To avoid punishment, my men made known that Carmen had spoken to me in
Basque; and to tell the truth, it did not seem very natural that a blow
from such a little creature should have so easily overthrown a strong
fellow like me. The whole thing looked suspicious, or, at all events,
not over-clear. When I came off guard I