ading
obscurity one may still distinguish the hedges, white with hawthorn, the
woods white with acacia flowers; into the open carriages penetrates a
fragrance at once violent and suave, which the country exhales. And on
all this white bloom of April, which the night little by little effaces,
the train throws in passing a furrow of joy, the refrain of some old
song of Navarre, sung and resung infinitely by these girls and these
boys, in the noise of the wheels and of the steam--

Erribiague! At the doors, this name, which makes all three start, is
cried. The singing band had already stepped out, leaving them almost
alone in the train, which had become silent. High mountains had made the
night very thick--and the three were almost sleeping.

Astounded, they jump down, in the midst of an obscurity which even their
smugglers' eyes cannot pierce. Stars above hardly shine, so encumbered
is the sky by the overhanging summits.

"Where is the village?" they ask of a man who is there alone to receive
them.

"Three miles from here on the right."

They begin to distinguish the gray trail of a road, suddenly lost in the
heart of the shade. And in the grand silence, in the humid coolness of
these valleys full of darkness, they walk without talking, their gaiety
somewhat darkened by the black majesty of the peaks that guard the
frontier here.

They come, at last, to an old, curved bridge over a torrent; then, to
the sleeping village which no light indicates. And the inn, where shines
a lamp, is near by, leaning on the mountain, its base in the roaring
water.

The young men are led into their little rooms which have an air of
cleanliness in spite of their extreme oldness: very low, crushed by
their enormous beams, and bearing on their whitewashed walls images of
the Christ, the Virgin and the saints.

Then, they go down to the supper tables, where are seated two or three
old men in old time costume: white belt, black blouse, very short, with
a thousand pleats. And Arrochkoa, vain of his parentage, hastens to ask
them if they have not known Detcharry, who was here a brigadier of the
customs eighteen years ago.

One of the old men scans his face:

"Ah! you are his son, I would bet! You look like him! Detcharry, do
I remember Detcharry!--He took from me two hundred lots of
merchandise!--That does not matter, here is my hand, even if you are his
son!"

And the old defrauder, who was the chief of a great band, without
rancor