ff, however, caught just in time, thanks to a marvellous precision of
the eye, and strikes the wall, ever with the rapidity of a bullet--When
it wanders on the benches, on the mass of woolen caps and of pretty hair
ornamented with silk kerchiefs, all the heads then, all the bodies,
are lowered as if moved by the wind of its passage: for it must not be
touched, it must not be stopped, as long as it is living and may
still be caught; then, when it is really lost, dead, some one of the
assistants does himself the honor to pick it up and throw it back to the
players.

The night falls, falls, the last golden colors scatter with serene
melancholy over the highest summits of the Basque country. In the
deserted church, profound silence is established and antique images
regard one another alone through the invasion of night--Oh! the sadness
of ends of festivals, in very isolated villages, as soon as the sun
sets--!

Meanwhile Ramuntcho is more and more the great conqueror. And the
plaudits, the cries, redouble his happy boldness; each time he makes a
point the men, standing now on the old, graded, granite benches, acclaim
him with southern fury.

The last point, the sixtieth--It is Ramuntcho's and he has won the game!

Then there is a sudden crumbling into the arena of all the Basque caps
which ornamented the stone amphitheatre; they press around the players
who have made themselves immovable, suddenly, in tired attitudes. And
Ramuntcho unfastens the thongs of his glove in the middle of a crowd of
expansive admirers; from all sides, brave and rude hands are stretched
to grasp his or to strike his shoulder amicably.

"Have you asked Gracieuse to dance with you this evening?" asks
Arrochkoa, who in this instant would do anything for him.

"Yes, when she came out of the high mass I spoke to her--She has
promised."

"Good! I feared that mother--Oh! I would have arranged it, in any case;
you may believe me."

A robust old man with square shoulders, with square jaws, with a
beardless, monkish face, before whom all bowed with respect, comes also:
it is Haramburu, a player of the olden time who was celebrated half a
century ago in America for the game of rebot, and who earned a small
fortune. Ramuntcho blushes with pleasure at the compliment of this old
man, who is hard to please. And beyond, standing on the reddish benches,
among the long grasses and the November scabwort, his little friend,
whom a group of young girls follow