At half-past four on the morning after our arrival in the mountains, I was roused from a profound sleep by the sound of the bugle. A solitary performer was blowing spiritedly into his instrument; what piece of music he was trying to execute I could not make out, but that his primary object was to "murder sleep" was evident, and he succeeded.
Losing all note of time and place, I thought for a moment I was in London, and that this was a visit from the Christmas waits. But there was a liveliness in the tones incompatible with the season when the clarionet, trombone, and cornet-a-piston form a syndicate of noise, and parade the streets for halfpence. The bugle was in a jocular mood. Judge of my astonishment when I learned that this merry melody was the Carlist"s reveille! The insurgents had got so far with their military organization that they had actually buglers and bugle-calls. Nay, more, they had drummers and a bra.s.s band!
Now I think of it, there is an inadvisability in my calling them insurgents while in their power; but what phrase am I to employ? In the pa.s.s in my pocket I am recommended to "the Chiefs of the Royal Army of his Catholic Majesty Charles VII.," as an inoffensive "corresponsal particular," to whom aid and protection may be safely extended. But then there are the Republicans, and if they catch me giving premature recognition in pen-and-ink to the Royalist cause, they may rightly complain that a British subject is flying in the face of the great British policy of non-intervention. I think I have discovered an escape from the dilemma. The Carlists speak of themselves as the Chicos, "the bhoys," so Chicos let them be for the future, and their opponents the troops--not that it is by any means intended to be conveyed that the troops so called are much more martial than the Chicos.
Well, the boys have got buglers who bugle with a will. They blow a blast to rouse us, another for distribution of rations; they have the a.s.sembly, the retreat, the "lights out," and all the rest, as regular as the Diddles.e.x Militia. I got up in the Cora"s house, looked at the Cura"s pictures--which were more meritorious as works of piety than as works of art--and hastened to the Plaza, where I was told there was about to be a muster of the Chicos, and I would have a leisurely opportunity of pa.s.sing them under inspection. The Plaza is a flagged s.p.a.ce enclosed on two sides by houses, some of which are over a couple of centuries old, with armorial bearings sculptured over the doors; on the third by the Munic.i.p.ality; and on the fourth by a grey church, lofty and large, seated on an eminence and approached by a flight of stone steps. The Munic.i.p.ality is a ma.s.sive building, level with the street, with a colonnaded portico, and a front over which some artist in distemper had pa.s.sed his brush. This facade is eloquent with mural painting, if one could only understand it all. There are symbolic figures of heroic size, coveys of cherubs, hatchments, masonic-looking emblems, and inscriptions. A Carlist sentry, dandling a naked bayonet in the hollow of his arm, was pacing to and fro in the portico, and the remaining warriors of the post were lounging about, cigarette in mouth, much as our own fellows do outside the guard-house on Commercial Square, at Gibraltar. I was curious to see the Carlist uniform. a.s.suredly the uniform does not make the soldier, but it goes a great way towards it.
Uniformity was the least striking feature in the dress of the men before me. They were clad in the ordinary garb of the mountain-peasants. Short coa.r.s.e jackets and loose trousers, confined at the waist by a faja, or girdle of bright-coloured woollen stuff, were worn by some; blouses of serge, knee-breeches, and stockings or gaiters, by others; but all, without exception, had the boina, or pancake-shaped woollen cap of the Basque provinces, and the alpargatas, or flat-soled canvas shoes.
By-and-by was heard a bugle-blast and the quick, regular tread of marching men, and the head of a company came in sight. In perfect time the company paced, four deep, into the Plaza, halted, and fell into line in two ranks. Thus, in succession, seven other companies arrived, forming the fifth, battalion of Navarre, a vigorous, wiry set of men, impressing the experienced eye as excellent raw material for soldiers, albeit got up in costume very much resembling that of brigands of the Comic Opera. Physically, the natives of the hilly northern provinces are the pick of Spain. The battalion had its flag, white between two stripes of scarlet, on which was inscribed the name of the corps, and the legend, "The country for ever, but always in honour." This was, of course, written in Basque, of which my rendering is rather free, but it gives exactly the sense of the sentiment. It was soon palpable to anybody, who knows anything of such matters, that the Chicos were weak in officers of the proper stamp, and still more so in under-officers.
Smoking was common in the ranks, and when the men stood at ease, they stood very much at ease indeed. The officers, in some cases, were distinguished in dress from the privates solely by gold or silver ta.s.sels dependent from their boinas, and their boinas were of blue, white, brown, or even Republican red, according to the fancy of the wearer. All the officers had revolvers and swords. The men were armed somewhat indiscriminately, one company with Cha.s.sepots, another with Remingtons; there were carbines, and percussion rifles, and smooth-bores, and even a few flint-locks; but I failed to discern a single specimen of the trabuco, the bell-mouthed blunderbuss we are accustomed to a.s.sociate with the Spanish knight of the road. Ammunition was carried in a waist-belt, with a surrounding row of leather tubes lined with tin, each of which held a cartridge--in fact, the Circa.s.sian cartouch-case. There were many grizzled weather-stained veterans in the ranks who had fought with Zumalacarregui and Mina in the Seven Years"
War; but as a rule the Chicos were literally boys in age, and here and there a child of twelve or fourteen might be seen measuring himself beside a patriotic musket. In relief to the peasant dresses were to be noticed frequent attempts at more soldierly costume in the shape of worn tunics of the French National Guards or Moblots, and some half-dozen uniforms of the Spanish Line, with the glazed kepi exchanged for the boina. On the top of many of the boinas, fastening the ta.s.sel, was a huge bra.s.s b.u.t.ton, with the monogram of the "King," and the inscription, "Voluntarios, Dios, Patria, y Rey." Another sign particular of this irregular force that impressed me much was a bleeding heart embroidered on a small sc.r.a.p of cloth, and sewn on the left b.r.e.a.s.t.s of nearly all on the ground. This appeared to be worn as a charm against bullets; and with a strong notion that it would protect them in the hour of danger, I am convinced nine out of ten of those peasants carried it. It may be as well to add that inside that embroidered patch were written, in Spanish, the words, "Stop; the heart of Jesus is here; defend me, Jesus." Many others of the Carlists carried scapulars, rosary beads, and blessed medals as pious reminders. The habit of wearing this representation of the heart of the Saviour over the region of the human heart dates so far back as the Vendean War, and had been introduced in the present instance by M. Cathelineau, grandson of the celebrated French Royalist loader.
The battalion had a.s.sembled on the Plaza to give up their old arms, and to receive a portion of those which had been landed from the _San Margarita_. They deposited those they had with them by sections in the Munic.i.p.ality, and emerged with the others, bright, brand-new Berdan breechloaders. They seemed proud of their weapons; some went so far as to kiss them; and, if looks were any criterion of feelings, their glowing faces said, as emphatically as it could be said, "Now that we have good tools, we shall show what good work we can do." Boxes of metallic ball-cartridges, centre-primed, were piled on the Plaza, and were quickly and quietly opened and distributed. Not an accident occurred in the process. Many a less wonderful phenomenon has been advertised as a miracle. I fully expected to have my coat spattered with some warrior"s brains every other moment, with such a reckless rashness were the rifle-muzzles poked about. One shot did go off, while a high private was trying if his cartridge fitted to the chamber; the charge singed the hair of a captain, and the bullet lodged in the middle of the word "Prudencia" on the facade of the Munic.i.p.ality. The captain would have it that he was killed, spun round on his own centre like a humming-top, and finally, coming to himself, shook out his clothes in search of the lead. There was a roar of laughter, and the careless soldier who had endangered the life of his officer was allowed to pa.s.s without rebuke. That was the worst point in Carlist discipline I had seen yet. There was too much familiarity towards superiors; the rank and file lacked that fear and respect for the officers which are the strongest cement of the military fabric. This was to be explained partly because the officers were not above the men in social position, and partly because any enterprising gentleman who bought gold braid and ta.s.sels, sported a sword, and appraised himself an officer, was accepted at his own valuation.
CHAPTER IX.
The Cura of Vera--Fueros of the Basques--Carlist Discipline--Fate of the _San Margarita_--The Squadron of Vigilance--How a Capture was Effected--The Sea-Rovers in the Dungeon--Visit to the Prisoners--San Sebastian--A Dead Season--The Defences of a Threatened City--Souvenirs of War--The Miqueletes--In a Fix--A German Doctor"s Warning.
THESE horrible and bloodthirsty Carlists turned out to be amiable individuals on acquaintance. I suppose they could put on a frown for their enemies, but for my companions and myself they had nothing but open smiles and hearty hand-grips. One great recommendation was our being billeted on the parish priest. His reverence had none of the Santa Cruz in him; he was a gentle, zealous, studious clergyman, yet was filled with the purest enthusiasm for the cause of what he regarded as legitimacy. The Don Carlos who raised the standard in 1833, he maintained, was the rightful heir to the throne of Spain. The law by which the succession had been changed was an _ex post facto_ law, pa.s.sed after his birth, and not promulgated until Ferdinand VII. had a female child. In May, 1845, that Don Carlos, really Charles V., resigned in favour of his son, Charles VI., and in September, 1868, he, in his turn, relinquished his rights to the present claimant to the throne, Charles VII., whom might G.o.d preserve.
The Cura was unusually civil towards us because we were Irish, and as Irish were presumably of clean lineage--that is to say, free from kinship with Jews or infidels. As reputed descendants of settlers from Bilbao, we were ent.i.tled to a full share in all the privileges of the province of Biscay. This was as well to know. It was a consolation to us to learn that it was an advantage to be Irish somewhere under the sun.
The King of Spain is but Lord of Biscay, and has to swear under the oak-tree of Guernica to respect the fueros or customs of the province.
Don Carlos had so done; he was in Spain, it was true, but where he was at the moment the Cura was unable to say; his court was perambulatory.
The fueros were abolished by the Cortes in 1841 and but partially restored in 1844, so that in inscribing them as one of the watchwords on their banner, the Basques were fighting for something more solid than glory. They cling to their rights as Britons do to Magna Charta, only with this difference--they have a clearer conception of what they are. I had been trying to arrive at some knowledge of the fueros, and obtained much information from a volume by the late Earl of Carnarvon.[D]
Guipuzcoa, Alava, and Biscay, though an integral part of the Spanish monarchy, for ages enjoyed their own laws, and a recapitulation of some which were in force in Biscay will be a fair sample of all. Biscay was governed by its own national a.s.semblies, arranged its own taxation, yielded contributions to the Sovereign as a free gift, had no militia laws, was exempt from naval impressment, provided for its own police in peace and its own defence in war. No monopoly, public or private, could be established there. Only Biscayans by birth could be nominated to ecclesiastical appointments; every Biscayan was n.o.ble, and his house was inviolable; there was perfect equality of civil rights. In short, those Basques flourished under the amplest measure of Home Rule, and had all the benefits of the Habeas Corpus Act under another name long before that Bill was legalized by the Parliament of Charles II. The liberty-loving Basques were tolerant as well as independent. The Inquisition was never vouchsafed breathing-room in their midst. When Protestants escaped from France after the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, they were treated to asylum amongst them.[E]
We moved about among the guerrilleros. They were mostly light-limbed and stalwart men, and were none the worse for the sprinkling of seniors of sixty and lads of sixteen. Many had the bow-legs of the mountaineer, built like the hinder pair of artillery-horses--the legs that tell of muscularity and lasting stamina. Their drill was very loose, and skill in musketry left much to be desired. They had no perception of distance-judging, and some were so grossly ignorant of the mechanism of their weapons that they knocked off the back-sights of their rifles, alleging that they hindered them from taking correct aim. The Marquis de la Hormazas--a meagre, tall, elderly man--was commandant of the battalion, and was stern in the exaction of discipline. During the stay of the Navarrese at Vera, a captain was degraded to the ranks for having entered the lists of illicit love. The Frenchwoman who was the partner of his amour was politely shown over the mountain and warned not to return.
The battalion left for the interior of the province. Leader was still too weak to enter on a campaign; Sheehan had to look after the belongings of his comrade Taylor, and break the news of his death to his mother; and I saw plainly that it was out of the question attempting to catch up the flitting headquarters of Don Carlos without a horse.
Besides, I had to complete arrangements for the transmission of letters and telegraphic messages when I had any to send, and for the reception of money; in sum, to open up communication with a base. So we returned to France as we came.
On arriving at St. Jean de Luz, a startling rumour awaited us. The steel-built Carlist privateer had been captured at the mouth of the Adour; she had been taken a prize to San Sebastian; Stuart and Travers were in close custody; and there were alarmists who whispered that they would be tried by drum-head as pirates, and hung up in chains in the cause of humanity. It was well for me I did not accept the invitation to that water-party. I ran over to Bayonne to ascertain what particulars I could, saw the Carlist Junta, the British and Spanish Vice-Consuls, and from their combined and conflicting narratives was able to sift some grains of the authentic. But the sudden first report was undeniable. The weasel had been caught asleep.
The _San Margarita_ was a serious loss to the cause. She had cost 3,500. She was very fast, being capable of a speed of between ten and eleven knots an hour, and should be equal to fourteen knots if her lifting screw had another blade. A three-bladed screw had been provided, and was to have been fitted to her stern on her return from the ill-fated expedition which put an end to her roving career. It was true that the descendant of kings was under bolts and bars. The French journals described him as a "Monsieur Stuart, a Scotch colonel, entrusted by the English Catholics with collections for the Carlist cause." They had never heard of his royal lineage, of his connection with the Austrian cavalry, or of his exploits by the side of the unhappy Maximilian in Mexico. He a.s.sumed the responsibility of ownership of the vessel. The hue-and-cry description of him was "a man of forty to forty-five years of age, over middle height, figure spare, features thin, and resolute in expression."
The burly bronzed Corkonian was also in durance, and with the pair of officers were a picked crew of thirteen Englishmen, including engineers, steward, stokers, and able-bodied seamen, and one Spanish cabin-boy. A Basque pilot, an old smuggler, familiar with every nook and crevice of the Bay of Biscay, had escaped.
If reports were credible, the _San Margarita_ had already landed two millions of cartridges, and an immense quant.i.ty of arms. Much vexation was caused to the officers of the Spanish navy in those quarters by the stories of the daring feats she had achieved, absolutely discharging a cargo once on the very wharf of Lequeieto, as if she were a peaceful merchantman, and on another occasion sending off rifles and ammunition by small boats in the dead of night, a man-of-war lying sleepily oblivious of what was going on just outside her. It was felt that her continued impunity was a reproach, and three small vessels of the Spanish navy were commissioned to cruise between Bilbao and Bayonne on the look-out for her. This little squadron of vigilance consisted of _El Aspirante_ and _El Capricho_, gun-boats, and the _Buenaventura_, a three-gun steam-brig. On Tuesday, August 12th, the _Buenaventura_, flying a George"s Jack at her peak, was off Fontarabia for a portion of the day, close in sh.o.r.e. At nightfall she disappeared--it is now supposed into the sheltered and almost invisible inlet of Los Pasages, between Fontarabia and San Sebastian. Before daybreak on Wednesday, the Carlists under Dorregaray swarmed down from the hills covering Cape Higuer. The _San Margarita_ came in sight, and began landing arms in the same spot where the undisturbed landing of the 28th July had been effected. Not more than three hundred stand had been put on sh.o.r.e, and about one hundred thousand cartridges in boxes, labelled in English "metallic rolled cartridges, centre-primed," when she had to get away, as the daylight began to play the informer. She dropped down towards Bayonne, and appears to have reached a point some four miles from the French sh.o.r.e (the exact distance is a moot question), where she laid to and allowed her furnaces to cool The men were "dead tired out" after their night"s work, and the captain considered that he was within the protection of French waters. But there is a very ancient proverb about a pitcher and a veil, and the period of its realization had been reached at last Whilst the _San Margarita_ was effecting the landing, a coastguard"s boat had slipped from under the heights of Fontarabia, and given notice of what was going on to the _Buenaventura_ in Los Pasages, and the brig steamed out, still with the British colours at her peak Whilst the Carlist privateer was motionless in fancied security--there was some want of prudence or vigilance there, surely--the gun-brig crept down and overhauled her before alarm could be given, and the rakish schooner-yacht, the skimmer of the seas, had the humiliation of falling a prey to a wretched slow boat that she could laugh at with steam up in the open sea. The arrest was made in the usual manner, and the captors behaved with the customary naval courtesy. They were over-joyed at their good fortune, and gave their prisoners to eat and to drink--champagne to the officers and chacoli to the men. They towed their prize into the bay of St. Sebastian, and there was triumph. The yellow and scarlet flag of Spain was over the wee _San Margarita_ as she entered, and Colonel Stuart and Captain Travers and their companions must have felt sore, for all the good cheer and generous wine. Still there was quite a courtly scene on board--hand-shakings and reciprocal compliments--as they were marched off to the dungeon of the Castillo de la Mota on a hill in the city, where they were incarcerated. There they did not fall on such pleasant lines as afloat. The Republicans lost no time in unloading the vessel. They took off her, with a hurry that betrayed apprehension, 1,545 carbines and six Berdan breech-loaders, with a number of armourer"s tools. It was remarked that the rifles supplied to the regular troops from Madrid were sighted to eight hundred metres, but that the range of those seized from the Carlists did not exceed five hundred.
I went over to San Sebastian by tug from Socoa on the 16th of August, and sent up my card to M. de Brunet, the British Vice-Consul. He said he had called on the prisoners, and that the sailors murmured at their treatment. If I went to the citadel, after three--as it was Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and visiting hours commenced then--I could see them without difficulty. I did clamber up the hill, and found this was not the case.
On owning that I had no pa.s.s from the military governor, I was denied admittance. Happening to meet the commandant, I represented what I wanted, and he very civilly granted me leave to visit the prisoners "para un momento." As the gates were thrown open Stuart advanced and met me, grasping my hand cordially, and slipping a letter up the sleeve of my coat. He had caught sight of me labouring up the hill, and had immediately hastened to scribble a few lines which he trusted to my sympathy with misfortune to smuggle to their destination for him. He was not mistaken, and in so doing I had no qualm of conscience. I accompanied him to his cell, and he told me the story of the capture of the _San Margarita_. It was substantially as I have related; they thought they were in a _mare clausum_, at all events they had drifted out of it on the tide of fate; but there was a nice question of international law. The _ruse_ of hoisting the British flag was legitimate if the _Buenaventura_ subst.i.tuted her own flag before proceeding to board them. The _San Margarita_ had the flags of more than one nation in her lockers; but the gun-brig had no power to act the policeman in neutral waters. There was the point. Travers was in a separate lodging; they had been accommodated at first in the one cell, but they could not agree--ash.o.r.e as afloat the old feud existed.
However, both a.s.sented to a truce in order to have a talk with me. They were cheerful, had cigars _ad libitum_ (at their own expense, of course), and were permitted to get their rations from the Hotel de Londres in the city. The cells they occupied were bare, white-washed, low-ceiled rooms, some eight paces by six. They were not so clean or well-ventilated as Newgate cells, and the beds were spread on the floor.
The captives had access to newspapers and writing materials, and it is but the due of the officers in charge to testify that they were extremely affable and disposed to make their prisoners as comfortable as possible. Still, in the close, stifling weather, to be locked up within the narrow circuit of a dungeon was limbo. The pair wore their own clothes, Travers still retaining a navy-jacket with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons engraved with the initials of some yacht club, and did not complain of having been subjected to indignities. While I was with them the shadow of a face darkened the window; it was a Carlist prisoner who had hoisted himself up on the shoulders of a comrade from a yard below; he had a letter in his mouth. I took it, and slipped him a bundle of cigars for distribution among his fellow cage-birds. From this it may be deduced that the gaol regulations were not very stringent. The Carlists were treated as forfeit of war, not felons, and had no honest chance of illuminating their brows with the martyr halo of Baron von Trenck or Silvio Pellico.
San Sebastian is the most modern town in the Peninsula, having been re-built in 1816, three years after its destruction by the incensed allied troops. It is a great summer resort of wealthy Spanish idlers--a sort of Madrid-super-Mare. The attractions of the capital are to be had there, with the supplementary advantages of pure air, mountain scenery, and luxurious sea-bathing on a level sandy beach. There is a public casino, and a score of clandestine h.e.l.ls where a fortune can be lost in a night at monte--in short, every infernal facility for Satanic gambling. Cigarettes are cheap, and so are knives. There is an Alameda, where the band plays, and a pa.s.sable imitation, of the Puerta del Sol, less the fountain, in the broad arcaded Plaza de la Const.i.tution. There is a small theatre, a s.p.a.cious bull-ring, and several commodious churches, where Pepita can talk the language of fans to her heart"s content. Every attraction of Madrid which could reasonably be expected is to be had, I repeat, and hidalgos and sloe-eyed senoras speckle the promenades in the gloaming, and impart a mingled aroma of garlic and gentility, pomade and pretentiousness, to the chief town of Guipuzcoa.
San Sebastian would be for Madrilenos what Paris is for Bostonians, if a few of the attractions of the "only court," which could not reasonably be expected, were not lacking--say an occasional walk round of the Intransigentes, to show their political muscles; a grandiloquent, frothy word-tempest in the Congress, and the Sunday c.o.c.k-fight. I am speaking, be it understood, of San Sebastian in ordinary summers. A short twelvemonth before my visit, a pair of pouting English lips told me it was "awfully jolly."
At the date with which I am concerned, it was anything but "awfully jolly." The fifteen thousand rich visitors who were wont to flock into the city during the season had gone elsewhere to recruit their health on the sands and lose their money at the gaming-tables. They had been frightened to the coasts of France by the apparition of Carlism, and San Sebastian was plaintive. Her streets and her coffers were empty. The campamento of bathing-huts was ranged as usual on the velvet rim of the ear-like bay, but no bathers were there. There were more domestics than guests in the hotels; and at the _table d"hote_ three sat down in a saloon designed for a hundred to breakfast in; and we had no b.u.t.ter. The peasants in the country round were afraid to bring in the produce of their dairies and barn-yards. The bull-ring was to let; conscientious barbers shaved each other or dressed the hair on the wax busts in their windows, in order to keep alive the traditions of their craft; the fiddlers in the concert-room of the casino sc.r.a.ped lamentations to imaginary listeners. A Sahara of dust had settled on the curtain of the theatre, and fleet-footed spiders made forages athwart it from one cobwebby stronghold to another. The once festive resort had lost its spirits completely, and all on account of this civil war. It was summer, but the city was in a state of hibernation. No business was done in the shops, the cafes were empty, most of the resident population who could afford it had emigrated, and the public squares were as vacant as if there were a perpetual siesta. There was no sign of animation, as we understand it in England. There were but three vessels in the west bay--the _Buenaventura_, a merchant steamer, and the _San Margarita_, pinioned at last, her yellow funnel cold. Sojourn in the place was insupportable. I knew not how to kill the tedious hours. I climbed again to the Castle of the Mota, inspected some English tombs on the slope of the acclivity, and noticed that if the citadel is still a position of strength, nature deserves much of the credit. The defences recently thrown up had been devised and executed carefully, and if the defenders were only true to themselves, the Carlists, with no better artillery than they possessed, might as well think of taking the moon as of entering San Sebastian. They would have a formidable fire from well-planted cannon to face; stockades, and strong earthworks, and more than one blockhouse cunningly pierced with loopholes, to carry. Even if San Sebastian was entered, the configuration of the streets was such as to give every aid to disciplined men as opposed to mere guerrilleros.
The city is built in blocks, on the American system; the wide thoroughfares cross each other at right-angles, and all of them could be swept as with a besom by a few guns _en barbette_ behind a breastwork at either end. In this sort of work, accuracy of aim is not called for, as in that warfare up in the mountains. If it were, not much reliance could be placed on the Republican artillery. General Hidalgo had well-nigh nullified that arm of the service. A Carlist leader, in whose information and whose word confidence could be reposed, a.s.sured me that not a single Carlist had yet been killed or wounded by the Republican gunners. The estimated lists of the enemy"s casualties given by both parties during the struggle, I may remark _en pa.s.sant_, were grossly exaggerated. The butcher"s bill was very small in proportion to the expenditure of gunpowder. Returning to the question of the defence of San Sebastian--even on the supposition that the main works and town were to fall into the hands of the Carlists, the citadel still remained, where a determined leader could hold out till relief came, as long as his provisions lasted. This lofty citadel is almost impregnable. It was. .h.i.ther the French retired in 1813, and it took General Graham all that he knew to dislodge them. If I were asked what were the prospects of the Carlists getting into the place, I should say there was but one--by crossing over a golden bridge. But that implied the possession of money, and money was precisely what the Carlists declared they needed most.
There was always the remote hazard of a Carlist rising in San Sebastian, for there were in the city the children of settlers from the rural districts who bit their thumbs at the sight of the muzzled _San Margarita_, and prayed that Charles VII. might have "his ain again." But they were in the minority. The Miqueletes, a soldierly body of men in scarlet Basque scones very like to the Carlist head-gear, and a blue capote with cape attached, garrisoned the citadel. They were brave and loyal to the Republic, and the object of deep grudge to the Chicos, for they were Basques of the towns. Many of these provincial militiamen had come in from the small pueblos in the neighbourhood, where they ran the risk of being eaten up by "the bhoys;" and this was the only accession to the population which redeemed the dismal, tradeless port from the appearance of having been stricken by plague and abandoned, and lent it at intervals an artificial bustle.
I sickened of San Sebastian, with its angular propriety; its high, haughty houses, holding up their heads in architectural primness; its wide geometrical streets, where there is no shade in the sun, no shelter in the wind. I began to hate it for its rectilinearity, and dub it a priggish, stuck-up, arrogant upstart among cities. What business had it to be so straight and clean and airy? Fain would I shake the dust off my feet in testimony against it; but here was the trouble. How to get away--that was a knotty problem. The railway had been torn up for months, and the armour-vested locomotives were rusting on the sidings at Hendaye. The dirty hot little tug, the _Alcorta_, that plies between the quay and Socoa, had left; and I grieved not, for the thought of a pa.s.sage by her was nausea. Three more torturing hours never dragged their slow length along for me than those I spent on board her coming over. Try and call up to yourself three hours in a low-cla.s.s cook-shop, coated an inch thick with filth, and fitted over the boiler of a penny steamer dancing a marine break-down on the Thames, opposite the outlet of the main-drainage pipes. That, intensified by strange oaths and slop-basins, was the pa.s.sage by the _Alcorta_. But dreary, lonely San Sebastian was not to be endured. Those poor fellows above, accustomed to the wild freshness and freedom of the sea, how they must mourn and repine! By some means or other I must get back to the world that is not petrified. No diligences dare to affront the dangers of the short journey to the Irun railway-station, since three were stopped some days before, the traces cut, the horses stolen, the windows shattered, the woodwork burned, and the charred wreck left on the roadside, a terror to those who neglect to obey the commands of the Royalist leaders.
"Royalist prigants, serr!" shouted a corpulent German doctor, connected with mines in the neighbourhood, who retained fierce recollections of having been robbed of a "boney, capitalest of boneys for crossing a mountain."
I told the doctor I was about to trust to luck, and set out on foot if I could persuade n.o.body to provide me with a vehicle.
"Serr, you air mad, foolish mad," said the doctor. "Those horrid beebles, I tell you, are worse than prigants; if you hayff money, they will dake it; if you hayff not money, they will stroke your pack fifty times, pecause you hayff it not. They will cut your ears off; they will cut your nose off; they are plack tevils!"
I determined to trust to luck all the same. The black devils might not be all out so black as they were painted.
CHAPTER X.
Belcha"s Brigands--Pale-Red Republicans--The Hyena--More about the _San Margarita_--Arrival of a Republican Column--The Jaunt to Los Pasages--A Sweet Surprise--"The Prettiest Girl in Spain"--A Madrid Acquaintance--A Costly Pull--The Diligence at Last--Renteria and its Defences--A Furious Ride--In France Again--Unearthing Santa Cruz--The Outlaw in his Lair--Interviewed at Last--The Truth about the Endarlasa Ma.s.sacre--A Death-Warrant--The Buried Gun--Fanaticism of the Partisan-Priest.
THERE is fine scope for exaggeration in civil war; but he who wants the truth about the Montagues does not consult the Capulets. There must be bad characters amongst the Carlists, I reflected; and when they are on outpost duty at a distance from officers, and have taken a drop of aguardiente too much, they may sometimes fail to appreciate the nice distinction between _meum_ and _tuum_. The band of one Belcha, which was hovering in the neighbourhood of San Sebastian, had a shady reputation.
It would be unjust to tempt these simple-minded guerrilleros with the sight of a Derringer, a hunting-watch, a tobacco-pouch, or a reconnoitring-gla.s.s. All these articles are useful on the hills. But even Belcha"s looters had some conscience; they drew the line at money and wedding-rings. Besides, in cases of robbery rest.i.tution was invariably made when the chiefs of the revolt were appealed to in proper form, so that on the whole the Carlists did not deserve the name the German doctor had given them. Regular soldiers do not always carry the Decalogue in their kit; there was marauding in the Peninsula, notwithstanding the iron discipline of the Iron Duke; the Summer Palace at Pekin was despoiled of its treasures by gentlemen in epaulettes, and the Franco-German War was not entirely unconnected with stories about vanishing clocks. So I would not be diverted from my purpose.
Before leaving San Sebastian I tried to obtain permission for a second visit to the citadel-prison in order to see the crew of the _San Margarita_, but without avail. Yet the officers in charge (all of the regular army), and indeed the privates of the local militia, were anything but truculent gaolers; they seemed willing to strain a point to oblige. The Republicanism of the officers was of a very pale red; but there was one hirsute Volunteer of Liberty who acted as chief warder, and took a delight in the occupation. He rattled his bunch of keys as if their metallic dissonance were music, grumbled at the urbanity of his superiors, and bore himself altogether as if their politics were suspicious; and he, a pure of the pure, were there as warder over that too. I nicknamed him the hyena in my own mind; but I could not conceive him laughing anywhere save in front of a garrote with a Royalist neck in the rundel, and then his laugh at best would be but the inward chuckle of a Modoc.
Stuart took the hyena coolly, regarding him as an amusing phenomenon; Travers surveyed him as he would the portrait of the Nabob on London h.o.a.rdings, and p.r.o.nounced him a whimsical ill.u.s.tration of Republican sauce. Stuart, I should have stated, was anxious that it should be known that he had caused the name of the whilom _Deerhound_ to be erased from the list of yachts, when he chartered her as a merchant-steamer, renamed her, and went into the contraband-of-war line. It was contrary to his wish to compromise any club. The confiscated cargo was the last he had intended delivering, but he told me with a smile that ten thousand stand of rifles had already found their way to Vera. There was no legitimate explanation of the capture of the hare by the tortoise, although Travers was prepared to swear he was in French waters--he thought he was, no doubt--but he was just on the wrong side of the limit. There was one comfort. On the way to Bayonne a boat-load of men had been landed at Socoa on leave, amongst them the Basque pilot, who might otherwise have been helped to a short shrift, and the dog"s death from a yard-arm.
Carlist sympathizers endeavoured to procure me a conveyance to Irun, but n.o.body cared to affront the loss of horses, for Belcha"s band requisitioned the cattle even of those identical in political feeling--the good of the cause was their plea--so at last I was forced to say I should be glad of a trap to Los Pasages, a few miles off, whence I might be able to go forward on foot.
While I was waiting for the arrival of the vehicle, and reading _El Diario_, the local daily paper--a sheet the size of the palm of one"s hand--until I had the contents by rote, an incident occurred to beguile suspense. The vanguard of the corps of Sanchez Bregua, the commander of the Republican Army of the North, rode into the city. They had come from Zarauz, a seaside village four leagues away--a section of mounted Cha.s.seurs in a uniform like to that of the old British Light Dragoons.
The troopers were in campaign order, with rifled carbines slung over their backs, pugarees hanging from their shakoes over their necks, and were dust-covered and sunburnt, but soldierly. They were horsed unevenly, and for light cavalry carried too great a burden. But that is not a fault peculiar to Spanish light cavalry. The average weight of the British Hussar equipped is eighteen stone. A quarter of an hour later the main body came in sight, a long column of infantry marching by fours. It was headed by a party of Civil Guards, acting as guides. As the column reached the open s.p.a.ce by the quay, it deployed into line of companies, a movement capitally executed. The men were bigger and tougher than those of the French Line. Their uniform was similar, except that they had wings to their capotes instead of worsted epaulettes. All wore mountain-shoes, but were not hampered with tenting equipage on their knapsacks. Each battalion was led by a staff-officer, who was splendidly, or wretchedly, mounted, as his luck had served him. The company officers carried alpenstocks, and their orderlies had officers"
cast foraging-caps on top of their glazed shakoes. I noticed a battalion of Cazadores, distinguished by the emblematic bra.s.s horn of chase wrought on their collars, and two companies of Engineers in uniforms entirely blue, with towers on their collars. These latter were robust, sinewy young fellows. After the infantry came a company of the 2nd Regiment of Mountain Artillery with four small pieces, each drawn by a single mule, and behind them a squadron of Mounted Cha.s.seurs, and a long cavalcade of pack-horses and mules.
After a deal of exploration a driver was dug up, and after a deal of negotiation he consented to take me to Los Pasages. Thanks to Republican vigilance, but princ.i.p.ally it may have been to the nature of the ground, the road thither was clear. We started at six o"clock in the evening, and after a lively spin through sylvan scenery drew up in less than an hour at the outskirts of a village on the edge of a quiet pool, which we had bordered for nigh a mile. No papers had been asked for, on leaving, at the bridge over the Urumea, where a post of volunteers kept guard by an antique and stumpy bronze howitzer, mounted on a siege-carriage, and furnished with the dolphin-handles to be seen on some of the last-century guns in the Tower a.r.s.enal. No papers were asked for either at the Customs" station, some hundred yards farther on; but the Carabineros looked upon me as a lunatic, and significantly sibilated.
None were asked for at the approach to the village. Scarcely had I alighted when a fishwife ran out of a cabin and addressed me in Basque.
I could not understand her, and motioned her away, when a winsome la.s.sie of some eighteen summers, tripping up the road, came to my aid, and began speaking in French as if she were antic.i.p.ating my arrival.
"Monsieur wants a shallop to go to France?"
I was taken aback, but answered, "Yes."
"Monsieur will follow me."
And she gave me a meaning sign--half a wink, half a monition. I followed, and examined my volunteer guide more attentively. What a prize of a girl! Hair black as night, but with a glossy blackness, was parted on her smooth forehead, and retained behind, after the fashion of the country, by a coloured snood, but two thick Gretchen plaits escaped, and hung down to her waist, making one wish that she had let her whole wealth of tresses wander free. Eyes blue-black, full by turns of soft love and sparkling mischief; Creole complexion, with blood rich as marriage-wine coursing in the dimpled cheeks; teeth white as the fox"s; lips of clove-pink. And what a shape had she--ripe, firm, and piquant!
Do you wonder that I followed her with joy? Do you wonder that I began weaving a romance? If you do, I pity you. Did I want a shallop? Of course I did; but alas! might I not have echoed Burger"s lament: