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In the little wagon, which the famous fast horse drags, they roll on the shady mountain paths, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, toward that village of Amezqueta. They roll quickly; they plunge into the heart of an infinite region of trees. And, as the hour goes by, all becomes more peaceful around them, and more savage; more primitive, the hamlets; more solitary, the Basque land.
And, at the corners of roads, the old crosses appear, ever with their similar inscriptions: "O crux, ave, spes unica!" Amezqueta, at the last twilight. They stop their carriage at an outskirt of the village, before the cider mill. Arrochkoa is impatient to go into the house of the sisters, vexed at arriving so late; he fears that the door may not be opened to them. Ramuntcho, silent, lets him act.
"If you knew," he says, "what is that little convent of Amezqueta where they have placed her: four old, good sisters with her, in an isolated house! I have my horse, you know, who gallops so quickly; once the nun is in a carriage with you, who can catch her?
"Far enough, yes. Over there, toward Navarre, five or six hours of a carriage drive. They have changed her convent twice. She lives at Amezqueta now, beyond the oak forests of Oyanzabal; the road is through Mendichoco; you know, we must have gone through it together one night with Itchoua." The high mass is ended.
He would rather stay in his native land, begin again his former life, reflect and wait obstinately. Anyway, now that he knows where she is, that village of Amezqueta, at a distance of five or six hours from here, haunts him in a dangerous way, and he hugs all sorts of sacrilegious projects which, until to-day, he would never have dared hardly to conceive.
And it is Ramuntcho at last who, still more tamed, lowers his ardent eyes before her virgin eyes. They continue to babble, the Sisters; they would like to retain them both at Amezqueta for the night: the weather, they say, is so black, and a storm threatens.
We have business with the people of Buruzabal, horses to lead into Spain to-night, not far from Amezqueta, and I promised to be there before ten o'clock " What will they do? They do not know, the two allied friends; this will depend on the turn that things take; they have different projects, all bold and skilful, according to the cases which might present themselves.
And little by little, in Ramuntcho, the frightful thought of losing her installed itself in a dominant place; during the hours of watchfulness spent near her bed, silent and alone, he was beginning to face the reality of that separation, the horror of that death and of that burial, even all the lugubrious morrows, all the aspects of his future life: the house which he would have to sell before quitting the country; then, perhaps, the desperate attempt at the convent of Amezqueta; then the departure, probably solitary and without desire to return, for unknown America
Etchezar, their village, is separated from Amezqueta by some sixty kilometres, in a land without more means of communication than in the past centuries: "Oh, in spite of the distance," says the little nun, "I get news of you sometimes. Last month, people here had met on the market place of Hasparren, women of our village; that is how I learned many things.
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