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Updated: June 15, 2025
In the little garden in front of her house, Gracieuse sat on a stone bench: "I have spoken to Arrochkoa!" said Ramuntcho to her, with a happy smile, as soon as they were alone "And he is entirely with us, you know!" "Oh! that," replied the little girl, without losing the sadly pensive air which she had that morning, "oh, that! my brother Arrochkoa, I suspected it, it was sure!
But Arrochkoa, very brotherly this time, in one of his good moments, slaps him on the shoulder as if he had understood his reverie, and says to him in a tone of light gaiety: "Well! it seems that you talked together, last night, sister and you she told me about it and that you are both prettily agreed!
Arrochkoa looks at Ramuntcho, questions him with a piercing eye accustomed to fathom the black depths and, tamed himself by all this unexpected peace, he understands very well that his bold comrade dares no longer, that all the projects have fallen, that all is useless and inert in presence of the invisible wall with which his sister is surrounded.
"Oh, my friend," replied Arrochkoa, become more serious also, "on my word of honor, it suits me very well And even, as I fear that there shall be trouble with mother, I promise to help you if you need help " And Ramuntcho's sadness is dispelled as a little dust on which one has blown. He finds the supper delicious, the inn gay.
In such places, in the company of Arrochkoa, Ramuntcho talked over and commented upon his cherished, sacrilegious project; or, during the beautiful moon-light nights which do not permit of undertakings on the frontier they talked on the roads for a long time. Persistent religions scruples made him hesitate a great deal, although he hardly realized it.
Arrochkoa was born there and he had spent there the first months of his life, in the time when his father lived there as a brigadier of the French customs; but he had left too early to have retained the least memory of it.
But Arrochkoa, in meeting him, utters in a wicked voice, in a voice tightened by his young, feline teeth, one of those series of insults which call for immediate answer and sound like an invitation to fight. It is so unexpected that Ramuntcho's stupor at first immobilizes him, retards the rush of blood to his head.
"Well, my children, talk of the things of Etchezar," says the Mother Superior to Gracieuse and to her brother. "We shall leave you alone, if you wish," she adds with a sign to Ramuntcho to follow her. "Oh, no," protests Arrochkoa, "Let him stay. No, he is not the one who prevents us "
She comes back with a little lamp which makes the eyes of the smugglers shine, and with a gay voice, a kind air, asks, looking at Ramuntcho: "And this one? A second brother, I suppose? "Oh, no," says Arrochkoa in a singular tone. "He is only my friend." In truth, he is not their brother, that Ramuntcho who stays there, ferocious and mute.
At last, for the first time, Gracieuse titters the name of Ramuntcho; not daring, however, to address him directly, she asks her brother, with a calm smile: "Then he is with you, Ramuntcho, now? You work together?" A silence follows, and Arrochkoa looks at Ramuntcho. "No," says the latter, in a slow and sombre voice, "no I, I go to-morrow to America "
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