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He had also done some fighting with the Carlists, and was in France on furlough, which the soldiers in the Royalist force appeared to have no insuperable difficulty in getting. He told me there was a large infusion of his old regiment amongst the guerrilleros, and that they helped to bind the partisan levies in the withes of discipline. Most of them had smelt gunpowder at Mentana and Patay.
Large numbers of the population took up arms, and, engaging in guerrilla warfare, robbed and murdered in the most cruel manner individual soldiers or small parties whom accident or other causes had separated from the main body of our Army; bands of guerrilleros and robbers infested the roads, harassed our trains, and whenever it was in their power cut off our supplies.
They formed a motley company: generals now dead, whose names are revered or execrated by their countrymen; lieutenants and captains who have since made their way in the world, or have died, broken-hearted heroes, before Metz or Sedan; women who seemed obscure, but whose names, in the general convulsion of nations, have risen to newspaper notoriety or to lasting fame; soldiers who have become historians; guerrilleros now pompously called generals; adventurers who have grown into personages; personages who have sunk into adventurers; sovereigns who have become martyrs.
In a hotel on the edge of that inlet, the Fonda de la Playa, where I put up, a young Irish gentleman named Leader was recuperating from a severe wound in the leg. He had received it in the service of Don Carlos, in a skirmish near Azpeitia, where he was the only man hit. He was out with a party of the guerrilleros, and came across a company of the Madrid troops.
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 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-glass. 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.
In his bewilderment he exclaimed: "Amid so many falsehoods, I suspect treason." After a moment's hesitation the strange officer replied: "Have no fear, senor; you are in the hands of the regular army. We are not guerrilleros; we belong to the battalion of the supremos poderes of the republic." For a moment the lieutenant stood petrified. The whole truth, in all its hideousness, burst upon him.
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