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The dinner hour calls the Basques now to the houses or to the inns, and, under the light, somewhat gloomy, of the noon sun, the village seems deserted. Ramuntcho goes to the cider mill which the smugglers and pelota players frequent. There, he sits at a table, his cap still drawn over his eyes, with his friends: Arrochkoa, two or three others of the mountains and the somber Itchoua, their chief.
The vast silence has returned, less reassuring, ready to break, perhaps, because beasts are watching. And, at a low command from Itchoua, the men begin again their march, slower and more hesitating, in the night of the plain, a little bent, a little lowered on their legs, like wild animals on the alert.
He had foreseen, Ramuntcho, that this sombre aid would cost him a great deal, Itchoua being, in truth, a churchman, whose conscience would have to be bought; and, much disturbed, with a flush on his cheeks, Ramuntcho grants, after a discussion, a thousand francs.
After a week of full moon which kept the fields till day-light blue with rays, and when the band of Itchoua ceased to work, so clear was their habitual domain, so illuminated were the grand, vaporous backgrounds of the Pyrenees and of Spain the frontier fraud was resumed more ardently, as soon as the thinned crescent had become discreet and early setting.
At the last moment, a fear has come to Ramuntcho of this accomplice, whom he felt to be capable of everything, even of murder; in a sudden terror, he has refused the aid of that man, who clutched the bridle of the horse to prevent it from starting; and feverishly, Ramuntcho has thrown gold into his hands, to pay for his advice, to buy the liberty to act alone, the assurance, at least, of not committing a crime: piece by piece, to break his engagement, he has given to Itchoua a half of the agreed price.
"With whom are you going?" "The same as usual: Arrochkoa, Florentino and the Iragola brothers. It is, as it was the other night, for Itchoua, with whom I have just made an engagement. Good-night, mother Oh, we shall not be out late and, sure, I will be back before mass."
The others have, like Itchoua, hardened faces, eyes in ambuscade under the frontal arcade, expressing no certain age; their aspect reveals a past of fatigues, in the unreasonable obstinacy to pursue this trade of smuggling, which hardly gives bread to the less skilful.
Then, that is all? Eight o'clock in the evening. They have dined at the cider mill, all the players except the vicar, under the patronage of Itchoua; they have lounged for a long time afterward, languid in the smoke of smuggled cigarettes and listening to the marvellous improvisations of the two Iragola brothers, of the Mendiazpi mountain while outside, on the street, the girls in small groups holding one another's arms, looked at the windows, found pleasure in observing on the smoky panes the round shadows of the heads of the men covered with similar caps
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