"If you go to Irun," said Barbarossa, stroking his moustache, "I am game to go with you."
"I am satisfied," said I; "but recollect, you undertake the job at your own risk. You are known as an associate of Carlists, and suspected to be a Carlist agent. I am a stranger and comparatively safe."
He had weighed all that, and was ready to face possible perils. But he was not fit to undergo probable fatigues. He could sit at a green table in an ill-ventilated atmosphere the night long, but he could not walk three miles at a stretch. Neither could he (on account of his illness) venture on horseback. To effect a crossing by the railway bridge from Hendaye to Irun was out of the question; it was barrier impenetrable. The Frenchman would not allow you to pass in your own interest; the Spaniard declined to admit you in his so-considered interest. To take the mountain-route was tedious, and in the case of Barbarossa not to be thought of; the bridge of Endarlasa was broken—a most contorted specimen of artistic dilapidation. To be sure, one could manage to creep to the other side by the submerged coping of the parapet, if endowed with the balancing powers of a rope-walker and the lustihood of the navvy. But Barbarossa was not a Blondin, and had not a physical constitution proof against a wetting. I had got across that bridge once, holding on by my teeth and nails, and retained recollection of it in a fit of the cold shivers; but I did not care to repeat the operation. In our dilemma, Barbarossa, who was a plucky knave, hit upon the plan which ought to have commended itself to us at first.
"Let us stray up the river-bank a few hundred yards," he said, "seize a boat, and row ourselves across."
No sooner was the proposition made than it was adopted; but we were saved from the ephemeral disgrace of posing as petty amphibious pirates, degenerate Schinderhannes of the Bidassoa. We saw a boat; a girl was near. The boat was her father's; she engaged to take us over for a consideration—I am certain she had set her heart on a string of straw-coloured ribbons and a sky-blue feather in a shop-window in Hendaye—and to await our return at nightfall. We arranged the signal, and stealthily stole across, drifting diagonally most of the way; and I entrusted the speculative French damsel with my revolver and my Carlist pass, and paid her a farewell compliment on her face and figure as I stepped ashore. Giving her the revolver and pass enlisted her confidence. We strolled along with apparent carelessness, entered a posada on the road by the waterside and had refreshments. I said I should feel much obliged if they could let us have a trap to Irun and back, as we had business there, and my friend was tired and not much of a pedestrian. An open carriage was provided, and off we drove by the skirt of the hill of St. Marcial, where the Spaniards gave Soult such a dressing in 1813, passed a series of outer defences with their covering and working parties, and entered one of the gates of the town, and never a question was asked. Ditches had been dug round the place and earthworks thrown up; but the principal reliance of the garrison seemed to be in loophooled breastworks made of sand-bags superimposed. Here and there were walls of loose stones—more of a danger than a protection—rude shelter-trenches, and mud-built, wattle-knitted refuges, round-topped, and disguised with branches. They had made the position strong; but they should have gone in for more spade and less stones, more mole and less beaver.
We trotted over the narrow paved street, with its flagged sidepaths, and drew up on the Plaza, overlooked by the solid square-stone mansion of the Ayuntamiento. The windows were screened with planks, and armed groups lounged in front; there were barrels of water and heaps of gravel at intervals upon the ground; memories of Paris rose to my mind—Irun was preparing for bombardment. If the Carlists had no serious artillery in fact, they had a powerful ordnance in the apprehensions of their adversaries. Perhaps this was the explanation of the rhodomontade about the batteries in El Cuartel Real. We were congratulating ourselves on the ease with which we had run the blockade, when an officer of the Miqueletes approached our carriage and demanded our papers. I showed my Foreign Office passport, with the visa of the Spanish Consulate at London upon it. He gave a cursory look at it, bowed, and returned it to me. Then came the turn of Barbarossa, and there was a flash of shrewd spitefulness in his eyes.
"Your papers, señor?"
"I have none. I didn't think any were required."
"Ah! doubtless you thought Irun was in Carlist occupation. You are wrong."
"No; I knew it was not in Carlist occupation. What has that to do with me? I am an Englishman," producing a packet of letters.