The death stroke
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
After all, human nature has changed but little under these southern skies, so that what the plebeian sought in the gladiatorial combats of the amphitheater, the Spaniard or Frenchman of to-day seeks and finds in the bloody scenes of the course de tauraux.
We left early to get a start of the rush of motor cars for the French frontier, but others had done the same thing, so that by the time the Spanish authorities had stamped our sortie definitive, we found the international bridge filled with cars, all impatiently waiting to take their turn at the French douane. Then amid a whirl of dust and a blowing of horns, car after car leaped for the homeward flight. Ahead of us and behind us, cars of every make, motor horns of every variety. The dust fog was continuous. Every one seemed racing to get out of it. It was a likely place for an accident. There was the wind-smothered shriek of a horn as a French racer shot by to lead the exciting procession. Farther ahead, the road turned sharply, and we stopped to find thirty or forty cars held up at a railway crossing. One of them was the French racer; officers were taking her number. It was growing dark, and we lighted our lamps. Looking back from the summit of a long hill, we could see the lights of other cars swiftly ascending around the curves. The wind was rising. Through the twilight came the dull roaring of heavy surf. A revolving beacon light, appearing and then disappearing, announced that we were once more in Biarritz.
[CHAPTER X]
BIARRITZ TO MONT-DE-MARSAN
Our three days in Biarritz had grown to three short weeks before we were able to break the spell of the alluring Grande Plage and shape our course in a northeasterly direction, along the foothills of the Pyrenees, through the picturesque regions of Périgord and Limousin to Tours and the châteaux country. Bayonne, the fortress city, looked peaceful enough with its tapering cathedral spires rising above the great earthen ramparts, now grass-grown and long disused to war. Not far from Bayonne the road forked; we were in doubt whether to continue straight on or to turn to the left. A group of workingmen near by ceased their toil as we drew near to ask for information. The answer to our question was very different from what we expected. One of them approached the car, brandishing a scythe in a manner more hostile than friendly, and asked if we were Germans. This question concerning our nationality came with all the force of a threat. The restless scythe cut a nearer airy swath. He had recognized the German make of our car, and was convinced that we belonged to the hated nation allemande. A German motor car is not the safest kind of an introduction to these French peasants, especially when the vin du pays has circulated freely. If appearances counted for anything, this particular peasant was quite inclined to use his scythe for more warlike purposes than those for which it was originally intended. But his companions, more peaceably disposed, seizing him, drew him back from the car and gave us, although reluctantly, the necessary information.
It was not our first experience of this kind. In France there is a strong sentiment against Germany. Our German car was often the target for unfriendly observation. This fierce ill feeling appears to be increasing. Never since the war of 1870 has there been such a period of military activity in the two countries. Germany is raising her army to a total of nearly nine hundred thousand men, at an initial cost of two hundred and fifty million dollars, and a subsequent annual cost of fifty million dollars. France has decided to meet these warlike preparations by keeping under the colors for another year the soldiers whose term of service would have expired last fall. This measure adds about two hundred thousand soldiers to the fighting strength of the French army. This increase of armament involves necessarily the admission of the increase of suspicion and antagonism.