Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookOpen Original Text ey. The first steep hill we went down at a
gallop; but our breaks, old and rusty, would not work; the almost
overweighted diligence swerving to and fro--and if we had had a bishop
on board we must have capsized; as it was, your light-hearted servant
just saved his neck. The diligence came to a standstill at the bottom
of the hill, and after great shouting some olive oil was procured,
and the screw was twisted backwards and forwards until it forgot its
rust in its unwonted oil bath. Again we started, this time at even a
greater pace, to make up for lost time....
"The first bodily testimony of the fear of the Carlists was at Tolosa,
an old Spanish city, Mauresque in its surroundings, which was
fortified with wooden stockades fitted with loopholes for guns. It
was well garrisoned with a few regular troops and provincial militia.
The volunteers were, on the whole, a soldierly-looking body of men.
At Allegria the Town Hall or Public Court House was fortified by the
doors and windows being blocked up with rough stones coarsely mortared
in, the necessary loopholes being left for firing through. This being
in the centre of the town evidenced the fear that the outer works
might not be strong enough to resist the Carlist assailants. Between
Allegria and Villafranca I came upon a shocking sight. The Carlists
had cut the line close to the mouth of a railway tunnel, which they
had also partially blown up. The next train from San Sebastian came
on with its usual freight of peaceful ordinary passengers, and no
friendly warning was given to stay the mad, confiding rush into
the arms of death. Two carriages over the side of the embankment,
and the guard's van smashed underneath, three carriages on the
line crushed into one another, still are there, with the ghastly,
sickening, dull, dried traces on them to show how well the bloody
work was done. And these are Carlist doings--work by followers of the
Divine-right-Bourbon! Prayers are said for these infamous scoundrels
in Paris, and subscriptions are advertised for them in the London
_Times_. If they had been Communists instead of Carlists, what then?...
"At Beasain I found that the fine railway bridge was cut by the
Carlists, several feet being taken out of the flooring on either side,
so that any train coming might be utterly dashed to pieces in a leap
to the depths underneath. When coming near Zumarraga we had two yoke
of oxen added to our horses, to drag us up the steep hillside, our
ascent being upon one of the small range of mountains that apparently
link on to the Pyrenees. Here I began to think the danger was passed,
as we found men engaged in repairing the permanent way, although the
strong guard of soldiers protecting the workmen showed that this was
not quite the opinion of the authorities.
"At Mondragon a new style of fortification met my view. All these
cities are built with very narrow streets, and here, in the centre
of the principal street, a chamber had been run across from window
to window of opposite houses, built shot-proof, and loop-holed each
side and underneath. This clearly proved that in this neighbourhood
the Carlists were looked upon as likely to enter the town itself. At
Arichavaletta, where the regular troops were stronger than usual, I
was much puzzled by the conduct of the sentries, who first signalled
us to stop, and who--when the horses were pulled up to a walk--crossed
bayonets to prevent our progress. It turned out that the Commanding
Officer had broken his meerschaum pipe, and our important mission was
actually to take it to Vittoria to be mended. More fortunate than some
of the baggage we carried, it actually arrived at its destination.
At Ezcarriaza, a small open town where we made our last change of
horses, I noticed that most of the houses were deserted, and the doors
and shutters fastened. The remaining inhabitants stared at us with a
pitying kind of curiosity, as though they knew not what fate was in
store for us. Candidly speaking, as we had now safely done more than
four-fifths of our journey to Vittoria, I began to think that there
was now scarcely any risk, and the more especially so as all advices
of the Carlists placed them much to the north of where we then were.
My judgment was inaccurate; the sting of the serpent was in its tail,
the last fifth part of our journey was worse than all the rest. When
we arrived at the _Cuesta de Salinas_, where two roads branched off, a
rather good-looking young man, in a blue cap and blue blouse sort of
uniform, armed with a rifle, a revolver in his sash attached by a ring
to a cord slung round his neck, and with a bayonet sword by his side,
waved his hand to our driver in the direction of the lower road. This
road our diligence now took, our driver saying something we could not
hear, and my companion adding to me, 'At last, the Carlists!' About
half a mile further, up started in the middle of the road as rough
a specimen of the human family as one could wish to meet. Armed and
dressed like the previous one, he evidently called on our driver to
halt, and as the diligence came to a standstill, two others, worse
dressed and badly armed with indifferent guns, joined the first, and I
cocked my revolver, keeping it however underneath my coat. Our driver
chatted to the Carlists familiarly in the Basque tongue, but too low
for my fellow-traveller to catch a word. The last of the Carlists who
appeared was probably a deserter, as he wore part of the uniform of a
private of the Twenty-ninth Regiment. Whether the three did not feel
strong enough to attack us, or whether, as is more likely, they had
orders to let us pass into the trap carefully laid at the other end
of the road, I do not know; what is certain is, that again our driver
gathered up the reins, and away we galloped. I uncocked my pistol,
and began to believe that the Carlists were a much maligned body of
men. About a mile further, a house still in flames, with traces of a
severe struggle close to it, again awakened our attention, and in the
distance blue uniforms could be seen.
"At the _fuente de Certaban_, close to Ullsbarri Gamboa, in the
province of Alava, we fairly fell into the Carlists' hands, like fish
taken in a net. A party of twelve stopped the roadway, while two kept
sentry on the heights close to the road, and some others, whom we
could not see but whom we could hear, were close at hand. Our driver
descended, and his first act was to give the leader of the Carlist
party an ordinary traveller's satchel bag with shoulder-strap, which
had evidently been brought intentionally from one of the towns we
had passed, and which seemed to give pleasure to the recipient, who
at once donned it, two or three admiringly examining it. Approaching
me, the leader then asked, in the name of his Majesty Carlos VII.,
in a mixture of French and Spanish, if I had anything contraband?
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