"When we have started, and are about to cross the bridge, I'll give you a push. You must fall--you could not see me locked up--one so young and gay!--and when you fall I shall run. After you can get away, meet me at Lillas Pastia's inn." Jose seems to himself to be doing things in a dream. He has earned a court-martial already if it were known what he has done. A corporal's guard start under Jose; the bridge is reached. Carmen makes a leap; down goes Jose. The others are taken unawares and she rushes at them. They too fall, head over heels, one down the bank. Carmen is up, and off! She flies up the path, laughing at them as they pick themselves up. "This is a good business, eh?" Zuniga sneers. "On the whole, Don Jose, I think you will shine rather better under lock and key, in the guard-house, than you will as a soldier at large. Men, arrest him!" he orders sharply, and Jose has made the first payment on the score Fate has chalked up against him. ACT II Flying to Lillas Pastia's inn, as she had agreed with Jose, Carmen is joined by her old comrades--smugglers and gipsy girls, chief of whom are Mercedes and Frasquita. It is late at night, and a carouse is in progress. Among those in the inn is Zuniga himself. As a matter of truth, he has fallen in love with Carmen on his own account, and has kept Jose under arrest in order to have him out of the way. There they are, all together, the gipsies playing on guitars and tambourines. The girls are mostly dancing. Carmen is coquetting with every man present, and the fun becomes a riot, so that the innkeeper has to interfere. "It is so late, I've got to close up," he says. "You'll all have to clear out." Zuniga looks at Carmen. He wants to have a talk with her. "Will you go with me?" he asks. "I've no good reason for going with you," she answers, tantalizingly. "Perhaps you're angry because I have locked Jose up," Zuniga suggests. "If you will make yourself agreeable, I don't mind telling you I have had him set free." "What's that? Not in prison?" she asked. "Well, that's very decent of you, I'm sure," she sneers. "Good-night, gentlemen, I'm off!" she cries, and runs out into the night. Everybody follows her but Zuniga, who knows well enough he cannot trust her. They have no sooner disappeared than Zuniga hears shouts and "hurrahs" outside. He runs to the window and leans out.