If she hesitates, then they will be violent, they are resolved, oh, not very violent, only enough to unlace the hands of the old nuns retaining her.--And then, they will carry her into the small wagon, where infallibly the enlacing contact and the tenderness of her former friend will soon turn her young head. How will it all happen? They do not yet know, relying a great deal on their spirit of decision which has already dragged them out of dangerous passes. But what they know is that they will not weaken. And they go ahead, exciting each other; one would say that they are united now unto death, firm and decided like two bandits at the hour when the capital game is to be played. The land of thick branches which they traverse, under the oppression of very high mountains which they do not see, is all in ravines, profound and torn up, in precipices, where torrents roar under the green night of the foliage. The oaks, the beeches, the chestnut trees become more and more enormous, living through centuries off a sap ever fresh and magnificent. A powerful verdure is strewn over that disturbed geology; for ages it covers and classifies it under the freshness of its immovable mantle. And this nebulous sky, almost obscure, which is familiar to the Basque country, adds to the impression which they have of a sort of universal meditation wherein the things are plunged; a strange penumbra descends from everywhere, descends from the trees at first, descends from the thick, gray veils above the branches, descends from the great Pyrenees hidden behind the clouds. And, in the midst of this immense peace and of this green night, they pass, Ramuntcho and Arrochkoa, like two young disturbers going to break charms in the depths of forests. At all cross roads old, granite crosses rise, like alarm signals to warn them; old crosses with this inscription, sublimely simple, which is here something like the device of an entire race: “O crux, ave, spes unica!” Soon the night will come. Now they are silent, because the hour is going, because the moment approaches, because all these crosses on the road are beginning to intimidate them-- And the day falls, under that sad veil which covers the sky. The valleys become more savage, the country more deserted. And, at the corners of roads, the old crosses appear, ever with their similar inscriptions: “O crux, ave, spes unica!” Amezqueta, at the last twilight. They stop their carriage at an outskirt of the village, before the cider mill. Arrochkoa is impatient to go into the house of the sisters, vexed at arriving so late; he fears that the door may not be opened to them. Ramuntcho, silent, lets him act.