Around them are gorges full of shade wherein grand oaks grow thickly, and above, everywhere, a piling up of mountains, of a reddish color burned by the sun.

There is nowhere an indication of the new times; there is an absolute silence, something like the peace of the primitive epochs.

Lifting their heads toward the brown peaks, they perceive at a long distance persons walking on invisible paths, pushing before them donkeys of smugglers: as small as insects at such a distance, are these silent passers-by on the flank of the gigantic mountain; Basques of other times, almost confused, as one looks at them from this place, with this reddish earth from which they came--and where they are to return, after having lived like their ancestors without a suspicion of the things of our times, of the events of other places-- They take off their caps, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, to wipe their foreheads; it is so warm in these gorges and they have run so much, jumped so much, that their entire bodies are in a perspiration.

They are enjoying themselves, but they would like to come, nevertheless, near the two little, blonde girls who are waiting for them.

But of whom shall they ask their way now, since there is no one?
"Ave Maria," cries at them from the thickness of the branches an old, rough voice.
And the salutation is prolonged by a string of words spoken in a rapid decrescendo, quick; quick; a Basque prayer rattled breathlessly, begun very loudly, then dying at the finish.