silence is broken by the sentries challenging—­that is all.  But not in Spanish but in French are the challenges given; the town is in the hands of the French; it is under martial law.  But now an officer passes down a certain garden, a Spaniard disguised as a French officer; from the balcony the family—­one of the most noble and oldest families Spain can boast of, a thousand years, long before the conquest of the Moors—­watches him.  Well then”—­Villiers sweeps with a white feminine hand the long hair that is falling over his face—­he has half forgotten, he is a little mixed in the opening of the story, and he is striving in English to “scamp,” in French to escamoter.  “The family are watching, death if he is caught, if he fails to kill the French sentry.  The cry of a bird, some vague sound attracts the sentry, he turns; all is lost.  The Spaniard is seized.  Martial law, Spanish conspiracy must be put down.  The French general is a man of iron.” (Villiers laughs, a short hesitating laugh that is characteristic of him, and continues in his abrupt, uncertain way), “man of iron; not only he declares that the spy must be beheaded, but also the entire family—­a man of iron that, ha, ha; and then, no you cannot, it is impossible for you to understand the enormity of the calamity—­a thousand years before the conquest by the Moors, a Spaniard alone could—­there is no one here, ha, ha, I was forgetting—­the utter extinction of a great family of the name, the oldest and noblest of all the families in Spain, it is not easy to understand that, no, not easy here in the ’Nouvelle Athenes’—­ha, ha, one must belong to a great family to understand, ha, ha.

“The father beseeches; he begs that one member may be spared to continue the name—­the youngest son—­that is all; if he could be saved, the rest what matter; death is nothing to a Spaniard; the family, the name, a thousand years of name is everything.  The general is, you know, a ’man of iron.’  ’Yes, one member of your family shall be respited, but on one condition.’  To the agonised family conditions are as nothing.  But they don’t know the man of iron is determined to make a terrible example, and they cry, ‘Any conditions.’  ’He who is respited must serve as executioner to the others.’  Great is the doom; you understand; but after all the name must be saved.  Then in the family council the father goes to his youngest son and says, ’I have been a good father to you, my son; I have always been a kind father, have I not? answer me; I have never refused you anything.  Now you will not fail us, you will prove yourself worthy of the great name you bear.  Remember your great ancestor who defeated the Moors, remember.’” (Villiers strives to get in a little local colour, but his knowledge of Spanish names and history is limited, and he in a certain sense fails.) “Then the mother comes to her son and says, ’My son, I have been a good mother, I have always loved you; say you will not desert us in this hour of our great need.’  Then the little sister comes, and the whole family kneels down and appeals to the horror-stricken boy....