A hot July evening on the calm Biscayan coast of Spain. The sun had disappeared like a globe of molten metal into the sapphire sea, and now, in the breathless blood-red afterglow which tinged the unruffled glassy waters away to the Atlantic, the whole populace of the peaceful old-world town of Fonterrabia had come forth from their houses to breathe again after the intense heat and burden of the blazing day.