ar the student crying out, 'Shut your eyes,
good friend, or you will be blinded!'

"I have never been so terrified either before or since that day, and I
was also in considerable pain, as the stones which I had placed in the
pockets of my pants had, with climbing, almost sunk into me.

"After having kept my eyes closed for some time, I ventured on opening
them, and then I saw a sight which told me I was a ruined man. My mules
were rolling about in the dust, and all my pots and pans were wrecked.
The mouse-coloured mule, moreover, seemed to be demented; she rolled and
writhed so that it seemed as if she were in awful distress, and there
was no doubt but that she had dragged the others down with her.

"Suddenly I heard the voice of the student, and, looking down, I saw
that he was seated on a branch just below me. 'Ah, poor creature,' said
he, 'how terribly she feels the bereavement! Let us descend,' continued
he, 'for the danger is now over, and we must, as Christian men, render
aid to the poor dumb animals.' Saying which he slid down the tree, and I
after him as well as I could; and as soon as we again got on the road,
he bid me try to pacify the mouse-coloured mule, while he would do his
utmost to get the leader to get up.

"I saw that all my earthenware was broken, and I gave myself up to
grief. 'Unlucky man that I am!' I exclaimed. 'What harm can I have done
to have deserved so great a punishment, and what, sir student, did you
say to yon mule to make her act so?'

"'Alas, friend Jose,' said he, 'we of the educated class understand
resignation, but to such as you, as well as to the irrational creation,
is this virtue denied. You bemoan the loss of your earthenware; and
yonder dumb creature, with perhaps a glimmering of humanity about her,
but certainly with more reason than you, deplores the loss of a good and
beloved parent, who, on his death-bed, implored me to inform his
daughter when I should next see her that he had died thinking of her,
and that he bequeathed to her all he had to give, namely, the right of
pasturage over all the lands in Spain and Portugal, and as much more as
she could snatch from her neighbour when in the stable. Good-bye, friend
Jose; my vow is accomplished, and I leave you in peace with your mules.'

"'And with the broken earthenware,' said I, 'and with my fortunes
blasted, and with my legs bleeding; and all because I met you!'

"'Say not so, friend Jose, for had it not been for me yo