ror, for he straightway gave so strong a plunge that he
fairly broke away from the men who were holding him; and then he bent
all his energies to working such destruction as never was worked by one
single ass since the very beginning of the world!

Fortunately for our own safety--for El Sabio was in no condition to
discriminate between friends and foes--we still were at some distance
from the bottom of the amphitheatre when this outbreak occurred; the
greater part of the priests having preceded us, and El Sabio having been
led in the van of the prisoners. It was wholly upon the priests,
therefore, that his mad rage was expended, and the way that he "got in
his work," as Young expressed it, on these enemies of his and ours was a
joyful wonder to behold. Being closely penned in--for the way whence
they had entered the amphitheatre was barred by the crowd of which we
were a part, and the entrance to the subterranean passage leading to the
temple was closed--the priests had no chance to escape from the furious
creature save by clambering up the smooth wall, fully eight feet high,
by which was enclosed the circular space that immediately surrounded the
altar. Even an agile man, going at it quietly, would have found a little
difficulty in executing this gymnastic feat, that required for its
accomplishment sheer lifting of the body until a leg could be thrown
over the top of the wall; and as these priests, for the most part, had
grown fat and sluggish in their sacred calling, they were wellnigh
incapacitated from performing it. Furthermore, El Sabio manifested what
had the appearance of being a most diabolical ingenuity--yet that, no
doubt, was no more than chance--in delivering flying kicks against the
legs of these dangling creatures; wherefrom such keen pain resulted that
they instantly let loose their hold, and came tumbling to the ground.

So far as we were concerned--our sympathies being wholly on the side of
the ass--this astonishing spectacle remained a broad farce until the
very end; but it presently became to the men engaged in it a very
serious tragedy. As he made his wild charges, El Sabio galloped backward
and forward again and again over the bodies of his prostrate enemies; in
the course of which gallopings his sharp little hoofs cut their naked
flesh savagely, and now and then, when he happened to land a kick fairly
against a man's body, we could see, from the sinking in of the fellow's
ribs and the gush of bloo