d that burst from his nostrils, that the ass
had delivered a death-blow.

As for the noise that attended this most extraordinary performance,
words can but faintly describe it. From the men directly engaged with El
Sabio came yells of fear and shouts for assistance and cries of anger,
beneath all of which was a dull undertone of groans; the crowd around us
and higher up behind us gave vent to a shrill roar of shouts and yells
that seemed to be partly in the nature of advice, and partly the result
of that instinct which prompts all barbarians to yell whenever anybody
else yells, on general principles. Pablo interpolated a most despairing
note in the way of beseeching cries of "B-u-r-r-r-o! B-u-r-r-r-o!"
whereby he sought to allay El Sabio's frenzy, and so to save him from
the direful fate that well might be expected to overtake him in
recompense of his direful deeds; and Young fairly tossed his battered
Derby hat up into the air as he shouted: "Go it, El Sabio! Give it to
'em, my boy! Ten t' one against th' fat priest! Three cheers for th'
jackass! Hip-hip-hurrah!" In short, it seemed as though Bedlam had
broken loose among us, and as though all of us together were going mad.

What with dodging behind his fellows, and keeping clear of El Sabio's
frantic charges by the display of an agility that I would not have given
him credit for, the little fat priest managed to preserve his small
round body unharmed until all of his companions had either escaped over
the wall or had been, as Young put it, knocked out by El Sabio's heels.
Once or twice he had made a dash for the passage-way in which we were
standing, but the lower end of this was choked with the dozen or more
badly wounded wretches who had crawled thither in their efforts to
escape; and these the priests in front of us, being but cowardly
creatures, had made no effort to succor or to lift away, for the reason
that so long as this barrier remained they themselves were safe from El
Sabio's fury.

Having, therefore, no longer any one to hide behind, the fat little
priest evidently realized that his only hope of salvation lay in making
an effort, truly heroic in one of his height and girth and woful
shortness of wind, to clamber up the face of the wall; and to this
wellnigh impossible task he most resolutely set himself. It was only by
jumping that he was able to get a grip over the top of the wall; yet
when this grip was gained he could get no farther on his way to
de