Those half-unconscious caresses bestowed upon the hounds by Doña Rachel Diego at the hour of parting, those tears with which, in trying to conceal them, she had bedewed the dogs' heads, had so endeared the animals to her son, that from the outset of his long journeyings he ever considered their comfort before his own, and reaped the just reward in their fidelity and strong attachment to himself. But that evening he was destined to pay a somewhat heavy penalty for the friendship. "Toro, you never give the dogs a swim," said Ferdinand suddenly, when, after a regular romping match, boys and animals had tumbled themselves down together in a promiscuous heap, to get back breath and energy for further proceedings. The dogs were so enormously strong that playing with them was not easy work like playing with kittens. "I feel as if I had been engaged in a pretty stiff wrestling match," said Montoro, laughing, and stretching his arms, "and oh! how warm it's become, or I." "You may as well add that 'or I,'" laughed back the other; "for I suspect, as the sun is going down, that the air must be somewhat cooler than when you came on board. But the hounds really do look hot, poor creatures, and they could get such a splendid bathe here in the river--and so could we." "Umph!" growled that rather tired-out young Don Diego. "I think it would have been a much more sensible suggestion that we could have a splendid turn-in to our berths. But you are such a horrible fellow. I don't believe you ever know what it is to feel done up." "Nor you either, generally," said Ferdinand with another laugh. But his companion was not going to be weak enough to echo it, not he. "'Generally' isn't 'never,'" he returned. "But here goes, you energetic plague. In with you as hard as you like, I'll follow." And so saying he rolled himself over with a very good imitation of used-up laziness, and got himself slowly up from his hands and knees on to his feet, with the wind-up of a solemn, self-satisfied "Oh!" "Oh, indeed!" came the mocking echo from half-a-dozen deep throats, followed by shouts of laughter. Montoro was just a trifle disconcerted. He had not known of these extra witnesses of his performance. "Pity but thy mother were here," said Diego Mendez, one of the group. "Then wouldst thou have surely had such another lollipop as must have rewarded thy first triumph in this exhibition." "Nay then," came the reply, for the performer had not taken long to recover his self-possession; "nay then, Señor, if you are pleased to bestow that lollipop for the show it will be the first, seeing that on that other past occasion of which you speak I returned myself to the floor with a suddenness that bumped my forehead, and my reward, therefore, was a plaster." "Thy impudent mouth deserves a hot plaster now, methinks," muttered a surly hidalgo in the background.