"Oh, I see what you would be at," said Jacob. "Romulus, bring me Dare-devil--so"--and thereupon, to my great surprise and amazement, it pleased my friends to undress under a neighbouring clump of trees, and to send the equipages and servants on to the tavern, about half a mile distant. They then mounted two led horses, bare-backed, with watering bits, and, naked as the day they were born, with the exception of a red handkerchief tied round Mr Twig's head and down his redder cheeks, they dashed right into the sea. As cavalry was an arm I had never seen used with much effect at sea, I swam out to the reef, and there _plowtering_ about in the dead water, under the lee of it, enjoyed the most glorious shower-bath from the descending spray, that flew up and curled far overhead, like a snow storm, mingled with ten thousand miniature rainbows. I had cooled myself sufficiently, and was leisurely swimming for the shore. "Now this is what I call bathing," quoth Twig, as he kept meandering about on the snorting Dare-devil, who seemed to enjoy the dip as much as his master--"I would back this horse against Bucephalus at swimming." Here Flamingo's steed threw him, by rearing and pawing the water with his fore legs and sinking his croup, so that his master, after an unavailing attempt to mount him again, had to strike out for the beach, the animal following, and splashing him, as if he wanted to get on _his_ back by way of a change. "And that's what I call swimming," roared Don Felix. But he scarcely had uttered the words when the horse made at him in earnest, and I thought he had struck him with the near fore-foot. "And that's what I call drowning," thought I, "or something deuced like it." However, he was really a good swimmer, and got to shore safe. Master Twister had been all this time enacting groom of the stole to the two equestrian bathers, and so soon as he had arrayed them, we proceeded to the tavern, dined, and after enjoying a cool bottle of wine, continued our journey to Ballywindle, which we hoped to reach shortly after nightfall. The sun was now fast declining; I had shot ahead of my two cronies and their outriders, I cannot now recollect why, and we were just entering a grove of magnificent trees, with their hoary trunks gilded by his setting effulgence, when Twister's head (he had changed places with Cousin Teemoty, and was driving me) suddenly, to my great alarm, gave a sharp crack, as if it had split open, and a tiny jet of smoke puffed out of his mouth--I was all wonder and amazement, but before I could gather my wits about me, he jumped from the voiture into the dirty ditch by the side of the road, and popped his head, ears and all, below the stagnant green scum, while his limbs, and all that was seen of him above water, quivered in the utmost extremity of fear.