It was my good fortune that when they put me on the mule, I was belly side down. Since my head was hanging downward, I began to spew out water as if they had lifted the floodgates on a dam, or as if I were a drop hammer. I came to, and when I caught my breath I realized that I was out of the water and out of that blasted hairy mess. I didn't know where I was or where they were taking me. I only heard them saying, "For our own safety we'll have to find a very deep well so they won't discover him so soon." Then I saw the handwriting on the wall and guessed what was happening. I knew that their bark could be no worse than their bite, and when I heard people approaching I called, "Help, help, for God's sake!" The people I had noticed were the night watch, and they ran up when they heard my cries, their swords out and ready. They searched the sack, and they found poor Lazaro--a drenched haddock. Body and soul, they took us all off to jail on the spot: the fishermen were crying to see themselves imprisoned, and I was laughing to find myself free. They put them in a cell and me in a bed. The next morning they took our statements. The fishermen confessed that they had carried me all over Spain, but they said that they had done it thinking I was a fish and that they had asked for the Inquisition's permission to do it. I told them the truth of the matter: how those fiends had tied me up so that I couldn't make a peep. They had the archpriest and my good Bridget come to testify as to whether or not I really was the Lazaro of Tormes I said I was. My wife came in first, and she looked me over very carefully, and then said it was true that I did look something like her good husband, but she didn't think I was him because even though I had been an animal, I was more like a drone than a fish, and more like a bullock than a tuna. After saying this she made a deep bow and left. The attorney for those hangmen said I should be burned because I was undoubtedly a monster, and he was going to prove it. I thought to myself: What if there really is an enchanter following me and changing me into anything he likes? The judges told him to be quiet. Then the archpriest came in. He saw me looking as pale and wrinkled as an old lady's belly, and he said he didn't recognize my face or my figure. I refreshed his memory about some past things (many of them secret) that had happened between us; I especially told him to think back on the night he came to my bed naked and said that he was afraid of a ghost in his bedroom, and then crawled into bed between my wife and me. So that I wouldn't go on with these reminders, he confessed that I really was his good friend and servant, Lazaro.