But this the Fray could not do without dismounting, nor could he dismount in two feet of running water without inconvenience. So there he sat, pulling this way and that at the bridle, and cursing the mule for a stiff-necked heathen beast, though she was of good Castilian birth, even as he himself was. At this there was some unseemly tittering from the bank till one of the Friars tucked up his robe and waded in to do what was needful, but he, either not being quick enough to suit the creature’s fancy, or being unskilful at the task, put her so far out of temper that she took him by the breast of his habit with her teeth and pulled him off his feet, so that he, having nothing better to hold on to, grabbed at her ears, and then down went her head and up went her heels, and the holy father on her back took a flying leap head-first and sorely against his will, and with a mighty splash soused his reverence and dignity over head and ears in a pool hard by. The men of the troop were mostly pious and God-fearing fellows enough, but the Fray, with his strict insistence on fasts and his liberality with penances, had not won over much love from them, and a long hoarse laugh rolled down the river banks, and after it came a roar from Carvahal, who was standing by his horse holding his fat, shaking sides at the sight of the Friar and the mule struggling and kicking together in the water and his reverence rising like a dripping ghost out of his pool, coughing and spitting the water out of his mouth and rubbing it out of his eyes. “O la diablatita! ohe! ohe! Ah, carramba!--what a devil of a beast to carry so holy a man! Does she think the good father hasn’t been baptized yet, or that this heathen river is the Jordan and she is John the Baptist? Ohe! ohe! the holy father has come out to baptize the heathen and got a dose of his own physic. Ah, well, it is a good thing to see a brace of clerics washed; you don’t see it every day!” and then he roared out his deep laugh, and the rest joined him till a quick, sharp word of command from the Captain brought them back to their discipline. Now this, though but a simple if laughable thing in itself, yet had somewhat considerable consequences, for it was seen by many of the natives, and from it they got the idea, as in their simplicity they might well have done, that the sad-robed clerics were not true sons of Viracocha at all, since they had no shining raiment or weapons, nor did they see how the god could permit any of his children to be overcome by a beast and put into such a ludicrous and contemptible position.