The drover spoke to the buffaloes, the ropes tightened, and they moved up stream.
"What think ye of this new beef, mesdames?"
"We ne'er saw monsters so vilely ill-favoured; with their nasty horns that make one afeard, and their foul nostrils cast up into the air. Holes be they; not nostrils."
"Signorina, the beeves are a present from Florence the beautiful. Would ye look a gift beef i' the nose?"
"They are so dull," objected a lively lady. "I went up Tiber twice as fast last time with but five mules and an ass."
"Nay, that is soon mended," cried a gallant, and jumping ashore he drew his sword, and despite the remonstrances of the drivers, went down the dozen buffaloes goading them.
They snorted and whisked their tails and went no faster, at which the boat-load laughed loud and long; finally he goaded a patriarch bull, who turned instantly on the sword, sent his long horns clean through the spark, and with a furious jerk of his prodigious neck sent him flying over his head into the air. He described a bold parabola and fell sitting, and unconsciously waving his glittering blade, into the yellow Tiber. The laughing ladies screamed and wrung their hands, all but Gerard's fair. She uttered something very like an oath, and seizing the helm steered the boat out, and the gallant came up sputtering, gripped the gunwale, and was drawn in dripping.
He glared round him confusedly. "I understand not that," said he a little peevishly; puzzled, and therefore it would seem, discontented. At which, finding he was by some strange accident not slain, his doublet being perforated, instead of his body, they began to laugh again louder than ever.
"What are ye cackling at?" remonstrated the spark. "I desire to know how 'tis that one moment a gentleman is out yonder a pricking of African beef, and the next moment—"
Gerard's lady.] "Disporting in his native stream."