But the pace is only for a short while sustained. Before going much further he feels his horse floundering between his legs; while a glance to the ground shows him he is riding through a biscachera!
Absorbed in thought—perhaps perfecting some wicked scheme—he had not noticed the burrow till now. Now he sees it—holes and heaps all around him—at the same time hearing the screeches of the owls, as the frightened birds fly up out of his path.
He is about to draw bridle, when the reins are suddenly jerked from his grasp—by his horse, which has gone headlong to the ground! At the same instant he hears a sound, like the cracking of a dead stick snapped crosswise. It is not that, but the shank of his horse, broken above the pastern joint! It is the last sound he hears then, or for some time after; he himself sustaining damage, though of a different kind—the dislocation of a shoulder-blade—that of the arm already injured—with a shock which deprives him of his senses.
Long lies he upon that moonlit plain, neither hearing the cries of the night birds nor seeing the great ratlike quadrupeds that, in their curiosity, come crowding close to, and go running around him!
And though consciousness at length returns, he remains in that same place till morning’s light—and for the whole of another day and night—leaving the spot, and upon it his broken-legged horse, himself to limp slowly away, leaning upon his guilty spear, as one wounded on a battle-field, but one who has been fighting for a bad cause.
He reaches Assuncion—though not till the third day after—and there gets his broken bones set. But for Gaspar Mendez, there may have been luck in that shoulder-blade being put out of joint.