him drink. He drank uncommonly, with an eagerness not to be satisfied,
but natural enough; for when I looked round for my men, what should I
see, gentlemen! the hind part of the poor creature--croup and legs were
missing, as if he had been cut in two, and the water ran out as it came
in, without refreshing or doing him any good! How it could have happened
was quite a mystery to me, till I returned with him to the town-gate.
There I saw, that when I rushed in pell-mell with the flying enemy, they
had dropped the portcullis (a heavy falling door, with sharp spikes at
the bottom, let down suddenly to prevent the entrance of an enemy into
a fortified town) unperceived by me, which had totally cut off his hind
part, that still lay quivering on the outside of the gate. It would have
been an irreparable loss, had not our farrier contrived to bring both
parts together while hot. He sewed them up with sprigs and young shoots
of laurels that were at hand; the wound healed, and, what could not have
happened but to so glorious a horse, the sprigs took root in his body,
grew up, and formed a bower over me; so that afterwards I could go upon
many other expeditions in the shade of my own and my horse's laurels.



CHAPTER VI

_The Baron is made a prisoner of war, and sold for a slave--Keeps the
Sultan's bees, which are attacked by two bears--Loses one of his bees;
a silver hatchet, which he throws at the bears, rebounds and flies up to
the moon; brings it back by an ingenious invention; falls to the earth
on his return, and helps himself out of a pit--Extricates himself from
a carriage which meets his in a narrow road, in a manner never before
attempted nor practised since--The wonderful effects of the frost upon
his servant's French horn._