Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/96

82 debouch from the dark defile and advance into the rolling domains which until then no white man had ever seen.

Suddenly, Uncle Francis' mule bolted, and a burst of laughter went up from the whole party. Excited by the shouts and cries, the other mules followed their leader, helter-skelter down the incline. The obvious dénouement was not long in coming. Uncle Francis' mount, in a desperate effort to get away from the noise behind, rolled over, and the unfortunate scientist described a neat somersault. He was on his feet again almost at once, and soon set his anxious companions at rest.

"Thus it was," he laughed, "that Pizarro won his first battle."

Maria-Teresa and Dick appearing disposed to listen, he explained that in the Conquistador's first fight with Incas, before he crossed the Andes, the little Andes of Spaniards, hard pressed, was saved by one hidalgo being unhorsed. The Incas knowing nothing of horses or horsemanship, were so frightened that they fled, not daring to face this extraordinary animal which became two and still went on fighting.

Naturally, nobody believed him, though he was in no way drawing on his imagination. The whole story of the conquest of Peru is so extraordinary that one must forgive incredulity.