"No soft words with me, for I know you, lying rabble," said Don Quixote,

and without waiting for a reply he spurred Rocinante and with levelled

lance charged the first friar with such fury and determination, that, if

the friar had not flung himself off the mule, he would have brought him

to the ground against his will, and sore wounded, if not killed outright.

The second brother, seeing how his comrade was treated, drove his heels

into his castle of a mule and made off across the country faster than the

wind.

Sancho Panza, when he saw the friar on the ground, dismounting briskly

from his ass, rushed towards him and began to strip off his gown. At that

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instant the friars muleteers came up and asked what he was stripping him

for. Sancho answered them that this fell to him lawfully as spoil of the

battle which his lord Don Quixote had won. The muleteers, who had no idea

of a joke and did not understand all this about battles and spoils,

seeing that Don Quixote was some distance off talking to the travellers

in the coach, fell upon Sancho, knocked him down, and leaving hardly a

hair in his beard, belaboured him with kicks and left him stretched

breathless and senseless on the ground; and without any more delay helped

the friar to mount, who, trembling, terrified, and pale, as soon as he

found himself in the saddle, spurred after his companion, who was

standing at a distance looking on, watching the result of the onslaught;

then, not caring to wait for the end of the affair just begun, they

pursued their journey making more crosses than if they had the devil

after them.

Don Quixote was, as has been said, speaking to the lady in the coach:

"Your beauty, lady mine," said he, "may now dispose of your person as may

be most in accordance with your pleasure, for the pride of your ravishers

lies prostrate on the ground through this strong arm of mine; and lest

you should be pining to know the name of your deliverer, know that I am

called Don Quixote of La Mancha, knight-errant and adventurer, and

captive to the peerless and beautiful lady Dulcinea del Toboso: and in

return for the service you have received of me I ask no more than that

you should return to El Toboso, and on my behalf present yourself before

that lady and tell her what I have done to set you free."

One of the squires in attendance upon the coach, a Biscayan, was

listening to all Don Quixote was saying, and, perceiving that he would

not allow the coach to go on, but was saying it must return at once to El

Toboso, he made at him, and seizing his lance addressed him in bad

Castilian and worse Biscayan after his fashion, "Begone, caballero, and

ill go with thee; by the God that made me, unless thou quittest coach,

slayest thee as art here a Biscayan."




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