To which the devil, stopping the cart, answered quietly, "Senor, we are
players of Angulo el Malo's company; we have been acting the play of 'The
Cortes of Death' this morning, which is the octave of Corpus Christi, in
a village behind that hill, and we have to act it this afternoon in that
village which you can see from this; and as it is so near, and to save
the trouble of undressing and dressing again, we go in the costumes in
which we perform. That lad there appears as Death, that other as an
angel, that woman, the manager's wife, plays the queen, this one the
soldier, that the emperor, and I the devil; and I am one of the principal
characters of the play, for in this company I take the leading parts. If
you want to know anything more about us, ask me and I will answer with
the utmost exactitude, for as I am a devil I am up to everything."
"By the faith of a knight-errant," replied Don Quixote, "when I saw this
cart I fancied some great adventure was presenting itself to me; but I
declare one must touch with the hand what appears to the eye, if
illusions are to be avoided. God speed you, good people; keep your
festival, and remember, if you demand of me ought wherein I can render
you a service, I will do it gladly and willingly, for from a child I was
fond of the play, and in my youth a keen lover of the actor's art."
While they were talking, fate so willed it that one of the company in a
mummers' dress with a great number of bells, and armed with three blown
ox-bladders at the end of a stick, joined them, and this merry-andrew
approaching Don Quixote, began flourishing his stick and banging the
ground with the bladders and cutting capers with great jingling of the
bells, which untoward apparition so startled Rocinante that, in spite of
Don Quixote's efforts to hold him in, taking the bit between his teeth he
set off across the plain with greater speed than the bones of his anatomy
ever gave any promise of.
Sancho, who thought his master was in danger of being thrown, jumped off
Dapple, and ran in all haste to help him; but by the time he reached him
he was already on the ground, and beside him was Rocinante, who had come
down with his master, the usual end and upshot of Rocinante's vivacity
and high spirits. But the moment Sancho quitted his beast to go and help
Don Quixote, the dancing devil with the bladders jumped up on Dapple, and
beating him with them, more by the fright and the noise than by the pain
of the blows, made him fly across the fields towards the village where
they were going to hold their festival. Sancho witnessed Dapple's career
and his master's fall, and did not know which of the two cases of need he
should attend to first; but in the end, like a good squire and good
servant, he let his love for his master prevail over his affection for
his ass; though every time he saw the bladders rise in the air and come
down on the hind quarters of his Dapple he felt the pains and terrors of
death, and he would have rather had the blows fall on the apples of his
own eyes than on the least hair of his ass's tail. In this trouble and
perplexity he came to where Don Quixote lay in a far sorrier plight than
he liked, and having helped him to mount Rocinante, he said to him,
"Senor, the devil has carried off my Dapple."