In another moment he was among the flock of sheep, charging through and through it, and piercing an animal at each thrust of his lance. The shepherds, in great dismay, unloosed their slings and began to ply him with stones as big as their fists. But, disdainful of this petty artillery, he cried upon Alifanfaron, whom in imagination he was about to engage, when a stone as big as a good-sized pippin struck him heavily upon the short ribs. Thinking himself desperately wounded, he pulled out the earthen flask which contained his magic balsam; but just as he was in the act of raising this to his lips, a stone from the sling of a shepherd struck it so forcibly as to shiver it to atoms, and passing through it broke three of his teeth and tumbled him from the saddle. The shepherds, fearing that they had killed him, picked up the dead sheep and made off, leaving him more dead than alive. Mambrino's Helmet No less notable is Cervantes' account of the adventure in which Don Quixote succeeded in obtaining the helmet of Mambrino. At a distance he espied a horseman who wore upon his head something that glittered like gold. Turning to Sancho, he said: "Behold, yonder comes he who wears upon his head the helmet of Mambrino, which I have sworn to make mine own." "Now the truth of the story," says Cervantes, "was this: there were in that part of the country two villages, one of which was so little that it had not so much as a shop in it, nor any barber; so that the barber of the greater village served also the smaller. And thus a person happening to have occasion to be let blood, and another to be shaved, the barber was going thither with his brass basin, which he had clapped upon his head to keep his hat, that chanced to be a new one, from being spoiled by the rain; and as the basin was new scoured, it made a glittering show a great way off. As Sancho had well observed, he rode upon a grey ass, which Don Quixote as easily took for a dapple-grey steed as he took the barber for a knight, and his brass basin for a golden helmet; his distracted brain easily applying every object to his romantic ideas. Therefore, when he saw the poor imaginary knight draw near, he fixed his lance, or javelin, to his thigh, and without staying to hold a parley with his thoughtless adversary, flew at him as fiercely as Rozinante would gallop, resolved to pierce him through and through; crying out in the midst of his career: 'Caitiff! wretch! defend thyself, or immediately surrender that which is so justly my due.'" The barber, seeing this awful apparition come thundering down upon him, and in terror lest he should be run through by Don Quixote's lance, threw himself off his ass on to the ground and, hastily rising, ran off at the top of his speed, leaving both his ass and his basin behind him.