“Coward!” he cried. “What are you afraid of? Who is after you? Who hurts you? Why, we have already floated some seven or eight hundred leagues. If I’m not mistaken, we shall soon pass the equinoctial line which divides the earth into two equal parts.” “And when we come to that line, how far have we gone then?” asked Sancho. “A mighty way,” answered the knight. They were now floating down the river with some speed. Below them were two great water mills near the middle of the stream. “Look! look, my Sancho!” cried Don Quixote. “Do you see yon city or castle? That is where some knight lies in prison, or some princess is detained against her will.” “What do you mean?” asked Sancho. “Don’t you see that those are no castles? They are only water mills for grinding corn.” “Peace, Sancho! I know they look like water mills, but that is a trick of the enchanters. Why, those vile fellows can change and overturn everything from its natural form. You know how they transformed my Dulcinea.” The boat was now moving quite rapidly with the current. The people in the mills saw it and came out with long poles to keep it clear of the great water wheels. They were powdered with flour dust, as millers commonly are, and therefore looked quite uncanny. “Hello, there!” they cried. “Are you mad, in that boat? Push off, or you’ll be cut to pieces by the mill wheels.” “Didn’t I tell you, Sancho, that this is the place where I must show my strength?” said Don Quixote. “See how those hobgoblins come out against us! But I’ll show them what sort of person I am.” Then he stood up in the boat and began to call the millers all sorts of bad names. “You paltry cowards!” he cried. “Release at once the captive whom you are detaining within your castle. For I am Don Quixote de la Mancha, the Knight of the Lions, whom heaven has sent to set your prisoner free.” He drew his sword and began to thrust the air with it, as though fighting with an invisible enemy. But the millers gave little heed to his actions, and stood ready with their poles to stop the boat. Sancho threw himself on his knees in the bottom of the boat and began to pray for deliverance. And, indeed, it seemed as though their time had come, for they were drifting straight into the wheel. Quickly the millers bestirred themselves, and thrusting out their poles they overturned the boat. Don Quixote and Sancho were, of course, spilled out into the stream. It was lucky that both could swim. The weight of the knight’s armor dragged him twice to the bottom; and both he and his squire would have been drowned had not two of the millers jumped in and pulled them out by main force. Hardly had our exhausted heroes recovered their senses when the fisherman who owned the boat came running down to the shore. When he saw that the little craft had been broken to pieces in the millwheel, he fell upon Sancho and began to beat him unmercifully. “You shall pay me for that boat,” he cried.