The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
Children's literature
As soon as Sancho Panza saw him enter arrayed in a shirt and a
nightcap with the lamp in his hand, which showed him to be a very ugly
man, he asked his master: "Will this by chance be some wizard Moor
come to torment us?"
"A wizard it cannot be," said Don Quixote, "for those under
enchantment never let themselves be seen."
The officer could make nothing of their talk, and came up to Don
Quixote, who lay face upwards encased in his plasters. "Well," said
the officer roughly, "how goes it, my good fellow?"
"I would speak more politely if I were you," answered Don Quixote. "Is
it the custom in this country, lout, to speak in that way to a
knight-errant?"
The officer, finding himself thus rudely addressed, could not endure
it, and, lifting up the lamp, oil and all, gave Don Quixote such a
blow on the head with it that he broke his lamp in one or two places,
and, leaving all in darkness, left the room.
"Ah!" groaned Sancho, "this is indeed the wizard Moor, and he must be
keeping his treasures for others, and for us nothing but blows."
"It is ever so," replied Don Quixote; "and we must take no notice of
these things of enchantment, nor must we be angry or vexed with them,
for since they are invisible, there is no one on whom to take
vengeance. Rise, Sancho, if thou canst, and call the constable of this
fortress, and try to get him to give me a little wine, oil, salt, and
rosemary to prepare the health-giving balsam, of which I have grievous
need, for there comes much blood from the wound which the phantom hath
given me."
Sancho arose, not without aching bones, and crept in the dark to where
the innkeeper was, and said to him: "My lord constable, do us the
favour and courtesy to give me a little rosemary, oil, wine, and salt
to cure one of the best knights-errant in the world, who lies yonder
in bed sorely wounded at the hands of a Moorish enchanter." When the
innkeeper heard this he took Sancho Panza for a man out of his wits,
but nevertheless gave him what he wanted, and Sancho carried it to Don
Quixote. His master was lying with his hands to his head, groaning
with pain from the blows of the lamp, which, however, had only raised
two big lumps; what he thought was blood being only the perspiration
running down his face.
He now took the things Sancho had brought, of which he made a
compound, mixing them together and boiling them a good while until
they came to perfection.
Then he asked for a bottle into which to pour this precious liquor,
but as there was not one to be had in the inn, he decided to pour it
into a tin oil-vessel which the innkeeper had given him.
This being done, he at once made an experiment on himself of the
virtue of this precious balsam, as he imagined it to be, and drank off
a whole quart of what was left in the boiling-pot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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