The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
Children's literature
But Don Quixote made no account of their stones, and galloping to and
fro everywhere cried out: "Where art thou, proud Alifamfaron? Where
art thou? Come to me, for I am but one knight alone, who desires to
prove my strength with thee, man to man, and make thee yield thy life
for the wrong thou hast done to the valorous Pentapolin."
At that instant a stone gave him such a blow that it buried two of his
ribs in his body. Finding himself so ill-treated he thought for
certain that he was killed or sorely wounded, and recollecting his
balsam, he drew out his oil pot and set it to his mouth to drink. But
before he could take as much as he wanted, another stone struck him
full on the hand, broke the oil pot into pieces, and carried away with
it three or four teeth out of his mouth, and sorely crushed two
fingers of his hand. So badly was he wounded by these two blows that
he now fell off his horse on to the ground.
The shepherds ran up, and believing that they had killed him, they
collected their flocks in great haste, and carrying away their dead
muttons, of which there were seven, they went away without caring to
inquire into things any further.
Sancho was all this time standing on the hill looking at the mad
pranks his master was performing, and tearing his beard and cursing
the hour when they had first met. Seeing, however, that he was fallen
on the ground, and the shepherds had gone away, he came down the hill
and went up to his master, and found him in a very bad way, although
not quite insensible.
"Did I not tell you, Sir Don Quixote," said Sancho mournfully, "did I
not tell you to come back, for those you went to attack were not
armies but sheep?"
"That thief of an enchanter, my enemy, can alter things and make men
vanish away as he pleases. Know, Sancho, that it is very easy for
those kind of men to make us seem what they please, and this malicious
being who persecutes me, envious of the glory that I was to reap from
this battle, hath changed the squadrons of the foe into flocks of
sheep. If thou dost not believe me, Sancho, get on thine ass and
follow them fair and softly, and thou shalt see that when they have
gone a little way off they will return to their original shapes, and,
ceasing to be sheep, become men as right and straight as I painted
them to you at first."
At this moment the balsam that Don Quixote had swallowed began to make
him very sick, and Sancho Panza ran off to search in his wallet for
something that might cure him. But when he found that his wallet was
not upon his ass, and remembered for the first time that it was left
at the inn, he was on the point of losing his wits. He cursed himself
anew, and resolved in his heart to leave his master and return to his
house, even though he should lose his wages and the government of the
promised island.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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