cap. 25. In this of ours we have occasion for a gust of laughter, which blows away all indelicacy; in the other, there is nothing but a superfluity of naughtiness, with nothing to redeem it in aim and end from a gross filthiness peculiar to the darkness of the times and the general corruption of

manners.

CHAPTER XVII.

WHEREIN ARE CONTINUED THE INNUMERABLE TROUBLES WHICH THE BRAVE DON QUIXOTE AND HIS TRUSTY SQUIRE, SANCHO PANZA, SUFFERED AT THE INN, WHICH FOR THE KNIGHT'S MISFORTUNE He TOOK FOR A CASTLE.

Now, by this time Don Quixote had come to himself out of his swoon, and in the like tone of voice with which he had cried to his squire the day before, when he lay stretched in the valley of pack-staves, he again called to him, saying, "Sancho, friend, art asleep? Art asleep, friend Sancho?"

"How should I be asleep?" answered Sancho, full of sadness and despite. "Beshrew me, if I don't think all the devils have been about me this night."

"Well mayest thou believe so," responded Don Quixote, "for either I am "for either I am a fool, or this castle is enchanted. Thou must know- But this that now

I shall tell thee, thou must swear to keep secret until after my death.'

"I do swear," quoth Sancho.

"I say it," returned Don Quixote, "because I am a foe to what may take away anybody's reputation."

"I tell you, yes, I do swear," again cried Sancho, "for I will be silent till the days of your worship are over; and God send I may be able to let it out to-morrow."

"Have I wrought thee so much harm, Sancho,' answered Don Quixote, "that thou shouldst wish to see me dead in such brief space?"

"It is not for that," replied Sancho, "but I am a foe to keeping things long, and don't wish them to rot in my care."

"Let it be for what it may," quoth Don Quixote, "for I trust more in thy love and courtesy; and so thou must know that there has happened to me this night one of the strangest adventures on which I could plume myself. And, to relate it to thee in brief, know that, a little while since, there came unto me the daughter of the lord of this castle, who is the most gracious and lovely damsel to be found in the greater part of the earth? What shall I be able to tell thee of the elegance of her person? What of her sprightly wit? What of other mysterious things, which, that I may preserve the fealty I owe to my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, I will let pass untouched and in silence? Only this I will tell thee: that, Heaven being envious of the great bliss which fortune had just put into my hands, or perhaps and this is more probable, as I have said, this castle being enchanted—at the hour when I was with her in most sweet and amorous converse, there came, I not being able to see or know from whence, a hand, joined to an arm, of some monstrous giant, which fetched me a buffet on the jaws in

such sort that I have them all bathed in blood, and afterwards pounded me so that I am now in worse case than yesterday, when the carriers, on account of Rozinante's excesses, did us the wrong thou knowest; whence I conjecture that the treasure of this damsel's beauty must be guarded by some wizard Moor, and may not be for me."

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Nor for me either," answered Sancho; "for more than four hundred Moors have basted me after a fashion that the pounding of the pack-staves was tarts and gingerbread to it. But tell me, sir, how call you this a good and rare adventure, having left us in such a plight as we are? Your worship, i' faith, was better off, for you had on your hands that wonderful beauty you spoke of. As for me, what had I but the biggest basting I expect to get in all my life? Wretched me, and the mother that bore me, that am no knight-errant, nor mean to be one! yet of all these cursed errantries the largest part falls to my share."

"Then thou hast also been beaten?" inquired Don Quixote.

"Have I not told you I was, curse on my kin?" quoth Sancho.

Be not troubled, friend," said Don Quixote, “for I will now compound the precious balsam, which shall cure us in the twinkling of an eye."

The officer, having by this time lighted his lamp, came in to see him whom he believed to be dead; and as Sancho saw him enter, coming in his shirt and nightcap, holding the lamp in his hand, and with a very ill expression of face, he asked his master, "Sir, will

this perchance be the wizard Moor, who comes back to torment us, if there is anything left of us for him to finish?"

"It cannot be the Moor," answered Don Quixote, "for necromancers never suffer themselves to be seen of any one."

"If they do not suffer themselves to be seen, they let themselves be felt," said Sancho; "if not, let my shoulders speak."

"Mine also could speak," responded Don Quixote; "but this is no sufficient evidence that he whom we see is the wizard Moor."

The officer came up, and, finding them discoursing calmly, stood amazed. For, in truth, Don Quixote still lay mouth upward, without being able to stir through pure pounding and plastering. The officer came to him and said, "Well, how goes it, my good fellow?"

"I would speak more mannerly if I were you," answered Don Quixote. "Is it the custom in this country to speak in that sort to knights-errant, clodhopper?"

The officer, finding himself thus scurvily addressed by a man of such ill aspect, lost patience, raised his lamp, and dashed it, oil and all, on Don Quixote, so as to leave him with a pate sore broken; and, all being in darkness, then departed.

Quoth Sancho, "Without doubt, sir, this is the wizard Moor; and he must be keeping the treasure for others, and for us only cuffs and candlesticks."

"It is even so," answered Don Quixote, "and we must make no account of these things of enchantment,