HKB
Panza could not resist the impulse to reprimand his master. "Did I not tell your worship so!" he admonished. But Don Quixote would hear nothing, answering in a sportsmanlike fashion:
"Hush, friend Sancho! The fortunes of war fluctuate, that's all." And then he added his suspicion that the same Sage Friston, the magician who had carried off his room of books, had turned the giants into windmills so that he would be unable to boast of having conquered them--all out of sheer envy and thirst for vengeance. What he most bewailed, however, was the loss of his lance.
With much difficulty Sancho succeeded in placing Don Quixote on his horse, and they proceeded on their way, following the road to Puerto Lapice. All the while Don Quixote was scanning the woods along the roadside for the branch of an oak-tree that he would deem a worthy substitute for his departed spear. It seemed to him as if he had read somewhere in one of his books that some knight had done such a thing in an emergency.
Having reminded Don Quixote that he must sit straight in the saddle, Sancho was in turn reminded by an inner feeling that it was time to eat. His master, however, scorned this idea, and let Sancho indulge by himself, while he fasted.
Finally night fell, and they passed it in the woods. There Don Quixote chose at last the branch of an oak-tree that was to serve him as a spear, and to one of its ends he attached the head of his broken lance. All night long he lay looking up into the sky, visioning his sweet Dulcinea--all for the purpose of emulating other heroes of the past age of chivalry who could not sleep for thinking of their lady loves.
Sancho Panza, unluckily, was stimulated in no such blessed way. He was supported by no sweet dreams of any beloved one of his. As for his wife, he had forgotten all about her. But as a matter of truth he had no memory of anything, having absorbed too much fluid out of his leather wine-bag, or bota, as it is called in Spanish. On getting up in the morning Sancho Panza was grieved to find the contents of his bota decidedly diminished.
Don Quixote bravely maintained his self-inflicted hunger and swallowed his appetite by thoughts of his past valiant deeds. They soon started out, and again took the road leading to Puerto Lapice, whose outlines they sighted in the afternoon. Don Quixote thought this an opportune time for addressing his squire on the etiquette and laws of knighthood, as they were now approaching a very hotbed of adventure.
"Under no pretext," he admonished the faithful one, "must thou put a hand to thy sword in my defense unless it be that I am attacked by mere rabble or base folk; in such case, thou art in duty bound to be my bodyguard. But if my assailants be knights, thou must in no way interfere until thou hast been dubbed a knight thyself."
Sancho promised to obey his master as nearly as his human nature permitted him. He declared that he liked peace and hated strife, yet, if he were assailed, he did not believe in turning the other cheek more than once. Don Quixote saw a certain amount of reason in this; still, he asked his squire to do his utmost to restrain himself against any such rash impulse in the case of members of the knighthood. And Sancho Panza swore that he would keep this precept as religiously as Sunday.
While our noble knight was thus instructing his squire, there appeared on the road two friars of the order of St. Benedict. They were riding mules; and behind them came a coach with an escort numbering nearly half a dozen men on horseback and two men on foot. In the coach, traveling in state, was a lady of Biscay, on her way to Seville.