fair means ineffectual, they unloosed their
slings, and began to ply him with stones as big as their fists. But
the champion, disdaining such a distant war, spite of their showers of
stones rushed among the routed sheep, trampling both the living and
the slain in a most terrible manner, impatient to meet the general of
the enemy, and end the war at once. "Where, where art thou?" cried he,
"proud, Alifanfaron? Appear! See here a single knight who seeks thee
everywhere, to try now, hand to hand, the boasted force of thy
strenuous arm, and deprive thee of life, as a due punishment for the
unjust war which thou hast audaciously waged with the valiant
Pentapolin." Just as he had said this, while the stones flew about his
ears, one unluckily hit upon his small ribs, and had like to have
buried two of the shortest deep in the middle of his body.

The knight thought himself slain, or at least desperately wounded; and
therefore calling to mind his precious balsam, and pulling out his
earthen jug, he clapped it to his mouth; but before he had swallowed a
sufficient dose, souse comes another of those bitter almonds, that
spoiled his draught, and hit him so pat upon the jug, hand, and teeth,
that it broke the first, maimed the second, and struck out three or
four of the last. These two blows were so violent that the boisterous
knight, falling from his horse, lay upon the ground as quiet as the
slain; so that the shepherds, fearing he was killed, got their flock
together with all speed, and carrying away their dead, which were no
less than seven sheep, they made what haste they could out of harm's
way, without looking any further into the matter.

All this while Sancho stood upon the hill, where he was mortified upon
the sight of this mad adventure. There he stamped and swore, and
banned his master to the bottomless pit; he tore his beard for
madness, and cursed the moment he first knew him; but seeing him at
last knocked down and settled, the shepherds being scampered, he
thought he might venture to come down, and found him in a very ill
plight, though not altogether senseless. "Ah! master," quoth he, "this
comes of not taking my counsel. Did I not tell you it was a flock of
sheep, and no army?"--"Friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "know, it
is an easy matter for necromancers to change the shapes of things as
they please: thus that malicious enchanter, who is my inveterate
enemy, to deprive me of the glory which he saw me ready