to acquire,
while I was reaping a full harvest of laurels, transformed in a moment
the routed squadrons into sheep. If thou wilt not believe me, Sancho,
yet do one thing for my sake; do but take thy ass, and follow those
supposed sheep at a distance, and I dare engage thou shalt soon see
them resume their former shapes, and appear such as I described them."

THE CONQUEST OF MAMBRINO'S HELMET

_By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra_

At the same time it began to rain, and Sancho would fain have taken
shelter in the fulling mills; but Don Quixote had conceived such an
antipathy against them for the shame they had put upon him that he
would by no means be prevailed with to go in; and turning to the right
hand he struck into a highway, where they had not gone far before he
discovered a horseman, who wore upon his head something that glittered
like gold. The knight had no sooner spied him, but, turning to his
squire, "Sancho," cried he, "I believe there is no proverb but what is
true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience,
the universal mother of sciences; for instance, that saying that where
one door shuts, another opens: thus fortune, that last night deceived
us with the false prospect of an adventure, this morning offers us a
real one to make us amends; and such an adventure, Sancho, that if I
do not gloriously succeed in it, I shall have now no pretense to an
excuse, no darkness, no unknown sounds, to impute my disappointment
to: in short, in all probability yonder comes the man who wears on his
head Mambrino's helmet, and thou knowest the vow I have made."--"Good
sir," quoth Sancho, "mind what you say, and take heed what you do; for
I would willingly keep my carcass and the case of my understanding
from being pounded, mashed, and crushed with fulling hammers."--"The
block-head!" cried Don Quixote; "is there no difference between a
helmet and a fulling mill?"--"I don't know," saith Sancho, "but I am
sure, were I suffered to speak my mind now as I was wont, mayhap, I
would give you such main reasons, that yourself should see you are
wide of the matter."--"How can I be mistaken, thou eternal
misbeliever!" cried Don Quixote; "dost thou not see that knight that
comes riding up directly towards us upon a dapple-gray steed, with a
helmet of gold on his head."--"I see what I see," replied Sancho, "and
the devil of anything I can spy but a fellow on such another