en Tagus. All
this that I tell you now, O cousin mine, I have told you many times
before, and as you make no answer, I fear that either you believe me not,
or do not hear me, whereat I feel God knows what grief. I have now news
to give you, which, if it serves not to alleviate your sufferings, will
not in any wise increase them. Know that you have here before you (open
your eyes and you will see) that great knight of whom the sage Merlin has
prophesied such great things; that Don Quixote of La Mancha I mean, who
has again, and to better purpose than in past times, revived in these
days knight-errantry, long since forgotten, and by whose intervention and
aid it may be we shall be disenchanted; for great deeds are reserved for
great men.'

"'And if that may not be,' said the wretched Durandarte in a low and
feeble voice, 'if that may not be, then, my cousin, I say "patience and
shuffle;"' and turning over on his side, he relapsed into his former
silence without uttering another word.

"And now there was heard a great outcry and lamentation, accompanied by
deep sighs and bitter sobs. I looked round, and through the crystal wall
I saw passing through another chamber a procession of two lines of fair
damsels all clad in mourning, and with white turbans of Turkish fashion
on their heads. Behind, in the rear of these, there came a lady, for so
from her dignity she seemed to be, also clad in black, with a white veil
so long and ample that it swept the ground. Her turban was twice as large
as the largest of any of the others; her eyebrows met, her nose was
rather flat, her mouth was large but with ruddy lips, and her teeth, of
which at times she allowed a glimpse, were seen to be sparse and ill-set,
though as white as peeled almonds. She carried in her hands a fine cloth,
and in it, as well as I could make out, a heart that had been mummied, so
parched and dried was it. Montesinos told me that all those forming the
procession were the attendants of Durandarte and Belerma, who were
enchanted there with their master and mistress, and that the last, she
who carried the heart in the cloth, was the lady Belerma, who, with her
damsels, four days in the week went in procession singing, or rather
weeping, dirges over the body and miserable heart of his cousin; and that
if she appeared to me somewhat ill-favoured or not so beautiful as fame
reported her, it was because of the bad nights and worse days that she
passed in that enchantment