make more of him than
if he had been in his own house; for it seems he came in for a table laid
out and a bed ready made. There he saw fair and pleasant visions, but
here I'll see, I imagine, toads and adders. Unlucky wretch that I am,
what an end my follies and fancies have come to! They'll take up my bones
out of this, when it is heaven's will that I'm found, picked clean, white
and polished, and my good Dapple's with them, and by that, perhaps, it
will be found out who we are, at least by such as have heard that Sancho
Panza never separated from his ass, nor his ass from Sancho Panza.
Unlucky wretches, I say again, that our hard fate should not let us die
in our own country and among our own people, where if there was no help
for our misfortune, at any rate there would be some one to grieve for it
and to close our eyes as we passed away! O comrade and friend, how ill
have I repaid thy faithful services! Forgive me, and entreat Fortune, as
well as thou canst, to deliver us out of this miserable strait we are
both in; and I promise to put a crown of laurel on thy head, and make
thee look like a poet laureate, and give thee double feeds."

In this strain did Sancho bewail himself, and his ass listened to him,
but answered him never a word, such was the distress and anguish the poor
beast found himself in. At length, after a night spent in bitter moanings
and lamentations, day came, and by its light Sancho perceived that it was
wholly impossible to escape out of that pit without help, and he fell to
bemoaning his fate and uttering loud shouts to find out if there was
anyone within hearing; but all his shouting was only crying in the
wilderness, for there was not a soul anywhere in the neighbourhood to
hear him, and then at last he gave himself up for dead. Dapple was lying
on his back, and Sancho helped him to his feet, which he was scarcely
able to keep; and then taking a piece of bread out of his alforjas which
had shared their fortunes in the fall, he gave it to the ass, to whom it
was not unwelcome, saying to him as if he understood him, "With bread all
sorrows are less."

And now he perceived on one side of the pit a hole large enough to admit
a person if he stooped and squeezed himself into a small compass. Sancho
made for it, and entered it by creeping, and found it wide and spacious
on the inside, which he was able to see as a ray of sunlight that
penetrated what might be called the roof showed it all plainly. H