ing earth, the clear air--though at times darkened by the smoke of
the guns--all seemed to fill the whole multitude with unexpected delight.
Sancho could not make out how it was that those great masses that moved
over the sea had so many feet.

And now the horsemen in livery came galloping up with shouts and
outlandish cries and cheers to where Don Quixote stood amazed and
wondering; and one of them, he to whom Roque had sent word, addressing
him exclaimed, "Welcome to our city, mirror, beacon, star and cynosure of
all knight-errantry in its widest extent! Welcome, I say, valiant Don
Quixote of La Mancha; not the false, the fictitious, the apocryphal, that
these latter days have offered us in lying histories, but the true, the
legitimate, the real one that Cide Hamete Benengeli, flower of
historians, has described to us!"

Don Quixote made no answer, nor did the horsemen wait for one, but
wheeling again with all their followers, they began curvetting round Don
Quixote, who, turning to Sancho, said, "These gentlemen have plainly
recognised us; I will wager they have read our history, and even that
newly printed one by the Aragonese."

The cavalier who had addressed Don Quixote again approached him and said,
"Come with us, Senor Don Quixote, for we are all of us your servants and
great friends of Roque Guinart's;" to which Don Quixote returned, "If
courtesy breeds courtesy, yours, sir knight, is daughter or very nearly
akin to the great Roque's; carry me where you please; I will have no will
but yours, especially if you deign to employ it in your service."

The cavalier replied with words no less polite, and then, all closing in
around him, they set out with him for the city, to the music of the
clarions and the drums. As they were entering it, the wicked one, who is
the author of all mischief, and the boys who are wickeder than the wicked
one, contrived that a couple of these audacious irrepressible urchins
should force their way through the crowd, and lifting up, one of them
Dapple's tail and the other Rocinante's, insert a bunch of furze under
each. The poor beasts felt the strange spurs and added to their anguish
by pressing their tails tight, so much so that, cutting a multitude of
capers, they flung their masters to the ground. Don Quixote, covered with
shame and out of countenance, ran to pluck the plume from his poor jade's
tail, while Sancho did the same for Dapple. His conductors tried to
punish the audacity