ep your liquor in the name of all the devils, and leave me
to myself!" and at one and the same instant he left off talking and began
drinking; but as at the first sup he perceived it was water he did not
care to go on with it, and begged Maritornes to fetch him some wine,
which she did with right good will, and paid for it with her own money;
for indeed they say of her that, though she was in that line of life,
there was some faint and distant resemblance to a Christian about her.
When Sancho had done drinking he dug his heels into his ass, and the gate
of the inn being thrown open he passed out very well pleased at having
paid nothing and carried his point, though it had been at the expense of
his usual sureties, his shoulders. It is true that the innkeeper detained
his alforjas in payment of what was owing to him, but Sancho took his
departure in such a flurry that he never missed them. The innkeeper, as
soon as he saw him off, wanted to bar the gate close, but the blanketers
would not agree to it, for they were fellows who would not have cared two
farthings for Don Quixote, even had he been really one of the
knights-errant of the Round Table.

CHAPTER XVIII.

IN WHICH IS RELATED THE DISCOURSE SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH HIS MASTER, DON
QUIXOTE, AND OTHER ADVENTURES WORTH RELATING

Sancho reached his master so limp and faint that he could not urge on his
beast. When Don Quixote saw the state he was in he said, "I have now come
to the conclusion, good Sancho, that this castle or inn is beyond a doubt
enchanted, because those who have so atrociously diverted themselves with
thee, what can they be but phantoms or beings of another world? and I
hold this confirmed by having noticed that when I was by the wall of the
yard witnessing the acts of thy sad tragedy, it was out of my power to
mount upon it, nor could I even dismount from Rocinante, because they no
doubt had me enchanted; for I swear to thee by the faith of what I am
that if I had been able to climb up or dismount, I would have avenged
thee in such a way that those braggart thieves would have remembered
their freak for ever, even though in so doing I knew that I contravened
the laws of chivalry, which, as I have often told thee, do not permit a
knight to lay hands on him who is not one, save in case of urgent and
great necessity in defence of his own life and person."

"I would have avenged myself too if I could," said Sancho, "whether I had
been dubbed knigh