it has
might or not, that which it may or may not have shall be devoted to your
service even to death; and now, leaving this to its proper season, I
would ask the senor licentiate to tell me what it is that has brought him
into these parts, alone, unattended, and so lightly clad that I am filled
with amazement."

"I will answer that briefly," replied the curate; "you must know then,
Senor Don Quixote, that Master Nicholas, our friend and barber, and I
were going to Seville to receive some money that a relative of mine who
went to the Indies many years ago had sent me, and not such a small sum
but that it was over sixty thousand pieces of eight, full weight, which
is something; and passing by this place yesterday we were attacked by
four footpads, who stripped us even to our beards, and them they stripped
off so that the barber found it necessary to put on a false one, and even
this young man here"-pointing to Cardenio--"they completely transformed.
But the best of it is, the story goes in the neighbourhood that those who
attacked us belong to a number of galley slaves who, they say, were set
free almost on the very same spot by a man of such valour that, in spite
of the commissary and of the guards, he released the whole of them; and
beyond all doubt he must have been out of his senses, or he must be as
great a scoundrel as they, or some man without heart or conscience to let
the wolf loose among the sheep, the fox among the hens, the fly among the
honey. He has defrauded justice, and opposed his king and lawful master,
for he opposed his just commands; he has, I say, robbed the galleys of
their feet, stirred up the Holy Brotherhood which for many years past has
been quiet, and, lastly, has done a deed by which his soul may be lost
without any gain to his body." Sancho had told the curate and the barber
of the adventure of the galley slaves, which, so much to his glory, his
master had achieved, and hence the curate in alluding to it made the most
of it to see what would be said or done by Don Quixote; who changed
colour at every word, not daring to say that it was he who had been the
liberator of those worthy people. "These, then," said the curate, "were
they who robbed us; and God in his mercy pardon him who would not let
them go to the punishment they deserved."

CHAPTER XXX.

WHICH TREATS OF ADDRESS DISPLAYED BY THE FAIR DOROTHEA, WITH OTHER
MATTERS PLEASANT AND AMUSING

The curate had hardly ceased speak