ote; "retire, and leave
me alone to deal with him, and thou shalt see how, in order to save
time, I shall conclude this adventure without speaking a word, and the
helmet I have so much desired remain my own."

"I shall take care to get out of the way," replied Sancho; "but Heaven
grant, I say again, it may not prove another fulling-mill adventure."

"I have already told thee, Sancho, not to mention those fulling-mills,
nor even think of them," said Don Quixote: "if thou dost--I say no more,
but I vow to mill thy soul for thee!" Sancho held his peace, fearing
lest his master should perform his vow, which had struck him all of a
heap.

Now the truth of the matter, concerning the helmet, the steed, and the
knight which Don Quixote saw, was this. There were two villages in that
neighborhood, one of them so small that it had neither shop nor barber,
but the other adjoining to it had both; therefore the barber of the
larger served also the less, wherein one customer now wanted to be let
blood and another to be shaved; to perform which, the barber was now on
his way, carrying with him his brass basin; and it so happened that
while upon the road it began to rain, and to save his hat, which was a
new one, he clapped the basin on his head, which being lately scoured
was seen glittering at the distance of half a league; and he rode on a
gray ass, as Sancho had affirmed. Thus Don Quixote took the barber for a
knight, his ass for a dapple-gray steed, and his basin for a golden
helmet; for whatever he saw was quickly adapted to his knightly
extravagances: and when the poor knight drew near, without staying to
reason the case with him, he advanced at Rozinante's best speed, and
couched his lance, intending to run him through and through; but, when
close upon him, without checking the fury of his career, he cried out,
"Defend thyself, caitiff! or instantly surrender what is justly my due."

The barber, so unexpectedly seeing this phantom advancing upon him, had
no other way to avoid the thrust of the lance than to slip down from the
ass; and no sooner had he touched the ground than, leaping up nimbler
than a roebuck, he scampered over the plain with such speed that the
wind could not overtake him. The basin he left on the ground; with which
Don Quixote was satisfied, observing that the pagan had acted
discreetly, and in imitation of the beaver, which, when closely pursued
by the hunters, tears off with his teeth that which it knows