s happened to us to-day is to be called an adventure, it has been
one of the sweetest and pleasantest that have befallen us in the whole
course of our travels; we have come out of it unbelaboured and
undismayed, neither have we drawn sword nor have we smitten the earth
with our bodies, nor have we been left famishing; blessed be God that he
has let me see such a thing with my own eyes!"

"Thou sayest well, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "but remember all times are
not alike nor do they always run the same way; and these things the
vulgar commonly call omens, which are not based upon any natural reason,
will by him who is wise be esteemed and reckoned happy accidents merely.
One of these believers in omens will get up of a morning, leave his
house, and meet a friar of the order of the blessed Saint Francis, and,
as if he had met a griffin, he will turn about and go home. With another
Mendoza the salt is spilt on his table, and gloom is spilt over his
heart, as if nature was obliged to give warning of coming misfortunes by
means of such trivial things as these. The wise man and the Christian
should not trifle with what it may please heaven to do. Scipio on coming
to Africa stumbled as he leaped on shore; his soldiers took it as a bad
omen; but he, clasping the soil with his arms, exclaimed, 'Thou canst not
escape me, Africa, for I hold thee tight between my arms.' Thus, Sancho,
meeting those images has been to me a most happy occurrence."

"I can well believe it," said Sancho; "but I wish your worship would tell
me what is the reason that the Spaniards, when they are about to give
battle, in calling on that Saint James the Moorslayer, say 'Santiago and
close Spain!' Is Spain, then, open, so that it is needful to close it; or
what is the meaning of this form?"

"Thou art very simple, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "God, look you, gave
that great knight of the Red Cross to Spain as her patron saint and
protector, especially in those hard struggles the Spaniards had with the
Moors; and therefore they invoke and call upon him as their defender in
all their battles; and in these he has been many a time seen beating
down, trampling under foot, destroying and slaughtering the Hagarene
squadrons in the sight of all; of which fact I could give thee many
examples recorded in truthful Spanish histories."

Sancho changed the subject, and said to his master, "I marvel, senor, at
the boldness of Altisidora, the duchess's handmaid; he whom th