;
and if, of the love you bear me, you should find that there is anything
else in my power wherein I can gratify you, provided it be not love
itself, demand it of me; for I swear to you by that sweet absent enemy of
mine to grant it this instant, though it be that you require of me a lock
of Medusa's hair, which was all snakes, or even the very beams of the sun
shut up in a vial."

"My mistress wants nothing of that sort, sir knight," said Maritornes at
this.

"What then, discreet dame, is it that your mistress wants?" replied Don
Quixote.

"Only one of your fair hands," said Maritornes, "to enable her to vent
over it the great passion passion which has brought her to this loophole,
so much to the risk of her honour; for if the lord her father had heard
her, the least slice he would cut off her would be her ear."

"I should like to see that tried," said Don Quixote; "but he had better
beware of that, if he does not want to meet the most disastrous end that
ever father in the world met for having laid hands on the tender limbs of
a love-stricken daughter."

Maritornes felt sure that Don Quixote would present the hand she had
asked, and making up her mind what to do, she got down from the hole and
went into the stable, where she took the halter of Sancho Panza's ass,
and in all haste returned to the hole, just as Don Quixote had planted
himself standing on Rocinante's saddle in order to reach the grated
window where he supposed the lovelorn damsel to be; and giving her his
hand, he said, "Lady, take this hand, or rather this scourge of the
evil-doers of the earth; take, I say, this hand which no other hand of
woman has ever touched, not even hers who has complete possession of my
entire body. I present it to you, not that you may kiss it, but that you
may observe the contexture of the sinews, the close network of the
muscles, the breadth and capacity of the veins, whence you may infer what
must be the strength of the arm that has such a hand."

"That we shall see presently," said Maritornes, and making a running knot
on the halter, she passed it over his wrist and coming down from the hole
tied the other end very firmly to the bolt of the door of the straw-loft.

Don Quixote, feeling the roughness of the rope on his wrist, exclaimed,
"Your grace seems to be grating rather than caressing my hand; treat it
not so harshly, for it is not to blame for the offence my resolution has
given you, nor is it just to wreak all