ow rotten with me from over-keeping."

"At any rate," said Don Quixote, "I have more confidence in thy affection
and good nature; and so I would have thee know that this night there
befell me one of the strangest adventures that I could describe, and to
relate it to thee briefly thou must know that a little while ago the
daughter of the lord of this castle came to me, and that she is the most
elegant and beautiful damsel that could be found in the wide world. What
I could tell thee of the charms of her person! of her lively wit! of
other secret matters which, to preserve the fealty I owe to my lady
Dulcinea del Toboso, I shall pass over unnoticed and in silence! I will
only tell thee that, either fate being envious of so great a boon placed
in my hands by good fortune, or perhaps (and this is more probable) this
castle being, as I have already said, enchanted, at the time when I was
engaged in the sweetest and most amorous discourse with her, there came,
without my seeing or knowing whence it came, a hand attached to some arm
of some huge giant, that planted such a cuff on my jaws that I have them
all bathed in blood, and then pummelled me in such a way that I am in a
worse plight than yesterday when the carriers, on account of Rocinante's
misbehaviour, inflicted on us the injury thou knowest of; whence
conjecture that there must be some enchanted Moor guarding the treasure
of this damsel's beauty, and that it is not for me."

"Not for me either," said Sancho, "for more than four hundred Moors have
so thrashed me that the drubbing of the stakes was cakes and fancy-bread
to it. But tell me, senor, what do you call this excellent and rare
adventure that has left us as we are left now? Though your worship was
not so badly off, having in your arms that incomparable beauty you spoke
of; but I, what did I have, except the heaviest whacks I think I had in
all my life? Unlucky me and the mother that bore me! for I am not a
knight-errant and never expect to be one, and of all the mishaps, the
greater part falls to my share."

"Then thou hast been thrashed too?" said Don Quixote.

"Didn't I say so? worse luck to my line!" said Sancho.

"Be not distressed, friend," said Don Quixote, "for I will now make the
precious balsam with which we shall cure ourselves in the twinkling of an
eye."

By this time the cuadrillero had succeeded in lighting the lamp, and came
in to see the man that he thought had been killed; and as Sancho ca