in of galley slaves had by this time come up, and Don Quixote in
very courteous language asked those who were in custody of it to be good
enough to tell him the reason or reasons for which they were conducting
these people in this manner. One of the guards on horseback answered that
they were galley slaves belonging to his majesty, that they were going to
the galleys, and that was all that was to be said and all he had any
business to know.

"Nevertheless," replied Don Quixote, "I should like to know from each of
them separately the reason of his misfortune;" to this he added more to
the same effect to induce them to tell him what he wanted so civilly that
the other mounted guard said to him:

"Though we have here the register and certificate of the sentence of
every one of these wretches, this is no time to take them out or read
them; come and ask themselves; they can tell if they choose, and they
will, for these fellows take a pleasure in doing and talking about
rascalities."

With this permission, which Don Quixote would have taken even had they
not granted it, he approached the chain and asked the first for what
offences he was now in such a sorry case.

He made answer that it was for being a lover.

"For that only?" replied Don Quixote; "why, if for being lovers they send
people to the galleys I might have been rowing in them long ago."

"The love is not the sort your worship is thinking of," said the galley
slave; "mine was that I loved a washerwoman's basket of clean linen so
well, and held it so close in my embrace, that if the arm of the law had
not forced it from me, I should never have let it go of my own will to
this moment; I was caught in the act, there was no occasion for torture,
the case was settled, they treated me to a hundred lashes on the back,
and three years of gurapas besides, and that was the end of it."

"What are gurapas?" asked Don Quixote.

"Gurapas are galleys," answered the galley slave, who was a young man of
about four-and-twenty, and said he was a native of Piedrahita.

Don Quixote asked the same question of the second, who made no reply, so
downcast and melancholy was he; but the first answered for him, and said,
"He, sir, goes as a canary, I mean as a musician and a singer."

"What!" said Don Quixote, "for being musicians and singers are people
sent to the galleys too?"

"Yes, sir," answered the galley slave, "for there is nothing worse than
singing under suffering."

"O