fool," said Don Quixote; "forgive
me, and that will do."

"That will do," said Don Fernando; "let us say no more about it; and as
her ladyship the princess proposes to set out to-morrow because it is too
late to-day, so be it, and we will pass the night in pleasant
conversation, and to-morrow we will all accompany Senor Don Quixote; for
we wish to witness the valiant and unparalleled achievements he is about
to perform in the course of this mighty enterprise which he has
undertaken."

"It is I who shall wait upon and accompany you," said Don Quixote; "and I
am much gratified by the favour that is bestowed upon me, and the good
opinion entertained of me, which I shall strive to justify or it shall
cost me my life, or even more, if it can possibly cost me more."

Many were the compliments and expressions of politeness that passed
between Don Quixote and Don Fernando; but they were brought to an end by
a traveller who at this moment entered the inn, and who seemed from his
attire to be a Christian lately come from the country of the Moors, for
he was dressed in a short-skirted coat of blue cloth with half-sleeves
and without a collar; his breeches were also of blue cloth, and his cap
of the same colour, and he wore yellow buskins and had a Moorish cutlass
slung from a baldric across his breast. Behind him, mounted upon an ass,
there came a woman dressed in Moorish fashion, with her face veiled and a
scarf on her head, and wearing a little brocaded cap, and a mantle that
covered her from her shoulders to her feet. The man was of a robust and
well-proportioned frame, in age a little over forty, rather swarthy in
complexion, with long moustaches and a full beard, and, in short, his
appearance was such that if he had been well dressed he would have been
taken for a person of quality and good birth. On entering he asked for a
room, and when they told him there was none in the inn he seemed
distressed, and approaching her who by her dress seemed to be a Moor he
her down from saddle in his arms. Luscinda, Dorothea, the landlady, her
daughter and Maritornes, attracted by the strange, and to them entirely
new costume, gathered round her; and Dorothea, who was always kindly,
courteous, and quick-witted, perceiving that both she and the man who had
brought her were annoyed at not finding a room, said to her, "Do not be
put out, senora, by the discomfort and want of luxuries here, for it is
the way of road-side inns to be without th