said the duke, "you would have known the said knight Don Quixote of La
Mancha, for you have him here before you."

"By God and upon my conscience," said the devil, "I never observed it,
for my mind is occupied with so many different things that I was
forgetting the main thing I came about."

"This demon must be an honest fellow and a good Christian," said Sancho;
"for if he wasn't he wouldn't swear by God and his conscience; I feel
sure now there must be good souls even in hell itself."

Without dismounting, the demon then turned to Don Quixote and said, "The
unfortunate but valiant knight Montesinos sends me to thee, the Knight of
the Lions (would that I saw thee in their claws), bidding me tell thee to
wait for him wherever I may find thee, as he brings with him her whom
they call Dulcinea del Toboso, that he may show thee what is needful in
order to disenchant her; and as I came for no more I need stay no longer;
demons of my sort be with thee, and good angels with these gentles;" and
so saying he blew his huge horn, turned about and went off without
waiting for a reply from anyone.

They all felt fresh wonder, but particularly Sancho and Don Quixote;
Sancho to see how, in defiance of the truth, they would have it that
Dulcinea was enchanted; Don Quixote because he could not feel sure
whether what had happened to him in the cave of Montesinos was true or
not; and as he was deep in these cogitations the duke said to him, "Do
you mean to wait, Senor Don Quixote?"

"Why not?" replied he; "here will I wait, fearless and firm, though all
hell should come to attack me."

"Well then, if I see another devil or hear another horn like the last,
I'll wait here as much as in Flanders," said Sancho.

Night now closed in more completely, and many lights began to flit
through the wood, just as those fiery exhalations from the earth, that
look like shooting-stars to our eyes, flit through the heavens; a
frightful noise, too, was heard, like that made by the solid wheels the
ox-carts usually have, by the harsh, ceaseless creaking of which, they
say, the bears and wolves are put to flight, if there happen to be any
where they are passing. In addition to all this commotion, there came a
further disturbance to increase the tumult, for now it seemed as if in
truth, on all four sides of the wood, four encounters or battles were
going on at the same time; in one quarter resounded the dull noise of a
terrible cannonade, in another