through all the valleys around. Don Quixote stood up and laid
his hand upon his sword, and Sancho ensconced himself under Dapple and
put the bundle of armour on one side of him and the ass's pack-saddle on
the other, in fear and trembling as great as Don Quixote's perturbation.
Each instant the noise increased and came nearer to the two terrified
men, or at least to one, for as to the other, his courage is known to
all. The fact of the matter was that some men were taking above six
hundred pigs to sell at a fair, and were on their way with them at that
hour, and so great was the noise they made and their grunting and
blowing, that they deafened the ears of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and
they could not make out what it was. The wide-spread grunting drove came
on in a surging mass, and without showing any respect for Don Quixote's
dignity or Sancho's, passed right over the pair of them, demolishing
Sancho's entrenchments, and not only upsetting Don Quixote but sweeping
Rocinante off his feet into the bargain; and what with the trampling and
the grunting, and the pace at which the unclean beasts went, pack-saddle,
armour, Dapple and Rocinante were left scattered on the ground and Sancho
and Don Quixote at their wits' end.

Sancho got up as well as he could and begged his master to give him his
sword, saying he wanted to kill half a dozen of those dirty unmannerly
pigs, for he had by this time found out that that was what they were.

"Let them be, my friend," said Don Quixote; "this insult is the penalty
of my sin; and it is the righteous chastisement of heaven that jackals
should devour a vanquished knight, and wasps sting him and pigs trample
him under foot."

"I suppose it is the chastisement of heaven, too," said Sancho, "that
flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and lice eat them,
and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of the knights we
serve, or their very near relations, it would be no wonder if the penalty
of their misdeeds overtook us, even to the fourth generation. But what
have the Panzas to do with the Quixotes? Well, well, let's lie down again
and sleep out what little of the night there's left, and God will send us
dawn and we shall be all right."

"Sleep thou, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "for thou wast born to sleep
as I was born to watch; and during the time it now wants of dawn I will
give a loose rein to my thoughts, and seek a vent for them in a little
madrigal which