and accepts it, and comes to answer it in person to
this castle of mine, where I shall afford to both a fair field, observing
all the conditions which are usually and properly observed in such
trials, and observing too justice to both sides, as all princes who offer
a free field to combatants within the limits of their lordships are bound
to do."

"Then with that assurance and your highness's good leave," said Don
Quixote, "I hereby for this once waive my privilege of gentle blood, and
come down and put myself on a level with the lowly birth of the
wrong-doer, making myself equal with him and enabling him to enter into
combat with me; and so, I challenge and defy him, though absent, on the
plea of his malfeasance in breaking faith with this poor damsel, who was
a maiden and now by his misdeed is none; and say that he shall fulfill
the promise he gave her to become her lawful husband, or else stake his
life upon the question."

And then plucking off a glove he threw it down in the middle of the hall,
and the duke picked it up, saying, as he had said before, that he
accepted the challenge in the name of his vassal, and fixed six days
thence as the time, the courtyard of the castle as the place, and for
arms the customary ones of knights, lance and shield and full armour,
with all the other accessories, without trickery, guile, or charms of any
sort, and examined and passed by the judges of the field. "But first of
all," he said, "it is requisite that this worthy duenna and unworthy
damsel should place their claim for justice in the hands of Don Quixote;
for otherwise nothing can be done, nor can the said challenge be brought
to a lawful issue."

"I do so place it," replied the duenna.

"And I too," added her daughter, all in tears and covered with shame and
confusion.

This declaration having been made, and the duke having settled in his own
mind what he would do in the matter, the ladies in black withdrew, and
the duchess gave orders that for the future they were not to be treated
as servants of hers, but as lady adventurers who came to her house to
demand justice; so they gave them a room to themselves and waited on them
as they would on strangers, to the consternation of the other
women-servants, who did not know where the folly and imprudence of Dona
Rodriguez and her unlucky daughter would stop.

And now, to complete the enjoyment of the feast and bring the dinner to a
satisfactory end, lo and behold the page