ng
on his back, and Sancho helped him to his feet, which he was scarcely
able to keep; and then taking a piece of bread out of his alforjas which
had shared their fortunes in the fall, he gave it to the ass, to whom it
was not unwelcome, saying to him as if he understood him, "With bread all
sorrows are less."

And now he perceived on one side of the pit a hole large enough to admit
a person if he stooped and squeezed himself into a small compass. Sancho
made for it, and entered it by creeping, and found it wide and spacious
on the inside, which he was able to see as a ray of sunlight that
penetrated what might be called the roof showed it all plainly. He
observed too that it opened and widened out into another spacious cavity;
seeing which he made his way back to where the ass was, and with a stone
began to pick away the clay from the hole until in a short time he had
made room for the beast to pass easily, and this accomplished, taking him
by the halter, he proceeded to traverse the cavern to see if there was
any outlet at the other end. He advanced, sometimes in the dark,
sometimes without light, but never without fear; "God Almighty help me!"
said he to himself; "this that is a misadventure to me would make a good
adventure for my master Don Quixote. He would have been sure to take
these depths and dungeons for flowery gardens or the palaces of Galiana,
and would have counted upon issuing out of this darkness and imprisonment
into some blooming meadow; but I, unlucky that I am, hopeless and
spiritless, expect at every step another pit deeper than the first to
open under my feet and swallow me up for good; 'welcome evil, if thou
comest alone.'"

In this way and with these reflections he seemed to himself to have
travelled rather more than half a league, when at last he perceived a dim
light that looked like daylight and found its way in on one side, showing
that this road, which appeared to him the road to the other world, led to
some opening.

Here Cide Hamete leaves him, and returns to Don Quixote, who in high
spirits and satisfaction was looking forward to the day fixed for the
battle he was to fight with him who had robbed Dona Rodriguez's daughter
of her honour, for whom he hoped to obtain satisfaction for the wrong and
injury shamefully done to her. It came to pass, then, that having sallied
forth one morning to practise and exercise himself in what he would have
to do in the encounter he expected to find hi