a Clara was sparkling with happiness; and Zoraida seemed
to feel at home with the Christians, in spite of the noise and tumult
she had had to live through during her short stay at the inn.

The landlord did not forget the reckoning for the wine-skins and all
the other things whose loss he could attribute to Don Quixote, for he
had witnessed the curate's paying off the debt for the barber's
helmet. Don Fernando paid all the innkeeper's demands generously,
after the curate had decided the claims were just.

But when Don Quixote felt no discord in the air, he betook himself to
the presence of Dorothea, knelt before her, and told her how willing
and anxious he was to serve her and conquer her giant. And he
requested that they make ready to leave. Her reply was simple and
direct, for she told him that his will was hers. So Don Quixote
ordered his squire to saddle Rocinante and his own donkey; but Sancho
only shook his head in sorry fashion.

"Master," he said, "there is more mischief in the village than one
hears of." And as his master begged him to speak freely, he burst out:
"This lady, who calls herself ruler of the great kingdom of Micomicon,
is no more so than my mother; for, if she was what she says, she would
not go rubbing noses with one that is here every instant and behind
every door."

Though it was merely with her husband, Don Fernando, that she had, as
Sancho said, rubbed noses, the crimson in her royal blood came to the
surface, and her face turned as red as a beet. Sancho, fearing that
the Princess was a courtesan, wanted to save his master the two years'
journey to Micomicon, if at the end of it it should turn out that
another one than Don Quixote or himself should reap the fruits of
their labor.

It is impossible to describe the terrible wrath of the knight when he
heard the Princess thus slandered. His indignation and fury knew no
bounds. He began to stammer and stutter, inarticulate with rage,
until Sancho was scared out of his wits, afraid of being cut open by
his raving master's sword. He was just about to turn his back on his
master and disappear till the storm had passed, when Dorothea came to
his rescue. She suggested that Sancho's strange behavior could only be
ascribed to one thing: enchantment. How else could he have seen such
diabolical things as he described, how could he have been made to bear
false witness against her, and how could he have spoken words so
offensive to her modesty? Knowin