Sancho almost out of his wits. He flew out of bed, put on a pair of
slippers, and rushed into the street, dressed in nothing but his night
shirt. He was startled to see the streets crowded with men, carrying
torches, and crying: "To arms, Senor Governor, to arms! The enemy is
here, and we are lost, unless you come to the rescue with your sword!"

Sancho was lost; he did not know what to do, for swordsmanship was not
among his accomplishments. And so he simply asked them whether the
enemy could not wait until he had a chance to summon his master Don
Quixote of La Mancha, who, he said, knew all about arms.

Just then one of the inhabitants came along, carrying two shields, and
without any ceremony he told Sancho in plain language that it was his
duty as their governor to lead them into battle. Then he covered
him--without giving him a chance to put on anything besides his
night-shirt--with the two shields, one in front and the other one
behind; pressing them together as tightly as he and another man could
manage, they laced them with rope, so that Sancho could neither move a
muscle, nor bend a leg. Then they put a lance in his hand and told him
to lead them into battle against the enemy, for now they were no
longer afraid of the outcome, they said.

"How am I to march, unlucky being that I am," asked Sancho, "when I
cannot stir my knee-caps for these boards that are bound so tightly to
my body! What you must do is to carry me in your arms, and lay me
across or set me upright in some postern, and I shall hold it either
with this lance or with my body."

When the men heard the Governor speak thus, one of them was bold enough
to suggest that he could not move because he was too frightened; and this
angered poor Sancho into a frantic attempt to take a step in the
direction of the invading army. But this step was a fatal one, for the
Governor fell in his undignified stiffness flat on his back with such a
crash that he thought he had broken every bone in his body.

The men now quickly extinguished their torches, and began to step on
his shield, slashing their swords over his head, shouting and yelling,
and making all the noise they could. Had Sancho not pulled in his head
like a tortoise in his shell, he might have fared ill. One man boldly
placed himself on Sancho's roof, calling in a mighty voice, now and
then filled with an agonized grunt, such directions as these: "Hold
the breach there! Shut the gate! Barricade those l