ved it that he got Don Quixote under him, and rained down upon him
such a shower of fisticuffs that the poor knight's face streamed with
blood as freely as his own. The canon and the curate were bursting with
laughter, the officers were capering with delight, and both the one and
the other hissed them on as they do dogs that are worrying one another in
a fight. Sancho alone was frantic, for he could not free himself from the
grasp of one of the canon's servants, who kept him from going to his
master's assistance.

At last, while they were all, with the exception of the two bruisers who
were mauling each other, in high glee and enjoyment, they heard a trumpet
sound a note so doleful that it made them all look in the direction
whence the sound seemed to come. But the one that was most excited by
hearing it was Don Quixote, who though sorely against his will he was
under the goatherd, and something more than pretty well pummelled, said
to him, "Brother devil (for it is impossible but that thou must be one
since thou hast had might and strength enough to overcome mine), I ask
thee to agree to a truce for but one hour for the solemn note of yonder
trumpet that falls on our ears seems to me to summon me to some new
adventure." The goatherd, who was by this time tired of pummelling and
being pummelled, released him at once, and Don Quixote rising to his feet
and turning his eyes to the quarter where the sound had been heard,
suddenly saw coming down the slope of a hill several men clad in white
like penitents.

The fact was that the clouds had that year withheld their moisture from
the earth, and in all the villages of the district they were organising
processions, rogations, and penances, imploring God to open the hands of
his mercy and send the rain; and to this end the people of a village that
was hard by were going in procession to a holy hermitage there was on one
side of that valley. Don Quixote when he saw the strange garb of the
penitents, without reflecting how often he had seen it before, took it
into his head that this was a case of adventure, and that it fell to him
alone as a knight-errant to engage in it; and he was all the more
confirmed in this notion, by the idea that an image draped in black they
had with them was some illustrious lady that these villains and
discourteous thieves were carrying off by force. As soon as this occurred
to him he ran with all speed to Rocinante who was grazing at large, and
takin