d Sancho; "it is
enough that I am telling you the truth, so shut your mouth. But I may
tell you this much by the way, that there is nothing in the world more
delightful than to be a person of consideration, squire to a
knight-errant, and a seeker of adventures. To be sure most of those one
finds do not end as pleasantly as one could wish, for out of a hundred,
ninety-nine will turn out cross and contrary. I know it by experience,
for out of some I came blanketed, and out of others belaboured. Still,
for all that, it is a fine thing to be on the look-out for what may
happen, crossing mountains, searching woods, climbing rocks, visiting
castles, putting up at inns, all at free quarters, and devil take the
maravedi to pay."

While this conversation passed between Sancho Panza and his wife, Don
Quixote's housekeeper and niece took him in and undressed him and laid
him in his old bed. He eyed them askance, and could not make out where he
was. The curate charged his niece to be very careful to make her uncle
comfortable and to keep a watch over him lest he should make his escape
from them again, telling her what they had been obliged to do to bring
him home. On this the pair once more lifted up their voices and renewed
their maledictions upon the books of chivalry, and implored heaven to
plunge the authors of such lies and nonsense into the midst of the
bottomless pit. They were, in short, kept in anxiety and dread lest their
uncle and master should give them the slip the moment he found himself
somewhat better, and as they feared so it fell out.

But the author of this history, though he has devoted research and
industry to the discovery of the deeds achieved by Don Quixote in his
third sally, has been unable to obtain any information respecting them,
at any rate derived from authentic documents; tradition has merely
preserved in the memory of La Mancha the fact that Don Quixote, the third
time he sallied forth from his home, betook himself to Saragossa, where
he was present at some famous jousts which came off in that city, and
that he had adventures there worthy of his valour and high intelligence.
Of his end and death he could learn no particulars, nor would he have
ascertained it or known of it, if good fortune had not produced an old
physician for him who had in his possession a leaden box, which,
according to his account, had been discovered among the crumbling
foundations of an ancient hermitage that was being rebuil