by any chance? Neither I nor my master
ever saw her. And does it strike you that it would be just and right if
the El Toboso people, finding out that you were here with the intention
of going to tamper with their princesses and trouble their ladies, were
to come and cudgel your ribs, and not leave a whole bone in you? They
would, indeed, have very good reason, if they did not see that I am under
orders, and that 'you are a messenger, my friend, no blame belongs to
you.' Don't you trust to that, Sancho, for the Manchegan folk are as
hot-tempered as they are honest, and won't put up with liberties from
anybody. By the Lord, if they get scent of you, it will be worse for you,
I promise you. Be off, you scoundrel! Let the bolt fall. Why should I go
looking for three feet on a cat, to please another man; and what is more,
when looking for Dulcinea will be looking for Marica in Ravena, or the
bachelor in Salamanca? The devil, the devil and nobody else, has mixed me
up in this business!"

Such was the soliloquy Sancho held with himself, and all the conclusion
he could come to was to say to himself again, "Well, there's remedy for
everything except death, under whose yoke we have all to pass, whether we
like it or not, when life's finished. I have seen by a thousand signs
that this master of mine is a madman fit to be tied, and for that matter,
I too, am not behind him; for I'm a greater fool than he is when I follow
him and serve him, if there's any truth in the proverb that says, 'Tell
me what company thou keepest, and I'll tell thee what thou art,' or in
that other, 'Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art fed.'
Well then, if he be mad, as he is, and with a madness that mostly takes
one thing for another, and white for black, and black for white, as was
seen when he said the windmills were giants, and the monks' mules
dromedaries, flocks of sheep armies of enemies, and much more to the same
tune, it will not be very hard to make him believe that some country
girl, the first I come across here, is the lady Dulcinea; and if he does
not believe it, I'll swear it; and if he should swear, I'll swear again;
and if he persists I'll persist still more, so as, come what may, to have
my quoit always over the peg. Maybe, by holding out in this way, I may
put a stop to his sending me on messages of this kind another time; or
maybe he will think, as I suspect he will, that one of those wicked
enchanters, who he says have a sp