"As my fate has so willed it," said the bachelor, "I entreat you, sir
knight-errant, whose errand has been such an evil one for me, to help me
to get from under this mule that holds one of my legs caught between the
stirrup and the saddle."
"I would have talked on till to-morrow," said Don Quixote; "how long were
you going to wait before telling me of your distress?"
He at once called to Sancho, who, however, had no mind to come, as he was
just then engaged in unloading a sumpter mule, well laden with provender,
which these worthy gentlemen had brought with them. Sancho made a bag of
his coat, and, getting together as much as he could, and as the bag would
hold, he loaded his beast, and then hastened to obey his master's call,
and helped him to remove the bachelor from under the mule; then putting
him on her back he gave him the torch, and Don Quixote bade him follow
the track of his companions, and beg pardon of them on his part for the
wrong which he could not help doing them.
And said Sancho, "If by chance these gentlemen should want to know who
was the hero that served them so, your worship may tell them that he is
the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the
Rueful Countenance."
The bachelor then took his departure.
I forgot to mention that before he did so he said to Don Quixote,
"Remember that you stand excommunicated for having laid violent hands on
a holy thing, juxta illud, si quis, suadente diabolo."
"I do not understand that Latin," answered Don Quixote, "but I know well
I did not lay hands, only this pike; besides, I did not think I was
committing an assault upon priests or things of the Church, which, like a
Catholic and faithful Christian as I am, I respect and revere, but upon
phantoms and spectres of the other world; but even so, I remember how it
fared with Cid Ruy Diaz when he broke the chair of the ambassador of that
king before his Holiness the Pope, who excommunicated him for the same;
and yet the good Roderick of Vivar bore himself that day like a very
noble and valiant knight."
On hearing this the bachelor took his departure, as has been said,
without making any reply; and Don Quixote asked Sancho what had induced
him to call him the "Knight of the Rueful Countenance" more then than at
any other time.
"I will tell you," answered Sancho; "it was because I have been looking
at you for some time by the light of the torch held by that unfortunate,
and verily your worship has got of late the most ill-favoured countenance
I ever saw: it must be either owing to the fatigue of this combat, or
else to the want of teeth and grinders."