"Let your worship ask what you will," answered Sancho, "for I shall find

a way out of all as as I found a way in; but I implore you, senor, not

not to be so revengeful in future."

"Why dost thou say that, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"I say it," he returned, "because those blows just now were more because

of the quarrel the devil stirred up between us both the other night, than

for what I said against my lady Dulcinea, whom I love and reverence as I

would a relic--though there is nothing of that about her--merely as

something belonging to your worship."

"Say no more on that subject for thy life, Sancho," said Don Quixote,

"for it is displeasing to me; I have already pardoned thee for that, and

thou knowest the common saying, 'for a fresh sin a fresh penance.'"

While this was going on they saw coming along the road they were

following a man mounted on an ass, who when he came close seemed to be a

gipsy; but Sancho Panza, whose eyes and heart were there wherever he saw

asses, no sooner beheld the man than he knew him to be Gines de

Pasamonte; and by the thread of the gipsy he got at the ball, his ass,

for it was, in fact, Dapple that carried Pasamonte, who to escape

recognition and to sell the ass had disguised himself as a gipsy, being

able to speak the gipsy language, and many more, as well as if they were

his own. Sancho saw him and recognised him, and the instant he did so he

shouted to him, "Ginesillo, you thief, give up my treasure, release my

life, embarrass thyself not with my repose, quit my ass, leave my

delight, be off, rip, get thee gone, thief, and give up what is not

thine."

There was no necessity for so many words or objurgations, for at the

first one Gines jumped down, and at a like racing speed made off and got

clear of them all. Sancho hastened to his Dapple, and embracing him he

said, "How hast thou fared, my blessing, Dapple of my eyes, my comrade?"

all the while kissing him and caressing him as if he were a human being.

The ass held his peace, and let himself be kissed and caressed by Sancho

without answering a single word. They all came up and congratulated him

on having found Dapple, Don Quixote especially, who told him that

notwithstanding this he would not cancel the order for the three

ass-colts, for which Sancho thanked him.

While the two had been going along conversing in this fashion, the curate

observed to Dorothea that she had shown great cleverness, as well in the

story itself as in its conciseness, and the resemblance it bore to those

of the books of chivalry. She said that she had many times amused herself

reading them; but that she did not know the situation of the provinces or

seaports, and so she had said at haphazard that she had landed at Osuna.




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