"As to whether it be pack-saddle or caparison," said the curate, "it is
only for Senor Don Quixote to say; for in these matters of chivalry all
these gentlemen and I bow to his authority."
"By God, gentlemen," said Don Quixote, "so many strange things have
happened to me in this castle on the two occasions on which I have
sojourned in it, that I will not venture to assert anything positively in
reply to any question touching anything it contains; for it is my belief
that everything that goes on within it goes by enchantment. The first
time, an enchanted Moor that there is in it gave me sore trouble, nor did
Sancho fare well among certain followers of his; and last night I was
kept hanging by this arm for nearly two hours, without knowing how or why
I came by such a mishap. So that now, for me to come forward to give an
opinion in such a puzzling matter, would be to risk a rash decision. As
regards the assertion that this is a basin and not a helmet I have
already given an answer; but as to the question whether this is a
pack-saddle or a caparison I will not venture to give a positive opinion,
but will leave it to your worships' better judgment. Perhaps as you are
not dubbed knights like myself, the enchantments of this place have
nothing to do with you, and your faculties are unfettered, and you can
see things in this castle as they really and truly are, and not as they
appear to me."
"There can be no question," said Don Fernando on this, "but that Senor
Don Quixote has spoken very wisely, and that with us rests the decision
of this matter; and that we may have surer ground to go on, I will take
the votes of the gentlemen in secret, and declare the result clearly and
fully."
To those who were in the secret of Don Quixote's humour all this afforded
great amusement; but to those who knew nothing about it, it seemed the
greatest nonsense in the world, in particular to the four servants of Don
Luis, as well as to Don Luis himself, and to three other travellers who
had by chance come to the inn, and had the appearance of officers of the
Holy Brotherhood, as indeed they were; but the one who above all was at
his wits' end, was the barber basin, there before his very eyes, had been
turned into Mambrino's helmet, and whose pack-saddle he had no doubt
whatever was about to become a rich caparison for a horse. All laughed to
see Don Fernando going from one to another collecting the votes, and
whispering to them to give him their private opinion whether the treasure
over which there had been so much fighting was a pack-saddle or a
caparison; but after he had taken the votes of those who knew Don
Quixote, he said aloud, "The fact is, my good fellow, that I am tired
collecting such a number of opinions, for I find that there is not one of
whom I ask what I desire to know, who does not tell me that it is absurd
to say that this is the pack-saddle of an ass, and not the caparison of a
horse, nay, of a thoroughbred horse; so you must submit, for, in spite of
you and your ass, this is a caparison and no pack-saddle, and you have
stated and proved your case very badly."