Sancho came up, and when he saw the countenance of the bachelor Carrasco,
he fell to crossing himself a thousand times, and blessing himself as
many more. All this time the prostrate knight showed no signs of life,
and Sancho said to Don Quixote, "It is my opinion, senor, that in any
case your worship should take and thrust your sword into the mouth of
this one here that looks like the bachelor Samson Carrasco; perhaps in
him you will kill one of your enemies, the enchanters."
"Thy advice is not bad," said Don Quixote, "for of enemies the fewer the
better;" and he was drawing his sword to carry into effect Sancho's
counsel and suggestion, when the squire of the Mirrors came up, now
without the nose which had made him so hideous, and cried out in a loud
voice, "Mind what you are about, Senor Don Quixote; that is your friend,
the bachelor Samson Carrasco, you have at your feet, and I am his
squire."
"And the nose?" said Sancho, seeing him without the hideous feature he
had before; to which he replied, "I have it here in my pocket," and
putting his hand into his right pocket, he pulled out a masquerade nose
of varnished pasteboard of the make already described; and Sancho,
examining him more and more closely, exclaimed aloud in a voice of
amazement, "Holy Mary be good to me! Isn't it Tom Cecial, my neighbour
and gossip?"
"Why, to be sure I am!" returned the now unnosed squire; "Tom Cecial I
am, gossip and friend Sancho Panza; and I'll tell you presently the means
and tricks and falsehoods by which I have been brought here; but in the
meantime, beg and entreat of your master not to touch, maltreat, wound,
or slay the Knight of the Mirrors whom he has at his feet; because,
beyond all dispute, it is the rash and ill-advised bachelor Samson
Carrasco, our fellow townsman."
At this moment he of the Mirrors came to himself, and Don Quixote
perceiving it, held the naked point of his sword over his face, and said
to him, "You are a dead man, knight, unless you confess that the peerless
Dulcinea del Toboso excels your Casildea de Vandalia in beauty; and in
addition to this you must promise, if you should survive this encounter
and fall, to go to the city of El Toboso and present yourself before her
on my behalf, that she deal with you according to her good pleasure; and
if she leaves you free to do yours, you are in like manner to return and
seek me out (for the trail of my mighty deeds will serve you as a guide
to lead you to where I may be), and tell me what may have passed between
you and her-conditions which, in accordance with what we stipulated
before our combat, do not transgress the just limits of knight-errantry."