"That is the truth," answered Don Quixote, "and there is no use in
troubling oneself about these matters of enchantment or being angry or
vexed at them, for as they are invisible and visionary we shall find no
one on whom to avenge ourselves, do what we may; rise, Sancho, if thou
canst, and call the alcaide of this fortress, and get him to give me a
little oil, wine, salt, and rosemary to make the salutiferous balsam, for
indeed I believe I have great need of it now, because I am losing much
blood from the wound that phantom gave me."
Sancho got up with pain enough in his bones, and went after the innkeeper
in the dark, and meeting the officer, who was looking to see what had
become of his enemy, he said to him, "Senor, whoever you are, do us the
favour and kindness to give us a little rosemary, oil, salt, and wine,
for it is wanted to cure one of the best knights-errant on earth, who
lies on yonder bed wounded by the hands of the enchanted Moor that is in
this inn."
When the officer heard him talk in this way, he took him for a man out of
his senses, and as day was now beginning to break, he opened the inn
gate, and calling the host, he told him what this good man wanted. The
host furnished him with what he required, and Sancho brought it to Don
Quixote, who, with his hand to his head, was bewailing the pain of the
blow of the lamp, which had done him no more harm than raising a couple
of rather large lumps, and what he fancied blood was only the sweat that
flowed from him in his sufferings during the late storm. To be brief, he
took the materials, of which he made a compound, mixing them all and
boiling them a good while until it seemed to him they had come to
perfection. He then asked for some vial to pour it into, and as there was
not one in the inn, he decided on putting it into a tin oil-bottle or
flask of which the host made him a free gift; and over the flask he
repeated more than eighty paternosters and as many more ave-marias,
salves, and credos, accompanying each word with a cross by way of
benediction, at all which there were present Sancho, the innkeeper, and
the cuadrillero; for the carrier was now peacefully engaged in attending
to the comfort of his mules.
This being accomplished, he felt anxious to make trial himself, on the
spot, of the virtue of this precious balsam, as he considered it, and so
he drank near a quart of what could not be put into the flask and
remained in the pigskin in which it had been boiled; but scarcely had he
done drinking when he began to vomit in such a way that nothing was left
in his stomach, and with the pangs and spasms of vomiting he broke into a
profuse sweat, on account of which he bade them cover him up and leave
him alone. They did so, and he lay sleeping more than three hours, at the
end of which he awoke and felt very great bodily relief and so much ease
from his bruises that he thought himself quite cured, and verily believed
he had hit upon the balsam of Fierabras; and that with this remedy he
might thenceforward, without any fear, face any kind of destruction,
battle, or combat, however perilous it might be.