Don Quixote - Part II - Page 95/129

"By the life of my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, but it is curds thou hast

put here, thou treacherous, impudent, ill-mannered squire!"

To which, with great composure and pretended innocence, Sancho replied,

"If they are curds let me have them, your worship, and I'll eat them; but

let the devil eat them, for it must have been he who put them there. I

dare to dirty your helmet! You have guessed the offender finely! Faith,

sir, by the light God gives me, it seems I must have enchanters too, that

persecute me as a creature and limb of your worship, and they must have

put that nastiness there in order to provoke your patience to anger, and

make you baste my ribs as you are wont to do. Well, this time, indeed,

they have missed their aim, for I trust to my master's good sense to see

that I have got no curds or milk, or anything of the sort; and that if I

had it is in my stomach I would put it and not in the helmet."

"May be so," said Don Quixote. All this the gentleman was observing, and

with astonishment, more especially when, after having wiped himself

clean, his head, face, beard, and helmet, Don Quixote put it on, and

settling himself firmly in his stirrups, easing his sword in the

scabbard, and grasping his lance, he cried, "Now, come who will, here am

I, ready to try conclusions with Satan himself in person!"

By this time the cart with the flags had come up, unattended by anyone

except the carter on a mule, and a man sitting in front. Don Quixote

planted himself before it and said, "Whither are you going, brothers?

What cart is this? What have you got in it? What flags are those?"

To this the carter replied, "The cart is mine; what is in it is a pair of

wild caged lions, which the governor of Oran is sending to court as a

present to his Majesty; and the flags are our lord the King's, to show

that what is here is his property."

"And are the lions large?" asked Don Quixote.

"So large," replied the man who sat at the door of the cart, "that

larger, or as large, have never crossed from Africa to Spain; I am the

keeper, and I have brought over others, but never any like these. They

are male and female; the male is in that first cage and the female in the

one behind, and they are hungry now, for they have eaten nothing to-day,

so let your worship stand aside, for we must make haste to the place

where we are to feed them."