alms they asked for in their song; and being, as Cide Hamete says, remarkably charitable, he took out of his alforjas the half loaf and half cheese he had been provided with, and gave them to them, explaining to them by signs that he had nothing else to give them. They received them very gladly, but exclaimed, “ Geld! Geld! ”
“I don’t understand what you want of me, good people,” said Sancho.
On this one of them took a purse out of his bosom and showed it to Sancho, by which he comprehended they were asking for money, and putting his thumb to his throat and spreading his hand upwards he gave them to understand that he had not the sign of a coin about him, and urging Dapple forward he broke through them. But as he was passing, one of them who had been examining him very closely rushed towards him, and flinging his arms round him exclaimed in a loud voice and good Spanish, “God bless me! What’s this I see? Is it possible that I hold in my arms my dear friend, my good neighbour Sancho Panza? But there’s no doubt about it, for I’m not asleep, nor am I drunk just now.”
Sancho was surprised to hear himself called by his name and find himself embraced by a foreign pilgrim, and after regarding him steadily without speaking he was still unable to recognise him; but the pilgrim perceiving his perplexity cried, “What! and is it possible, Sancho Panza, that thou dost not know thy neighbour Ricote, the Morisco shopkeeper of thy village?”
Sancho upon this looking at him more carefully began to recall his features, and at last recognised him perfectly, and without getting off the ass threw his arms round his neck saying, “Who the devil could have known thee, Ricote, in this mummer’s dress thou art in? Tell me, who has Frenchified thee, and how dost thou dare to return to Spain, where if they catch thee and recognise thee it will go hard enough with thee?”
“If thou dost not betray me, Sancho,” said the pilgrim, “I am safe; for in this dress no one will recognise me; but let us turn aside out of the road