“The fact is,” continued Sancho, “that, as your worship knows better than I do, we are all of us liable to death, and today we are, and tomorrow we are not, and the lamb goes as soon as the sheep, 503 and nobody can promise himself more hours of life in this world than God may be pleased to give him; for death is deaf, and when it comes to knock at our life’s door, it is always urgent, and neither prayers, nor struggles, nor sceptres, nor mitres, can keep it back, as common talk and report say, and as they tell us from the pulpits every day.”

“All that is very true,” said Don Quixote; “but I cannot make out what thou art driving at.”