“As my fate has so willed it,” said the bachelor, “I entreat you, sir knight-errant, whose errand has been such an evil one for me, to help me to get from under this mule that holds one of my legs caught between the stirrup and the saddle.”
“I would have talked on till tomorrow,” said Don Quixote; “how long were you going to wait before telling me of your distress?”
He at once called to Sancho, who, however, had no mind to come, as he was just then engaged in unloading a sumpter mule, well laden with provender, which these worthy gentlemen had brought with them.
Sancho made a bag of his coat, and, getting together as much as he could, and as the bag would hold, he loaded his beast, and then hastened to obey his master’s call, and helped him to remove the bachelor from under the mule; then putting him on her back he gave him the torch, and Don Quixote bade him follow the track of his companions, and beg pardon of them on his part for the wrong which he could not help doing them.
And said Sancho, “If by chance these gentlemen should want to know who was the hero that served them so, your worship may tell them that he is the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.”
The bachelor then took his departure.
I forgot to mention that before he did so he said to Don Quixote, “Remember that you stand excommunicated for having laid violent hands on a holy thing, juxta illud, si quis, suadente diabolo .”
“I do not understand that Latin,” answered Don Quixote, “but I know well I did not lay hands, only this pike; besides, I did not think I was committing an assault upon priests or things of the Church, which, like