“Thou art right,” said Don Quixote, “and
in the same way thou mayest carry thy barber with
thee, for customs did not come into use all together,
nor were they all invented at once, and thou mayest
be the first count to have a barber to follow him;
and, indeed, shaving one’s beard is a greater
trust than saddling one’s horse.”
“Let the barber business be my look-out,”
said Sancho; “and your worship’s be it
to strive to become a king, and make me a count.”
“So it shall be,” answered Don Quixote,
and raising his eyes he saw what will be told in the
following chapter.
OF THE FREEDOM DON QUIXOTE CONFERRED ON SEVERAL UNFORTUNATES WHO AGAINST
THEIR WILL WERE BEING CARRIED WHERE THEY HAD NO WISH TO GO
Cide Hamete Benengeli, the Arab and Manchegan author,
relates in this most grave, high-sounding, minute,
delightful, and original history that after the discussion
between the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha and his
squire Sancho Panza which is set down at the end of
chapter twenty-one, Don Quixote raised his eyes and
saw coming along the road he was following some dozen
men on foot strung together by the neck, like beads,
on a great iron chain, and all with manacles on their
hands. With them there came also two men on horseback
and two on foot; those on horseback with wheel-lock
muskets, those on foot with javelins and swords, and
as soon as Sancho saw them he said:
“That is a chain of galley slaves, on the way
to the galleys by force of the king’s orders.”
“How by force?” asked Don Quixote; “is
it possible that the king uses force against anyone?”
“I do not say that,” answered Sancho,
“but that these are people condemned for their
crimes to serve by force in the king’s galleys.”
“In fact,” replied Don Quixote, “however
it may be, these people are going where they are taking
them by force, and not of their own will.”
“Just so,” said Sancho.
“Then if so,” said Don Quixote, “here
is a case for the exercise of my office, to put down
force and to succour and help the wretched.”
“Recollect, your worship,” said Sancho,
“Justice, which is the king himself, is not
using force or doing wrong to such persons, but punishing
them for their crimes.”
The chain of galley slaves had by this time come up,
and Don Quixote in very courteous language asked those
who were in custody of it to be good enough to tell
him the reason or reasons for which they were conducting
these people in this manner. One of the guards
on horseback answered that they were galley slaves
belonging to his majesty, that they were going to
the galleys, and that was all that was to be said and
all he had any business to know.
“Nevertheless,” replied Don Quixote, “I
should like to know from each of them separately the
reason of his misfortune;” to this he added more
to the same effect to induce them to tell him what
he wanted so civilly that the other mounted guard
said to him:
