Cardenio was looking at him steadily, and his mad
fit having now come upon him, he had no disposition
to go on with his story, nor would Don Quixote have
listened to it, so much had what he had heard about
Madasima disgusted him. Strange to say, he stood
up for her as if she were in earnest his veritable
born lady; to such a pass had his unholy books brought
him. Cardenio, then, being, as I said, now mad,
when he heard himself given the lie, and called a
scoundrel and other insulting names, not relishing
the jest, snatched up a stone that he found near him,
and with it delivered such a blow on Don Quixote’s
breast that he laid him on his back. Sancho Panza,
seeing his master treated in this fashion, attacked
the madman with his closed fist; but the Ragged One
received him in such a way that with a blow of his
fist he stretched him at his feet, and then mounting
upon him crushed his ribs to his own satisfaction;
the goatherd, who came to the rescue, shared the same
fate; and having beaten and pummelled them all he
left them and quietly withdrew to his hiding-place
on the mountain. Sancho rose, and with the rage
he felt at finding himself so belaboured without deserving
it, ran to take vengeance on the goatherd, accusing
him of not giving them warning that this man was at
times taken with a mad fit, for if they had known it
they would have been on their guard to protect themselves.
The goatherd replied that he had said so, and that
if he had not heard him, that was no fault of his.
Sancho retorted, and the goatherd rejoined, and the
altercation ended in their seizing each other by the
beard, and exchanging such fisticuffs that if Don
Quixote had not made peace between them, they would
have knocked one another to pieces.
“Leave me alone, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance,”
said Sancho, grappling with the goatherd, “for
of this fellow, who is a clown like myself, and no
dubbed knight, I can safely take satisfaction for the
affront he has offered me, fighting with him hand to
hand like an honest man.”
“That is true,” said Don Quixote, “but
I know that he is not to blame for what has happened.”
With this he pacified them, and again asked the goatherd
if it would be possible to find Cardenio, as he felt
the greatest anxiety to know the end of his story.
The goatherd told him, as he had told him before, that
there was no knowing of a certainty where his lair
was; but that if he wandered about much in that neighbourhood
he could not fail to fall in with him either in or
out of his senses.
CHAPTER XXV.
WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE STOUT KNIGHT OF
LA MANCHA IN THE SIERRA MORENA, AND OF HIS IMITATION OF THE PENANCE OF
BELTENEBROS
Don Quixote took leave of the goatherd, and once more
mounting Rocinante bade Sancho follow him, which he
having no ass, did very discontentedly. They
proceeded slowly, making their way into the most rugged
part of the mountain, Sancho all the while dying to
have a talk with his master, and longing for him to
begin, so that there should be no breach of the injunction
laid upon him; but unable to keep silence so long he
said to him:
