The duke, as if he had been waked out of a sound sleep, recovered himself by degrees, as did the duchess and the rest of the company, who were lying prostrate in the garden, all of them acting the surprise and fear so naturally that the jest might have been believed earnest.  The duke with half-closed eyes read the scroll; then, embracing Don Quixote, extolled him as the bravest knight the earth had ever possessed.  As for Sancho, he was looking up and down for the Disconsolate Lady, to see what sort of a face she had got, without her beard.  But he was informed that as Clavileno came down flaming in the air, the whole squadron of women with Trifaldi vanished immediately, but all of them shaved and without a hair upon their faces.

The duchess asked Sancho how he had fared in his long voyage?  “Why, truly, madam,” answered he, “when, as my master told me, we were flying through the region of fire, I wished to uncover my eyes a little, but my master would not suffer me to do so; yet, as I have a spice of curiosity still hankering after what is forbidden me, I shoved my handkerchief a little above my nose and looked down, and, as it seemed, spied the earth no bigger than a mustard seed; and the men walking to and fro upon it not much larger than hazelnuts; by which you may see how high we had got!”—­“Have a care what you say, my friend,” said the duchess; “for if the men were bigger than hazelnuts, and the earth no bigger than a mustard seed, one man must cover the whole earth.”—­“Like enough,” answered Sancho; “but for all that, do you see, I saw it with a kind of a side look upon one part of it.”—­“Look you, Sancho,” replied the duchess, “nothing can be wholly seen by a partial view of it.”—­“Well, well, madam,” quoth Sancho, “I do not understand your views; I only know that as we flew by enchantment, so, by enchantment, I might see the whole earth, and all the men, which way soever I looked.  If you do not believe this, you will not believe me either when I tell you that when I looked between my brows, I saw myself so near heaven, that between me and it there was not a span and a half.  And, forsooth, it is a huge place! and we happened to travel that road where the seven she-goats are; and, faith and troth, I had such a mind to play with them (having been once a goatherd myself) that I should have burst, had I not done it.  What do I do then but slip down very soberly from Clavileno without telling a soul, and played and leaped about for three-quarters of an hour, with the pretty nanny-goats, who are like so many marigolds or gilly-flowers; and Clavileno stirred not one step all the while.”—­“And while Sancho employed himself with the goats,” asked the duke, “how was Don Quixote employed?”—­“Truly,” answered the knight, “I am sensible all things were altered from their natural course; therefore, what Sancho says seems no marvel to me.  But, for my own part, I saw nothing either above or below, neither heaven nor earth, sea nor shore.  I perceived,