Thereupon Sancho, advancing his hand very gingerly towards the left side of his neck, after he had groped a while, lifted up his head, and, staring in his master's face, "Look you, sir," quoth he, pulling out something, "either your rule is not worth this, or we are many a fair league from the place you spoke of." "How!" answered Don Quixote, "hast thou found something then, Sancho?" "Ay, marry have I," quoth Sancho, "and more things than one too." And so saying, he shook and snapped his fingers, and then washed his whole hand in the river, down whose stream the boat drove gently along, without being moved by any secret influence, or hidden enchantment, but only by the help of the current, hitherto calm and smooth.

By this time they descried two great water-mills in the middle of the river, which Don Quixote no sooner spied, but, calling to his squire, "Look, look, my Sancho!" cried he, "seest thou yon city or castle there? this is the place where some knight lies in distress, or some queen or princess is detained, for whose succor I am conveyed hither." "What a devil do you mean with your city or castle?" cried Sancho. "Body of me! sir, do not you see as plain as the nose on your face, they are nothing but water-mills, in the midst of the river, to grind corn?" "Peace, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, they look like water-mills, I grant you, but they are no such things. How often, have I not told thee already, do these magicians change and overturn every thing as they please? not that they can change their very being, but they disguise and alter the appearances of them; of which we have an in

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stance in the unhappy transformation of Dulcinea, the only refuge of my hope."

The boat being now got into the very strength of the stream, began to move less slowly than it did before. The people in the mills, perceiving the boat to come a-drift full upon the mill-wheels, came running out with their long poles to stop it; and, as their faces and clothes were powdered all over with meal-dust, they made a very odd appearance. "Soho! there," cried they as loud as they could bawl; "is the devil in the fellows? are ye mad in the boat there? hold! you will be drowned, or ground to pieces by the mill-wheels." Don Quixote, having cast his eyes upon the millers, "Did I not tell thee, Sancho," said he, "that we should arrive where I must exert the strength of my arm? Look what hang-dogs, what horrid wretches, come forth to make head against me! how many hobgoblins oppose my passage! do but see what deformed physiognomies they have! mere bugbears! But I shall make ye know, scoundrels, how insignificant all your efforts must prove." Then, standing up in the boat, he began to threaten the millers in a haughty tone. "Ye paltry slaves,” cried he, "base and ill-advised scum of the world, release instantly the captive person who is injuriously detained and oppressed within your castle or prison, be they of high or low degree; for I am Don Quixote de la Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the Lions, for whom the happy achievement of this adventure is reserved, by the decree of Heaven." This said, he unsheathed his sword, and began to fence with the air, as if he had been already engaging the mill

ers; who, hearing, but not understanding, his mad words, stood ready with their poles to stop the boat, which was now near the mill-dam, and just entering the rapid stream and narrow channel of the wheels.

In the mean time Sancho was devoutly fallen on his knees, praying heaven for a happy deliverance out of this mighty plunge but this one time. And indeed his prayers met with pretty good success; for the millers so bestirred themselves with their poles that they stopped the boat, yet not so cleverly but they overset it, tipping Don Quixote and Sancho over into the river. It was well for the knight that he could swim like a duck; and yet the weight of his armor sunk him twice to the bottom; and had it not been for the millers, who jumped into the water, and made a shift to pull out both the master and the man, in a manner craning them up, there had been an end of them both.

When they were both hauled ashore more overdrenched than thirsty, Sancho betook himself to his knees again, and, with uplifted hands and eyes, made a long and hearty prayer, that Heaven might keep him from this time forwards clear of his master's rash adventures.

And now came the fishermen who owned the boat, and, finding it broken to pieces, fell upon Sancho, and began to strip him, demanding satisfaction both of him and his master for the loss of their bark. The knight, with a great deal of gravity and unconcern, as if he had done no manner of harm, told both the millers and the fishermen, that he was ready to pay for the boat, provided they would fairly surrender the persons that were de

tained unjustly in their castle. "What persons, or what castle, you mad oaf?" said one of the millers. Marry guep, would you carry away the folk that come to grind their corn at our mills? "

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Well," said Don Quixote to himself, "man had as good preach to a stone wall, as to expect to persuade with entreaties such dregs of human kind to do a good and generous action. Two sage enchanters certainly clash in this adventure, and the one thwarts the other. One provided me a bark, the other overwhelmed me in it. Heaven send us better times! There is nothing but plotting and counterplotting, undermining and countermining in this world. Well, I can do no more." Then raising his voice, and casting a fixed eye on the water-mills," My dear friends," cried he, "whoever you are that are immured in this prison, pardon me I beseech ye; for so my ill fate and yours ordains, that I cannot free you from your confinement: the adventure is reserved for some other knight." This said, he came to an agreement with the fishermen, and ordered Sancho to pay them fifty reals for the boat. Sancho pulled out the money with a very ill will, and parted with it with a worse, muttering between his teeth, that two voyages like that would sink their whole stock.

The fishermen and the millers could not forbear admiring at two such figures of human offspring, that neither spoke nor acted like the rest of mankind; for they could not so much as guess what Don Quixote meant by all his extravagant speeches. So, taking them for madmen, they left them, and went the millers to their mills, and the fishermen to

their huts. Don Quixote and Sancho returned to their beasts like a couple of as senseless animals, and thus ended the adventure of the enchanted bark.

CHAPTER XXX.

WHAT HAPPENED TO DON QUIXOTE WITH THE FAIR HUNTRESS.

WITH wet bodies and melancholy minds, the knight and squire went back to Rozinante and Dapple; though Sancho was the more cast down, and out of sorts of the two; for it grieved him to the very soul to see the money dwindle, being as chary of that as of his heart's blood, or the apples of his eyes. To be short, to horse they went, without speaking one word to each other, and left the famous river; Don Quixote buried in his amorous thoughts, and Sancho in those of his preferment, which he thought far enough off yet; for as much a fool as he was he plainly perceived that all, or most of his master's actions, tended only to folly; therefore he but waited an opportunity to give him the slip and go home, without coming to any farther reckoning, or taking a formal leave. But fortune provided for him much better than he expected.

It happened that the next day about sunset, as they were coming out of a wood, Don Quixote cast his eyes round a verdant meadow, and at the farther end of it descried a company, whom, upon a nearer view, he judged to be persons of quality, that were taking the diversion of hawking. Approaching