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 Dap ple; 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 sun-set, 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 nearer yet, he observed among them a very fine lady upon a white pacing mare, in green trappings, and a saddle of cloth of silver. The lady herself was dressed in green, so rich and so gay that nothing could be finer. She rode with a goss-hawk on her left fist, by which Don Quixote judged her to be of quality, and mistress of the train that attended; as indeed she was. Thereupon calling to his squire, "Son Sancho," cried he, "run and tell that lady on the palfrey with the goss-hawk on her fist, that I, the Knight of the Lions, humbly salute her highness; and that if she pleases to give me leave, I should be proud to receive her commands, and have the ho

nour of waiting on her, and kissing her fair hands. But take special care, Sancho, how thou deliverest thy message, and be sure do not lard my compliments with any of thy proverbs."-" Why this to me ?" quoth Sancho. "Marry, you need not talk of larding, as if I had never went ambassador before to a high and mighty dame."-" I do not know that ever thou did'st," replied Don Quixote, "at least on my account, unless it were when I sent thee to Dulcinea."" It may be so," quoth Sancho; "but a good pay-master needs no surety; and where there is plenty, the guests cannot be empty. That is to say, I need none of your telling nor tutoring about that matter; for, as silly as I look, I know something of every thing."-" Well, well, I believe it," said Don Quixote. "Go then in a good hour, and heaven inspire and guide thee.”

Sancho put on, forcing Dapple from his old pace to a gallop; and, approaching the fair huntress, he alighted, and, falling on his knees, "Fair lady," quoth he," that knight yonder, called the Knight of the Lions, is my master; I am his squire, Sancho Panza by name. This same Knight of the Lions, who but the other day was called The Knight of the Woful Figure, has sent me to tell you, That so please your worship's grace to give him leave, with your good liking, to do as he has a mind, which, as he says, and as I believe, is only to serve your highflown beauty, and be your ternal vassal, you may chance to do a thing that would be for your own good, and he would take it for a hugeous kindness at your hands."

"Indeed, honest squire," said the lady, "you have acquitted yourself of your charge with all the graceful circumstances which such an embassy requires: Rise, pray rise, for it is by no means fit the squire to so great a knight, as The Knight of the Woful Figure, to whose name and merit we are no strangers, should remain on his knees. Rise then, and desire your master by all means to honour us with hisc ompany, that my Lord Duke and I may pay him our respects at a house we have hard by.”

Sancho got up, no less amazed at the lady's beauty than at her affability, but much more because she told him they were no strangers to his master, The Knight of the Woful Figure. Nor did he wonder why she did not call him by his title of Knight of the Lions, considering he had but lately assumed

it.

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Pray," said the duchess, whose particular title we do not yet know, "is not this master of yours the person, whose history came out in print, by the name of The Renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha,' the mistress of whose affections is a certain lady, called Dulcinea del Toboso ?"-" The very same, an't please your worship," said Sancho; "and that squire of his that is, or should be in the book, Sancho Panza by name, is my ownself, if I was not changed in my cradle; I mean changed in the press.'

"I am mighty glad to hear all this," said the duchess. "Go then, friend Panza, and tell your master, That I congratulate him upon his arrival in our territories, to which he is welcome; and as

sure him from me, that this is the most agreeable news I could possibly have heard."

Sancho, overjoyed with this gracious answer, returned to his master, to whom he repeated all that the great lady had said to him; praising to the skies, in his clownish phrase, her great beauty and courteous nature.

Don Quixote, pleased with this good beginning, seated himself handsomely in the saddle, fixed his toes in his stirrups, set the beaver of his helmet as he thought best became his face, roused up Rozinante's mettle, and with a graceful assurance moved forwards to kiss the duchess's hand. As soon as Sancho went from her, she sent for the duke, her husband, and gave him an account of Don Quixote's embassy. Thereupon they both attended his coming with a pleasant impatience; for, having read the first part of his history, they were no less desirous to be acquainted with his person; and resolved, as long as he staid with them, to give him his own way, and humour him in all things, treating him still with all the forms essential to the entertainment of a knighterrant; which they were the better able to do, having been much conversant with books of that kind.

And now Don Quixote drew nigh with his vizor up; and Sancho, seeing him offer to alight, made all the haste he could to be ready to hold his stirrup: But as ill-luck would have it, as he was throwing his leg over his pack-saddle to get off, he entangled his foot so strangely in the rope that served him instead of a stirrup, that not being able to get it out, he hung by the heel with his nose to the ground.