all the duennas and all who stood by lifted up their
voices exclaiming, "God guide thee, valiant knight! God be with thee,
intrepid squire! Now, now ye go cleaving the air more swiftly than an
arrow! Now ye begin to amaze and astonish all who are gazing at you from
the earth! Take care not to wobble about, valiant Sancho! Mind thou fall
not, for thy fall will be worse than that rash youth's who tried to
steer the chariot of his father the Sun!"[472-5]

As Sancho heard the voices, clinging tightly to his master and winding
his arms round him, he said, "Senor, how do they make out we are going
up so high, if their voices reach us here and they seem to be speaking
quite close to us?"

"Don't mind that, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for as affairs of this
sort and flights like this are out of the common course of things, you
can see and hear as much as you like a thousand leagues off; but don't
squeeze me so tight or thou wilt upset me; and really I know not what
thou hast to be uneasy or frightened at, for I can safely swear I never
mounted a smoother-going steed all the days of my life; one would fancy
we never stirred from one place. Banish fear, my friend, for indeed
everything is going as it ought, and we have the wind astern."

"That's true," said Sancho, "for such a strong wind comes against me on
this side, that it seems as if the people were blowing on me with a
thousand pair of bellows;" which was the case; they were puffing at him
with a great pair of bellows; for the whole adventure was so well
planned by the duke, the duchess, and their majordomo, that nothing was
omitted to make it perfectly successful.

Don Quixote now, feeling the blast, said, "Beyond a doubt, Sancho, we
must have already reached the second region of the air, where the hail
and snow are generated; the thunder, the lightning, and the thunderbolts
are engendered in the third region, and if we go on ascending at this
rate, we shall shortly plunge into the region of fire, and I know not
how to regulate this peg, so as not to mount up where we shall be
burned."

And now they began to warm their faces, from a distance, with tow that
could easily be set on fire and extinguished again, fixed on the end of
a cane.

On feeling the heat Sancho said, "May I die if we are not already in
that fire place, or very near it, for a good part of my beard has been
singed, and I have a mind, senor, to uncover and see whereabouts we
are."

"Do nothing of th