with the greatest anxiety in the world,
came at last. They made their way at length in among some pleasant trees
that stood a little distance from the road, and there vacating
Rocinante's saddle and Dapple's pack-saddle, they stretched themselves
on the green grass and made their supper off Sancho's stores, and he,
making a powerful and flexible whip out of Dapple's halter and
headstall, retreated about twenty paces from his master among some beech
trees. Don Quixote, seeing him march off with such resolution and
spirit, said to him, "Take care, my friend, not to cut thyself to
pieces; allow the lashes to wait for one another, and do not be in so
great a hurry as to run thyself out of breath midway; I mean, do not lay
on so strenuously as to make thy life fail thee before thou hast reached
the desired number; and that thou mayest not lose by a card too much or
too little, I will station myself apart and count on my rosary here the
lashes thou givest thyself. May heaven help thee as thy good intention
deserves."

"'Pledges don't distress a good paymaster,'" said Sancho; "I mean to lay
on in such a way as without killing myself to hurt myself, for in that,
no doubt, lies the essence of this miracle."

He then stripped himself from the waist upwards, and snatching up the
rope he began to lay on and Don Quixote to count the lashes. He might
have given himself six or eight when he began to think the joke no
trifle, and its price very low; and holding his hand for a moment, he
told his master that he cried off on the score of a blind bargain, for
each of those lashes ought to be paid for at the rate of half a real
instead of a quarter.

"Go on, Sancho, my friend, and be not disheartened," said Don Quixote;
"for I double the stakes as to price."

"In that case," said Sancho, "in God's hand be it, and let it rain
lashes." But the rogue no longer laid them on his shoulders, but laid on
to the trees, with such groans every now and then, that one would have
thought at each of them his soul was being plucked up by the roots. Don
Quixote, touched to the heart, and fearing he might make an end of
himself, and that through Sancho's imprudence he might miss his own
object, said to him, "As thou livest, my friend, let the matter rest
where it is, for the remedy seems to me a very rough one, and it will be
well to have patience; Rome was not built in a day. If I have not
reckoned wrong thou hast given thyself over a thousand lashes;