n the contrary, I have heard say," said Don Quixote, "that he who sings
scares away his woes."

"Here it is the reverse," said the galley slave; "for he who sings once
weeps all his life."

"I do not understand it," said Don Quixote; but one of the guards said to
him, "Sir, to sing under suffering means with the non sancta fraternity
to confess under torture; they put this sinner to the torture and he
confessed his crime, which was being a cuatrero, that is a
cattle-stealer, and on his confession they sentenced him to six years in
the galleys, besides two bundred lashes that he has already had on the
back; and he is always dejected and downcast because the other thieves
that were left behind and that march here ill-treat, and snub, and jeer,
and despise him for confessing and not having spirit enough to say nay;
for, say they, 'nay' has no more letters in it than 'yea,' and a culprit
is well off when life or death with him depends on his own tongue and not
on that of witnesses or evidence; and to my thinking they are not very
far out."

"And I think so too," answered Don Quixote; then passing on to the third
he asked him what he had asked the others, and the man answered very
readily and unconcernedly, "I am going for five years to their ladyships
the gurapas for the want of ten ducats."

"I will give twenty with pleasure to get you out of that trouble," said
Don Quixote.

"That," said the galley slave, "is like a man having money at sea when he
is dying of hunger and has no way of buying what he wants; I say so
because if at the right time I had had those twenty ducats that your
worship now offers me, I would have greased the notary's pen and
freshened up the attorney's wit with them, so that to-day I should be in
the middle of the plaza of the Zocodover at Toledo, and not on this road
coupled like a greyhound. But God is great; patience--there, that's
enough of it."

Don Quixote passed on to the fourth, a man of venerable aspect with a
white beard falling below his breast, who on hearing himself asked the
reason of his being there began to weep without answering a word, but the
fifth acted as his tongue and said, "This worthy man is going to the
galleys for four years, after having gone the rounds in ceremony and on
horseback."

"That means," said Sancho Panza, "as I take it, to have been exposed to
shame in public."

"Just so," replied the galley slave, "and the offence for which they gave
him that punishm