e sliced off his head as easily
as if it had been made of almond-paste. Master Pedro kept shouting, "Hold
hard! Senor Don Quixote! can't you see they're not real Moors you're
knocking down and killing and destroying, but only little pasteboard
figures! Look--sinner that I am!--how you're wrecking and ruining all
that I'm worth!" But in spite of this, Don Quixote did not leave off
discharging a continuous rain of cuts, slashes, downstrokes, and
backstrokes, and at length, in less than the space of two credos, he
brought the whole show to the ground, with all its fittings and figures
shivered and knocked to pieces, King Marsilio badly wounded, and the
Emperor Charlemagne with his crown and head split in two. The whole
audience was thrown into confusion, the ape fled to the roof of the inn,
the cousin was frightened, and even Sancho Panza himself was in mighty
fear, for, as he swore after the storm was over, he had never seen his
master in such a furious passion.

The complete destruction of the show being thus accomplished, Don Quixote
became a little calmer, said, "I wish I had here before me now all those
who do not or will not believe how useful knights-errant are in the
world; just think, if I had not been here present, what would have become
of the brave Don Gaiferos and the fair Melisendra! Depend upon it, by
this time those dogs would have overtaken them and inflicted some outrage
upon them. So, then, long live knight-errantry beyond everything living
on earth this day!"

"Let it live, and welcome," said Master Pedro at this in a feeble voice,
"and let me die, for I am so unfortunate that I can say with King Don
Rodrigo--

Yesterday was I lord of Spain
To-day I've not a turret left
That I may call mine own.

Not half an hour, nay, barely a minute ago, I saw myself lord of kings
and emperors, with my stables filled with countless horses, and my trunks
and bags with gay dresses unnumbered; and now I find myself ruined and
laid low, destitute and a beggar, and above all without my ape, for, by
my faith, my teeth will have to sweat for it before I have him caught;
and all through the reckless fury of sir knight here, who, they say,
protects the fatherless, and rights wrongs, and does other charitable
deeds; but whose generous intentions have been found wanting in my case
only, blessed and praised be the highest heavens! Verily, knight of the
rueful figure he must be to have disfigured mine."

Sancho Panza was to