midst of the sheep, and
commenced spearing right and left. The shepherds, panic-stricken, used
their slings. Stones hit his head and body, but it was not until a
large one struck him in the ribs that he imagined himself really
wounded. He stopped in the midst of the furious battle, and suddenly
remembering his flask of balsam, drew it out, put it to his mouth, and
was about to swallow a quantity of it when there came a stone that
took the flask out of his hand, and another one that smashed out three
or four of his teeth. Don Quixote was so astonished and the force of
the blow was so sudden that he lost his reins and fell backwards off
his horse. When the shepherds came up and saw what they had done to
him, they quickly gathered their flocks and hastened away, taking with
them the seven sheep that Don Quixote killed with his spear.

During this rampage, Sancho Panza was nearly beside himself where he
stood on the hill. He was tearing his hair and beard, wishing he had
never laid eyes on his master, and berating himself for ever having
joined in his mad adventures. When the shepherds had disappeared, he
ran to his master's side.

"Did I not tell your worship," he reproached the prostrate knight,
"that they were not armies, but droves of sheep!"

But again our hero blamed his misfortune on his arch-enemy, that
cursed Sage Friston, who had falsified the armies in such a way that
they looked like meek and harmless sheep. Then he begged his squire to
pursue the enemy by stealth that he might ascertain for himself that
what he had said was true; for he was sure that ere they had gone very
far they would resume their original shape.

However, before Sancho Panza had time to make up his mind whether to
go or not, his master's sip of the balsam during the battle suddenly
began to take effect, and Sancho's presence became for the moment a
necessity. Having gone through this ordeal, Don Quixote rose and asked
his squire for a remedy for hunger. It was then they discovered that
the _alforjas_ had disappeared, with all its precious contents. Both
were dejected. Don Quixote tried to impart, out of the abundance of
his optimism for the future, new hope to the discouraged Sancho. It
was a difficult task, and he might have failed, had not the loss of
his teeth and the sorry plight he was in made Sancho sway from his
intentions of home-going. When, at his master's request, the squire
put his finger in Don Quixote's mouth in order to l