mind and decided that he was not going to fly through the air like a
witch. But upon the earnest and courteous solicitations of the Duke,
Sancho at last consented to ride with his master.

Don Quixote begged Sancho to give himself five hundred lashes on
behalf of his enchanted Dulcinea before they set off; but this request
struck the squire as the absurdest one he had ever heard. How could
his master expect him to sit on a hard wooden horse while he was all
bruised and sore from the lashes? He did promise solemnly, however,
that as soon as the duennas had been shaved he would turn to the
fulfilling of the other debt.

The Distressed Duenna blindfolded them, saying that doing so would
prevent them from getting dizzy when they rose to great heights; and
Sancho, trembling and tearful, complained that the croup was too hard
and begged for a cushion. But the duenna answered him that the magic
steed permitted no trappings of any kind, and she suggested that he
place himself sideways like a woman, for no doubt he would feel the
hardness less in that position.

Sancho did so; and then he uncovered his eyes and looked in a tender
fashion on those he was leaving behind, and began to cry piteously.
Don Quixote told him sharply to cover his eyes again and not to act
like a fool and a coward; and his squire did as he was bidden, after
having commended himself to God and begged the duennas to pray all the
paternosters and ave-marias they could for him. They in turn
admonished him to stick tight to the croup and not to lose hold of it,
warning him that if he fell, he would fall like a planet and be
blinded by all the stars he would meet on his way down to Earth.

Sobbing, Sancho clung to his master, embracing him with his fat arms
so tightly that Don Quixote came near being upset. The knight took a
firm grip on the steering peg, and reprimanded his squire for
squeezing him. He told him there was nothing to worry about, for it
seemed to him he had never in his life ridden a steed that was so
easy-going: one would hardly think they had budged from their original
place, he said. When Sancho had calmed himself, he concurred in this
opinion. He had never heard that there were people living in the air,
and did he not hear voices quite close to his ears? Don Quixote then
had to explain that affairs of this sort were not of the every-day
kind, and that whenever one went on a trip like this, the voices from
the Earth would reach thousands