Sancho inflict the
meager amount of three or four hundred lashes upon himself; but as
ever the cruel squire remained unmoved. Don Quixote did everything in
his power to entice him to do this beautiful deed of sacrifice. He
held forth to him what a blessed night it would be for them, if he
would only comply with his master's request, for then, Don Quixote
suggested, they could spend the remainder of it singing, thus making
this the beginning of the pastoral life to which they were about to
devote themselves. But Sancho said he was no monk; and the idea of
getting up in the middle of the night to perform such rituals did not
appeal to him, he frankly avowed. The bewailings of his master, both
in Castilian and in Latin, made no impression upon the hard-hearted
Sancho, who remained as firm as the rock of Gibraltar, as far as the
disenchantment was concerned.

Don Quixote had just made up his mind that it was a useless task to
try to prevail upon Sancho at that hour to do his duty, when suddenly
there was heard a tremendous and terrifying noise, which increased as
it seemed to come closer. Sancho was so frightened that he at once
took refuge behind Dapple, entrenching himself between the pack-saddle
and his master's discarded armor; and Don Quixote got palpitation of
the heart, and began to shiver. As Sancho peeped from behind his
entrenchments and Don Quixote took courage to look, the grunting drove
of six hundred pigs--for that is what it was--was so close upon them
that in the next moment they found themselves knocked to the ground;
but it was some time before all of the snorting, disrespectful animals
had passed their dirty feet over the prostrate bodies of the knight,
his squire and their beasts and provisions.

Sancho rose first, smeared with dirt, and having been stirred to
unusual depths by the condition in which he found himself, he begged
his master to let him take his sword, saying he felt he had to kill
some of the pigs in order to be soothed. The exceedingly bad manners
they had displayed and especially the fact that they had crushed all
the provisions into nothingness, had produced an ire in Sancho that
seemed wellnigh irrepressible.

But Don Quixote calmed his squire with these words, spoken with a
melancholy air: "Let them be, my friend. This insult is the penalty of
my sin, and it is the righteous chastisement of Heaven that jackals
should devour a vanquished knight, and wasps sting him and pigs
trample