the path of
virtue. As soon as the fair maiden heard her mistress speak thus,
however, she assured her that there was no longer any need of her being
worked to death in order to divert her thought from the person of our
knight errant, for his cruelty to her had been such that the very thought
of that had now blotted him out of her memory forever. And, pretending to
wipe a tear from her eye, she made a curtsy to the Duchess and left the
chamber.

It was now time for dinner, and soon afterward Don Quixote, having
dined with the Duke and the Duchess, made his departure from the
castle with Sancho, and started again for his home.

CHAPTER LXXI

OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO ON
THE WAY TO THEIR VILLAGE

Don Quixote and Sancho traveled along, both in a state of depression.
Don Quixote was sad because he had been forced to give up the glories
of knight-errantry and chivalry; Sancho because Altisidora had not
kept her word when she promised to give him the smocks. To Sancho it
seemed a terrible injustice that physicians should be paid even if
their patients died, and here he had brought back a human being from
the dead, and was being rewarded in this ungrateful manner!

But Don Quixote's sadness was suddenly brightened by a hope that he
might at last be able to prevail upon Sancho to bring about the
disenchantment of Dulcinea. Knowing Sancho's covetousness, he offered
him money as a bribe. Now Sancho became interested, and consented,
for the love of his wife and children, to whip himself at a price of a
quarter-real a lash, generously throwing the five lashes he had
already given himself into the bargain.

"O blessed Sancho! O dear Sancho!" exclaimed Don Quixote. "How we
shall be bound to serve thee, Dulcinea and I, all the days of our
lives that Heaven may grant us! But look here, Sancho: when wilt thou
begin the scourging? For if thou wilt make short work of it, I will
give thee a hundred reals over and above."

Sancho swore that he would begin the scourging that very night, and
begged his master that he arrange it so that they spend the night in
the open.

Night came at last, and when they had supped, Sancho proceeded to make
a sturdy whip out of Dapple's halter. When he had finished this task
he made off for a distant part of the woods. He left his master with
such a determined look in his eyes that Don Quixote thought it best to
warn him not to go too fast but to take a breathi