o engage them all in battle and
slay them; for this is righteous warfare. It is serving God to sweep
so evil a breed from off the face of the earth!"

"What giants?" asked Sancho curiously.

"Those with the long arms," replied Don Quixote.

"But, your worship," said Sancho, "those are not giants but windmills,
and what seem to be their arms are the sails that make the millstones
go."

Hearing his squire make such a foolish remark, Don Quixote could not
quite make up his mind whether it was through ignorance, inexperience
in the pursuit of adventure, or cowardice, that he spoke like that. So
he suggested Sancho would better stay away and pray while he, Don
Quixote, fought the giants single-handed. The honor of conquering in
such an unequal combat would be so much greater for him, he thought,
if he won victory all by himself.

Don Quixote made ready for the attack by commending himself to his
Lady Dulcinea, and then he gave the spur to Rocinante in spite of the
pleas and outcries of Sancho Panza. Just at this moment a breeze began
to blow and the sails of the windmills commenced to move. The knight
charged at his hack's fullest gallop, drove his spear with such force
into one of the sails that the spear was shattered to pieces while the
poor knight fell over the pommel of his saddle, head over heels in the
air, and Rocinante fell stunned to the ground. There they rolled
together on the plain, in a battered and bruised condition.

Sancho hurried to his master's side as fast as his donkey could carry
him. He was worried beyond words, for he expected to find Don Quixote
well nigh dead, and he was not bent on giving up all hopes of
governing an island, at so early a stage. The misguided knight was
unable to move. Nevertheless Sancho Panza could not resist the impulse
to reprimand his master. "Did I not tell your worship so!" he
admonished. But Don Quixote would hear nothing, answering in a
sportsmanlike fashion:

"Hush, friend Sancho! The fortunes of war fluctuate, that's all." And
then he added his suspicion that the same Sage Friston, the magician
who had carried off his room of books, had turned the giants into
windmills so that he would be unable to boast of having conquered
them--all out of sheer envy and thirst for vengeance. What he most
bewailed, however, was the loss of his lance.

With much difficulty Sancho succeeded in placing Don Quixote on his
horse, and they proceeded on their way, following the road