Of the Freedom Don Quixote Conferred on Several Unfortunates Who Against Their Will Were Being Carried Where They Had No Wish to Go
HARDLY had they finished their conversation, when a gang of convicts came along on the road, guarded by two men on horseback and two on foot.
"Galley-slaves," remarked Sancho Panza laconically.
"If they are going against their own free will, it is a case for the exercise of my office," answered Don Quixote.
He approached their custodians and asked to know what crimes these men had committed against his majesty the King. They answered it was not his business.
"Nevertheless, I should like to know," insisted Don Quixote, and he used such choice and magic language that one of the guards was induced to give him permission to ask each one of the men about his crime and sentence.
Don Quixote had questioned every one but the twelfth, and when he came to him he found that he was chained in a way different from the rest. This prisoner was a man of thirty, and crossed-eyed. His body was weighted down by very large irons and especially heavy chains, his hands were padlocked and so secured he could not raise them. Don Quixote asked why he was thus overburdened, and got the reply that he had committed more crimes than all the rest together. The guard then told the knight that the man had written a story of his unfinished life, and that he was no other than the famous Gines de Pasamonte. The culprit strongly objected to hearing his identity mentioned, and there ensued a furious battle of words between him and the guard. The latter lost his temper and was about to strike the slave a blow, when Don Quixote interfered, and pleaded for more kindly treatment. It seemed only fair to him that they, with their hands tied, might be permitted a free tongue. He grew fiery in his defense of them, reminded the guard that there was a God in heaven who would punish all sinners. He ended by requesting their immediate release.
This demand seemed worse than absurd to the guard, who wished him godspeed on his journey, advised him to put the basin straight on his head, and told him not to go looking for trouble. This was too much for our knight. He set upon his jesting adversary with such speed and suddenness that the musket fell out of the guard's hand. And the other guards were so taken aback at what was going on, and there was such confusion, that they did not notice Sancho untying the arch-criminal Gines. They suddenly saw him free, and with him the rest of the slaves, who had broken the chain; whereupon the guards fled in all directions as fast as their legs could carry them.
When the fray was over, Don Quixote asked the galley-slaves to gather around him, and to show him reverence for the deed he had done. He further demanded that they, armed with their chains, proceed in a body, to El Toboso to pay their respects to the fair Dulcinea. Gines attempted to explain the necessity of each one hiding himself, separately, in order to escape the pursuers, and offered to send up prayers for her instead; but Don Quixote would not listen to any argument. At last Gines decided he was quite mad, and when Don Quixote started to abuse him, he lost his temper, and they all attacked the knight with a rain of stones, until Rocinante and he both fell to the ground. There they belabored him savagely. Sancho had taken refuge behind his donkey, but the convicts found him, stripped him of his jacket, and left him shivering in the cold.
While Don Quixote lay there, fearing the vengeance of the law and the Holy Brotherhood for what he had done, he was also reviewing in rage the ingratitude of mankind and the perversity of the iron age.