Of the Shrewd Discourse Which Sancho Held with His Master, and of the Adventure That Befell Him with a Dead Body, Together with Other Notable Occurrences
NIGHT had fallen, yet they had discovered no place of refuge. Suddenly, in the darkness, they saw a number of lights that came closer and closer without their being able to make out what it was. Sancho commenced to shake like a leaf, and even Don Quixote was frightened and muttered a paternoster between his teeth while his hair stood on end. They withdrew to the roadside, from where they soon distinguished twenty bodies on horseback, all dressed in white shirts, and carrying lighted torches in their hands. With chattering teeth Sancho stared at this awe-inspiring procession, which was not yet at an end, for behind the mounted bodies there came others, these in black and on mule—back, and surrounding a bier, covered with a large black cloth. All the while a quiet, solemn mumbling came from the moving figures, and Sancho Panza was now so stricken with fear that he was almost paralyzed.
Don Quixote's courage—which likewise had been rather shaky at this passing of ghostlike beings, at such a time of the night—suddenly revived and mounted to such heights that he decided he would ask where they were carrying the wounded king on the bier. This he did without delay. But such a question seemed silly and out of place to one of the guardians of the corpse, and he commanded the knight to move on. This angered Don Quixote beyond measure. He seized the man's mule by the bridle; but this, in turn, annoyed the mule, which rose on its hind legs and flung its rider to the ground. Another man came up to Don Quixote and tried to talk reason to him, but to no avail, and in the disturbance that followed the procession was soon scattered over the fields and plains, with torches glimmering from all points like so many eyes in the black night.
While our knight errant was lunging with his spear in all directions, the meek followers of the dead body became ensnared in their skirts and gowns and long white shirts, and fell head over heels wherever they happened to be, in ditch or field. Moans, groans, and prayers were intermingled, and they all were convinced that the procession had been interrupted by the devil himself, come to carry away the body of the dead man.
When the battle had ceased, Don Quixote approached the man who was flung by his mule, to make him his prisoner. The poor man declared that Don Quixote had made a grave mistake; that the dead man was not a king and had not fallen in battle, but a gentleman who had died from fever; and he himself was a poor servant of the Holy Church who could harm no one. On hearing this confession Don Quixote made a slight apology for having mistaken him in the dark for something evil, if not for the very devil, explaining that since it was his sworn duty to right all wrongs, he had only set out to do so. But the worthy ecclesiastic was not easily appeased, and before making his departure, he unceremoniously excommunicated his attacker in flowing and flourishing Latin.
Sancho, moved by a desire to alleviate the sting of the outburst, called out after him: "If the gentleman should wish to know who was the hero who served them thus, your worship may tell them he is the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance."
Don Quixote asked his squire why he called him thus; and Sancho replied that the loss of his teeth had given his master a face so sorry looking that he could find no milder name to describe its ugliness. Don Quixote laughed at the compliment; nevertheless he decided to adopt Sancho's meaning name, and also to have his own rueful face commemorated on his shield at the first opportunity.
After this conversation Sancho persuaded his master to continue their journey; although Don Quixote was eager to view the bones of the deceased man, and Sancho had some difficulty in preventing him from doing so.
Sancho had made his coat into a sack and filled it with the provisions of the clergy; and so, when they arrived in a valley where they found an abundance of grass, they ate all the meals they had been missing. Their repast would have been complete had they had some wine; but they did not have even water.