The End of This Protracted Adventure
DON QUIXOTE was in a state of anxiety during the whole day for fear that Malambruno should not send the steed, but soon after nightfall there arrived in the garden four wild-men, clad in ivy, and carrying on their shoulders a large wooden horse. Don Quixote was summoned by the Distressed Duenna and he mounted the horse at once, not even putting on his spurs. By this time, however, Sancho had changed his mind and decided that he was not going to fly through the air like a witch. But upon the earnest and courteous solicitations of the Duke, Sancho at last consented to ride with his master.
Don Quixote begged Sancho to give himself five hundred lashes on behalf of his enchanted Dulcinea before they set off; but this request struck the squire as the absurdest one he had ever heard. How could his master expect him to sit on a hard wooden horse while he was all bruised and sore from the lashes? He did promise solemnly, however, that as soon as the duennas had been shaved he would turn to the fulfilling of the other debt.
The Distressed Duenna blindfolded them, saying that doing so would prevent them from getting dizzy when they rose to great heights; and Sancho, trembling and tearful, complained that the croup was too hard and begged for a cushion. But the duenna answered him that the magic steed permitted no trappings of any kind, and she suggested that he place himself sideways like a woman, for no doubt he would feel the hardness less in that position.
Sancho did so; and then he uncovered his eyes and looked in a tender fashion on those he was leaving behind, and began to cry piteously. Don Quixote told him sharply to cover his eyes again and not to act like a fool and a coward; and his squire did as he was bidden, after having commended himself to God and begged the duennas to pray all the paternosters and ave-marias they could for him. They in turn admonished him to stick tight to the croup and not to lose hold of it, warning him that if he fell, he would fall like a planet and be blinded by all the stars he would meet on his way down to Earth.
Sobbing, Sancho clung to his master, embracing him with his fat arms so tightly that Don Quixote came near being upset. The knight took a firm grip on the steering peg, and reprimanded his squire for squeezing him. He told him there was nothing to worry about, for it seemed to him he had never in his life ridden a steed that was so easy-going: one would hardly think they had budged from their original place, he said. When Sancho had calmed himself, he concurred in this opinion. He had never heard that there were people living in the air, and did he not hear voices quite close to his ears? Don Quixote then had to explain that affairs of this sort were not of the every-day kind, and that whenever one went on a trip like this, the voices from the Earth would reach thousands of leagues away.
Scarcely had Don Quixote said this, before a gust of wind came that threatened to unseat both the knight and his squire. (The fact was that it was the draught from a tremendous pair of bellows which the Duke had had unearthed for the occasion.) Sancho was shaking in his seat, and Don Quixote warned him again to sit still, for they were in danger of having a runaway straight into the regions of air and thunder, and then into the region of fire. He feared he might not get the steed to turn before it was too late, he said; for it seemed as if the machinery of the peg were rather intricate, and did not work quickly.
Suddenly Sancho began to yell that they were already lost in the flames, and would be burned to death. (He felt his beard being singed by a torch. It was one of a great number that the majordomo had provided.) Don Quixote, too, felt his face warm up. But he would not permit Sancho to uncover his eyes; if he did, the knight said he would only be seized with giddiness and both of them would fall off their horse. Besides, he comforted Sancho with the thought that the journey would last only a few moments longer, and that they were now passing a final test before landing in the kingdom of Kandy. Don Quixote added that the distance they had traveled must have been tremendous, and Sancho replied: "All I know is that if the Señora Magallanes or Magalona was satisfied with this croup, she could not have been very tender of flesh."
At this moment came the culmination of their journey through the air. A torch was tied to the tail of the steed, which was stuffed with fire-crackers, and suddenly there was a tremendous noise and a flash, and in the next moment Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, both scorched, lay as if thunderstruck on the ground.
When the knight and his squire finally came to, and looked about, they were aghast at what they saw. The ground was strewn with bodies, but the bearded duennas were gone. Planted in the ground they saw a lance, attached to which they found a parchment which proclaimed that the enchantment of the duennas and of the Don and his royal bride was at an end, and that as soon as the squire Sancho Panza deigned to carry out the flogging he was to give himself, the peerless Dulcinea would appear in all her original beauty again.
Now the Duke and the Duchess, who were among the bodies lying on the ground, seemingly dead, lifted up their heads, as if just coming out of a long sleep; and Don Quixote hastened to tell them of the great miracle that had befallen him. They were both convulsed with laughter—which Don Quixote mistook for emotion—and when he had finished telling them about his marvelous adventure, they had all they could do to reply. The Duke finally gathered enough strength to embrace him and tell him that he was no doubt the greatest knight the world had ever known.
The Duchess was curious to know how Sancho had enjoyed the trip; and he confessed that in spite of his master's command he had peered from underneath the kerchief before his eyes, and had seen the earth below, and that the people seemed as little as hazelnuts and the earth itself looked like a grain of mustard-seed; and when he passed through the region of fire he had seen the goats of heaven, he said.