"SOVEREIGN LADY,
"The sere wounded one, O sweetest Dulcinea of Toboso, sends thee the health which he wants himself. If thy beauty disdain me, I cannot live. My good Squire Sancho will give thee ample account, O ungrateful fair one, of the penance I do for love of thee. Should it be thy pleasure to favour me, I am thine. If not, by ending my life I shall satisfy both thy cruelty and my desires.
"Thine until death,
"KNIGHT OF THE RUEFUL COUNTENANCE."
"By my father's life," said Sancho, "it is the noblest thing that ever I heard in my life; and now will your worship write the order for the three ass-colts?"
"With pleasure," answered Don Quixote, and he did as he was desired.
"And now," said Sancho, "let me saddle Rozinante and be off. For I intend to start without waiting to see those mad pranks your worship is going to play. There is one thing I am afraid of, though, and that is, that on my return I shall not be able to find the place where I leave you, it is so wild and difficult."
"Take the marks well, and when thou shouldst return I will mount to the tops of the highest rocks. Also it will be well to cut down some boughs and strew them after you as you go, that they may serve as marks to find your way back."
Sancho did this, and, not heeding his master's request to stay and see him go through some mad tricks in order that he might describe them to Dulcinea, he mounted Rozinante and rode away.
He had not got more than a hundred paces when he returned and said: "Sir, what you said was true, and it would be better for my conscience if I saw the follies you are about to do before I describe them to your lady."
"Did I not tell thee so?" said Don Quixote; "wait but a minute."
Then stripping himself in all haste of most of his clothes, Don Quixote began cutting capers and turning somersaults in his shirt tails, until even Sancho was satisfied that he might truthfully tell the Lady Dulcinea that her lover was mad, and so, turning away, he started in good earnest upon his journey.