The fair maiden approached her lover, and clasping his hand, she said: "Hadst thou given me this according to our compact thou hadst never come to this pass." And then the young lady told Don Vicente what she had heard; but he disavowed to her any intention to marry any one else but herself. Hearing this she broke down completely, flung herself upon his breast, and sobbed convulsively; and then she fainted.
When she came to, she found that her beloved one had passed away, and her grief then knew no bounds. Again and again she would be overcome by her feelings, and swoon so that they had to sprinkle water on her face. Roque was moved to tears, and so were the servants, and Claudia said that she would go into cloister for the rest of her life to atone for her sin. Roque approved of her decision, and offered to conduct her wherever she wished to go, but she declined his company, with many thanks, and bade him farewell in tears. Roque then directed the servants to take the body of Don Vicente to the dead man's father, and returned to his band.
He found Don Quixote addressing his men on lawlessness, but they seemed to be little impressed with his sermon. Soon afterward a sentinel came up to his captain, and reported that people were coming along on the road to Barcelona, and Roque, having made certain that they were not armed troops out to enforce the law and in search of bandits, gave order to capture the travelers and have them brought before him.
Here the outlaw revealed himself again to Don Quixote as a naturally kindly and tender-hearted man, for though the travelers possessed a good deal of money, he assessed them but one hundred and forty crowns. Of this money he gave the men of his band two crowns each; that left twenty crowns over, and this he divided between some pilgrims who were on their way to Rome and our worthy Sancho. The travelers were two captains of Spanish infantry, and some titled ladies; and the women felt so grateful to Roque for his generosity, and his unusual behavior and courtesy touched them so, that they wanted to kiss his hand, considering him in the light of a hero rather than a robber. Roque did not forget to give them a safe-conduct to the leaders of his bands, for there were many of them, operating all through that region.
One of Roque's men seemed dissatisfied with such leniency as he had seen displayed, and voiced his opinion rather too loudly, for the leader of the band heard it, and the offender's head was nearly cleft open in the next second. The captain turned to Don Quixote and remarked that that was the way he punished impudence; then he calmly sat down and wrote a letter to a friend of his in Barcelona, telling him of the early arrival there of the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, of whose exploits in knight-errantry the whole world knew; and, to be exact, he fixed Saint John the Baptist's day as the very day on which our knight would make his first appearance in the very midst of the city of Barcelona under the auspices of him to whom he addressed this letter, and who would be grateful for the infinite joy Don Quixote and his droll squire Sancho Panza would afford him and the city. He sent the letter by one of his trusted followers, who, disguised as a peasant, made his way into Barcelona and delivered the letter to the right person.
CHAPTER LXI
Of What Happened to Don Quixote on Entering Barcelona, Together With Other Matters That Partake of the True Rather Than the Ingenious
DON QUIXOTE remained with Roque for three days, and they were hectic days for our knight. Roque always slept apart from his men, for the viceroy of Barcelona had placed a great price on his head, and Roque was in constant fear that some one in his band would be tempted to deliver him up. On the fourth day he and Don Quixote, accompanied by Sancho and six of the band, made their way toward Barcelona; and on the night of St. John's Eve they reached the city. There Roque took farewell of the knight and his squire, and returned to his haunts in the woods.
Throughout the night Don Quixote-kept guard over the city; and there he was still sitting on Rocinante when dawn appeared on the horizon, and Don Quixote and Sancho Panza for the first time in their lives beheld the sea. It seemed to them it was ever so much greater than any of the lakes they had seen in La Mancha. As the sun rose it was suddenly greeted with the ringing of bells, the din of drums, the sound of clarions, and the trampling and clatter of feet on the streets; and from the galleys along the beach a mass of streamers in varied colors waved its welcome, to the music and the noise of bugles, clarions and trumpets from shipboard. Then cannons on ship and shore began to thunder, and a constant fire was kept up from the walls and fortress of the city. It was a noise and a spectacle that might have over-awed any one, even a less simple-minded person than Sancho, who stared open-mouthed at the wonders he beheld. He gasped when he saw the galleys rowed about by their oarsmen on the water, and he told his master he had never seen so many feet in his life. A troop of horsemen in extravagant liveries rode past them, where they were standing, and suddenly Don Quixote was startled by hearing some one call out in a loud voice: "Welcome to our city, mirror, beacon, star and cynosure of all knight-errantry in its widest extent! Welcome, I say, valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha! Not the false, the fictitious, the apocryphal one, but the true, the legitimate, the real one that Cid Hamet Benengeli, flower of historians, has described to us!"