The landlord, cursing his luck, swore that this time the knight errant and his squire should not escape without paying. But Don Quixote, whose hand the curate was holding in an endeavor to calm him, merely fell on his knees before the curate, exclaiming: "Exalted and beautiful Princess! Your Highness may now live in peace; for I have slain the giant!" He imagined that he was at the feet of Micomicona. Soon after having spoken thus, he showed signs of great weariness, and the curate, the barber and Cardenio carried him to his bed, where he fell asleep.
Next they had to console Sancho, who was grief-stricken because he had been unable to find the giant's head. He swore he had seen it falling when his master cut it off, and imagined that if it could not be produced there would be no reward for either him or his master; but Dorothea, in her rôle of Princess, calmed and comforted him.
All this time the innkeeper's wife was crying about the ox-tail, which, she said, had lost its usefulness after having served as beard, and the innkeeper was demanding that he be paid for the spilt wine and other losses. The curate assured them that he himself would see to it that they were reimbursed for everything; and when the excitement in the inn had simmered down, and everybody had gathered again in the room where they had heard the curate read from "Ill-Advised Curiosity," he was asked to resume the reading. This he did; and they all thought it a very entertaining story and listened intensely to what the curate was reading.
"SLASHING RIGHT AND LEFT, DREAMING THAT HE HAD ENCOUNTERED THE GIANT ENEMY."—[Page 93]