To which Sancho Panza replied meekly but firmly: "So it is, I believe, except the affair of the blanket, which came to pass in reality by ordinary means."
But Don Quixote as usual was not in a mood to listen to nonsense, and he replied that if such were the case he would have avenged him, but seeing no one to avenge himself upon, how could it have been anything else but enchantment?
Those who were there were eager to know what had happened to Sancho, and the landlord was most obliging in giving a graphic description of all that had occurred. They all seemed to enjoy the account enormously, for they laughed hilariously. Had Don Quixote not again assured Sancho that it most certainly had happened by enchantment, there is no doubt that he would have interrupted their hilarity.
It was now two days since they had arrived at the inn, and Don Fernando and Dorothea were becoming anxious to depart. In order that they might not have to go out of their way, it was arranged that they should go by themselves; meanwhile a scheme was devised whereby the curate and the barber could restore Don Quixote to his native village.
An ox-cart passed that day, and the curate, hearing it was going in the direction of El Toboso, made arrangements with the owner to make the journey with him. Then he ordered some of the servants to make a cage, large enough to hold Don Quixote, and provided it with bars. He then asked Don Fernando and his companions, the officers of the Holy Brotherhood, the servants of Don Luis, and the innkeeper to cover their faces and change their appearance so that Don Quixote would think they were quite different people.
When this had been done they tiptoed to the valiant knight errant's room, where they found him fast asleep, bound him, without waking him, hand and foot; then they stood about the room silently. When the knight awoke, he was startled to find that he could not move, and seeing all these strangely conjured-up figures before him, it struck him they must be phantoms of the enchanted castle. He was absolutely helpless, and the men had no difficulty in stuffing him into the cage. The bars were nailed on securely, and the cage was then carried out of the inn and placed in the ox-cart.
While the procession slowly proceeded from the inn to the ox-cart, the men supporting the cage on their shoulders, the barber chanted strange words in a weird and hollow voice. The barber took it upon himself to become the prophet of the occasion, and he proclaimed to the Knight of the Rueful Countenance that he ought not to consider his present imprisonment an affliction. It was in a way a sort of penance, he said, through which he would be humbled to be in readiness for a still greater, sweeter imprisonment, the bond of matrimony. This prediction would come true, he avowed, when the fierce Manchegan lion and the tender Tobosan dove met again. They would be joined in one, and the offspring of this union would be of such stuff as to set the world aflame.
When Don Quixote heard these words, he was stirred into an exalted emotion. Had he not been well bound it would have been expressed by kneeling. He raised his eyes toward Heaven and thanked the Lord for having sent this prophet to him in this needy moment. He prayed that he should not be left to perish in the cage, and also implored of the prophet not to let his faithful Sancho Panza abandon him, saying that if by chance the promise of the island should not come true, he had made provision for him in his will. Sancho was much moved by what his encaged and enchanted master had said, and he bent down and kissed his hands—he had to kiss both since they were tied together. By that time the procession had arrived at the ox-cart, and all was ready for the departure.