“I don’t understand that logiquous,” said Sancho, “nor have I ever heard the word all the days of my life.”
“Longinquous,” replied Don Quixote, “means far off; but it is no wonder thou dost not understand it, for thou art not bound to know Latin, like some who pretend to know it and don’t.”
“Now they are tied,” said Sancho; “what are we to do next?”
“What?” said Don Quixote, “cross ourselves and weigh anchor; I mean, embark and cut the moorings by which the bark is held;” and jumping into it, followed by Sancho, he cut the rope, and the bark began to drift away slowly from the bank. But when Sancho saw himself somewhere about two yards out in the river, he began to tremble and give himself up for lost; but nothing distressed him more than hearing Dapple bray and seeing Rocinante struggling to get loose, and said he to his master, “Dapple is braying in grief at our leaving him, and Rocinante is trying to escape and plunge in after us. O dear friends, peace be with you, and may this madness that is taking us away from you, turned into sober sense, bring us back to you.”
And with this he fell weeping so bitterly, that Don Quixote said to him, sharply and angrily, “What art thou afraid of, cowardly creature? What art thou weeping at, heart of butter-paste? Who pursues or molests thee, thou soul of a tame mouse? What dost thou want, unsatisfied in the very heart of abundance? Art thou, perchance, tramping barefoot over the mountains, instead of being seated on a bench like an archduke on the tranquil stream of this pleasant river, from which in a short space we shall come out upon the broad sea? But we must have already emerged and gone seven hundred or eight hundred leagues; and if I had here an astrolabe to take the altitude of the pole, I could tell thee how many we have traveled, though either I know little, or we have already crossed or shall shortly cross the equinoctial line which parts the two opposite poles midway.”
“And when we come to that line your worship speaks of,” said Sancho, “how far shall we have gone?”
“Very far,” said Don Quixote, “for of the three hundred and sixty degrees that this terraqueous globe contains, as computed by Ptolemy, the greatest cosmographer known, we shall have traveled one-half when we come to the line I spoke of.”
“By God,” said Sancho, “your worship gives me a nice authority for what you say, putrid Dolly something transmogrified, or whatever it is.”
Don Quixote laughed at the interpretation Sancho put upon “computed,” and the name of the cosmographer Ptolemy.
* * * * * * * *