Searching further he found a little memorandum book richly bound; this Don Quixote asked of him, telling him to take the money and keep it for himself. Sancho kissed his hands for the favour, and cleared the valise of its linen, which he stowed away in the provision sack. Considering the whole matter, Don Quixote observed:
“It seems to me, Sancho—and it is impossible it can be otherwise—that some strayed traveller must have crossed this sierra and been attacked and slain by footpads, who brought him to this remote spot to bury him.”
“That cannot be,” answered Sancho, “because if they had been robbers they would not have left this money.”
“Thou art right,” said Don Quixote, “and I cannot guess or explain what this may mean; but stay; let us see if in this memorandum book there is anything written by which we may be able to trace out or discover what we want to know.”
He opened it, and the first thing he found in it, written roughly but in a very good hand, was a sonnet, and reading it aloud that Sancho might hear it, he found that it ran as follows:
SONNET
Or Love is lacking in intelligence,
Or to the height of cruelty attains,
Or else it is my doom to suffer pains
Beyond the measure due to my offence.
But if Love be a God, it follows thence
That he knows all, and certain it remains
No God loves cruelty; then who ordains
This penance that enthrals while it torments?
It were a falsehood, Chloe, thee to name;
Such evil with such goodness cannot live;
And against Heaven I dare not charge the blame,
I only know it is my fate to die.
To him who knows not whence his malady
A miracle alone a cure can give.
“There is nothing to be learned from that rhyme,” said Sancho, “unless by that clue there’s in it, one may draw out the ball of the whole matter.”
“What clue is there?” said Don Quixote.