Then he asked for a phial into which to pour this precious liquor, but as there was not one to be had in the Inn, he decided to pour it into a tin oil-vessel which the Innkeeper had given him.
This being done, he at once made an experiment on himself of the virtue of this precious Balsam, as he imagined it to be, and drank off a whole quart of what was left in the boiling-pot.
The only result of this was that it made him very sick indeed, as well it might, and, what with the sickness and the bruising and the weariness of body, he fell fast asleep for several hours, and at the end of his sleep awoke so refreshed and so much the better of his bruises that he took himself to be cured, and verily believed he had hit upon the Balsam of Fierabras.
Sancho Panza, to whom his Master's recovery seemed little short of a miracle, begged that he might have what was left in the boiling-pot, which was no small quantity. Don Quixote consenting, he took the pot in both hands, and tossed it down, swallowing very little less than his Master had done.
It happened, however, that Sancho's stomach was not so delicate as his Master's, and he suffered such terrible pains and misery before he was sick that he thought his last hour was come, and cursed the Balsam and the thief who had given it to him.
Don Quixote, seeing him in this bad way, said: 'I believe, Sancho, that all this evil befalleth thee because thou art not dubbed Knight, for I am persuaded that this Balsam may not benefit any one that is not.'
'If your Worship knew that,' replied poor Sancho, 'bad luck to me and mine, why did you let me taste it?'
Before Don Quixote could reply to this, Sancho became so terribly sick that he could only lie groaning and moaning for two hours, at the end of which he felt so shaken and shattered that he could scarcely stand, and sadly wished that he had never become Squire to a Knight Errant.