And when he saw the unfortunate rider draw near, without stopping to speak a word, he ran at him with his lance, putting Rozinante at full gallop, and intending to pierce him through and through. And as he came up to him, without stopping his horse, he shouted to him: 'Defend thyself, caitiff wretch, or else render to me of thine own will what is mine by all the rights of war.'
The barber, who saw this wild figure bearing down on him as he was riding along without thought or fear of attack, had no other way to avoid the thrust of the lance than to fall off his ass on to the ground. And no sooner did he touch the earth than he sprang up more nimbly than a deer and raced away across the plain faster than the wind, leaving behind him on the ground the coveted basin. With this Don Quixote was well content, and said that the Pagan was a wise man in leaving behind him that for which he was attacked.
Then he commanded Sancho to take up the helmet, who lifting it said: 'The basin is a good one, and is worth eight reals if it is worth a farthing.'
He gave it to his Master, who placed it upon his head, turning it about from side to side in search of the visor, and seeing he could not find it, said: 'Doubtless the Pagan for whom this helmet was first forged had a very great head, and the worst of it is that half of the helmet is wanting.'
When Sancho heard him call the basin a helmet he could not contain his laughter, but presently remembering his Master's anger, he checked himself in the midst of it.
'Why dost thou laugh, Sancho?' said Don Quixote.
'I laugh,' said he, 'to think of the great head the Pagan owner of this helmet had. For it is all the world like a barber's basin.'
'Know, Sancho, that I imagine,' replied Don Quixote, 'that this famous piece of the enchanted helmet must by some strange accident have fallen into some one's hands that knew not its great worth, and seeing that it was of pure gold, he hath melted down one half and made of the other half this, which seems, as thou sayest, to be a barber's basin. But be that as it may, to me, who know its value, its transformation makes no matter. I will have it altered at the first village where I can find a smith, and meanwhile I will wear it as well as I can, for something is better than nothing, all the more as it will do to protect me against any blow from a stone.'
'That is,' said Sancho, 'if they do not shoot from a sling, as they shot in the battle of the two armies, when they made their mark on your Worship's grinders and broke the oil-pot wherein you carried that blessed Balsam.'
'I do not much care for the loss of the Balsam,' replied Don Quixote, 'for as thou knowest, Sancho, I have the receipt for it in my memory.'