Sancho held his tongue and gave him a cloth, and with it thanks to God that his master had not found out the truth. Don Quixote wiped himself, and took off the helmet to see what it was which seemed to chill his head, and finding the white clots within his headpiece, held them to his nose, and smelling them, cried—
“By the life of my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, but these are curds thou hast put here, thou traitor! villain, brazen-faced squire!”
To which, with much deliberation and command of countenance, Sancho replied, “If they are curds give them to me, your worship, and I will eat them; but let the devil eat them, for it must be he who put them there. I to dare soil your worship’s helmet! You must know who it is that’s so bold. In faith, sir, as God reads my mind, I, too, must have enchanters who persecute me as a creature and limb of your worship; and they will have put that nastiness there to move your patience to anger, and make you baste my ribs as you are wont to do; but, in truth, this time they have jumped wide of the mark, for I rely on my master’s good judgment, who will consider that I have neither curds nor milk about me, nor anything like; and if I had I would rather put it into my stomach than in the helmet.”
“It may be all so,” quoth Don Quixote. And the gentleman in the Green Coat, who noted all, was utterly amazed, especially when, after Don Quixote had wiped dry his head, face, beard, and helmet, he put it on again, and settling himself firmly in his stirrups, reaching for his sword and grasping his lance, exclaimed—
“Now come what may, for here I stand to do battle with Satan himself in person.”
The cart with the flags now approached, in which was nobody but the carter upon one of the mules and a man seated in front. Planting himself before it, Don Quixote exclaimed—
“Whither go ye, my brethren; what cart is this? What do you carry therein? And what flags are these?”
To which the carter replied, “The cart is mine; what go in it are two bold lions in a cage, which the General is sending from Oran to the capital as a present to his Majesty; the flags are the King‘s, our master, in token that something of his goes here.”
“And are they large, the lions?” asked Don Quixote.
“So large,” answered the man at the door of the van, “that none larger or so large have ever passed from Africa to Spain; and I am the lion-keeper, and have carried many, but none like these. They are male and female; the male goes in the first cage, and the female in the one behind, and they are now very hungry, for they have not eaten to-day; and so let your worship stand aside, for we must needs reach quickly the place where we are to give them their dinner.”