all those you talk of now; who knows but all this may be witchcraft and spirits, like yesternight?”—­“How,” replied Don Quixote; “dost thou not hear their horses neigh, their trumpets sound, and their drums beat?”—­“Not I,” quoth Sancho, “I prick up my ears like a sow in the beans, and yet I can hear nothing but the bleating of sheep.”  Sancho might justly say so indeed, for by this time the two flocks were got very near them.  “Thy fears disturb thy senses,” said Don Quixote, “and hinder thee from hearing and seeing right; but it is no matter; withdraw to some place of safety, since thou art so terrified; for I alone am sufficient to give the victory to that side which I shall favor with my assistance.”  With that he couched his lance, clapped spurs to Rozinante, and rushed like a thunderbolt from the hillock into the plain.  Sancho bawled after him as loud as he could.  “Hold, sir!” cried Sancho; “for heaven’s sake come back!  What do you mean? as sure as I am a sinner those you are going to maul are nothing but poor harmless sheep.  Come back, I say.  Woe to him that begot me!  Are you mad, sir? there are no giants, no knights, no cats, no asparagus gardens, no golden quarters nor what-d’-ye-call-thems.  Does the devil possess you? you are leaping over the hedge before you come at the stile.  You are taking the wrong sow by the ear.  Oh, that I was ever born to see this day!” But Don Quixote still riding on, deaf and lost to good advice, out-roared his expostulating squire.  “Courage, brave knights!” cried he; “march up, fall on, all you who fight under the standard of the valiant Pentapolin with the naked arm; follow me, and you shall see how easily I will revenge him on that infidel Alifanfaron of Taprobana.”

So saying, he charged into the midst of the squadron of sheep and commenced to spear them with his lance with as much gallantry and resolution as if he were verily engaging with his mortal enemies.

The shepherds and drovers, seeing their sheep go to wreck, called out to him; till finding fair means ineffectual, they unloosed their slings, and began to ply him with stones as big as their fists.  But the champion, disdaining such a distant war, spite of their showers of stones rushed among the routed sheep, trampling both the living and the slain in a most terrible manner, impatient to meet the general of the enemy, and end the war at once.  “Where, where art thou?” cried he, “proud, Alifanfaron?  Appear!  See here a single knight who seeks thee everywhere, to try now, hand to hand, the boasted force of thy strenuous arm, and deprive thee of life, as a due punishment for the unjust war which thou hast audaciously waged with the valiant Pentapolin.”  Just as he had said this, while the stones flew about his ears, one unluckily hit upon his small ribs, and had like to have buried two of the shortest deep in the middle of his body.