He was standing in his shirt, and he wore on his head a little red greasy cast nightcap of the innkeeper’s; he had wrapped one of the bed blankets about his left arm for a shield; and wielded his drawn sword in the right, laying about him pellmell; with now and then a start of some military expression, as if he had been really engaged with some giant.  But the best jest of all, he was all this time fast asleep; for the thoughts of the adventure he had undertaken had so wrought on his imagination that his depraved fancy had in his sleep represented to him the kingdom Micomicon, and the giant; and dreaming that he was then fighting him, he assaulted the wine skins so desperately that he set the whole chamber afloat with good wine.  The innkeeper, enraged to see the havoc, flew at Don Quixote with his fists; and had not Cardenio and the curate taken him off, he had proved a giant indeed against the knight.  All this could not wake the poor knight, till the barber, throwing a bucket of cold water on him, wakened him from his sleep, though not from his dream.

Sancho ran up and down the room searching for the giant’s head, till, finding his labor fruitless, “Well, well,” said he, “now I see plainly that this house is haunted, for when I was here before, in this very room was I beaten like any stockfish, but knew no more than the man in the moon who struck me; and now the giant’s head that I saw cut off with these eyes, is vanished; and I am sure I saw the body spout blood like a pump.”—­“What a prating and a nonsense about blood and a pump, and I know not what,” said the innkeeper; “I tell you, rascal, it is my wine skins that are slashed, and my wine that runs about the floor here, and I hope to see the soul of him that spilt it swimming in hell for his pains.”—­“Well, well,” said Sancho, “do not trouble me; I only tell you, that I cannot find the giant’s head, and my earldom is gone after it, and so I am undone, like salt in water.”  And truly Sancho’s waking dream was worse than his master’s when asleep.  The innkeeper was almost mad to see the foolish squire harp so on the same string with his frantic master, and swore they should not come off now as before; that their chivalry should be no satisfaction for his wine, but that they should pay him sauce for the damage, and for the very leathern patches which the wounded wine skins would want.

Don Quixote, in the meanwhile, believing he had finished his adventure, and mistaking the curate, that held him by the arms, for the Princess Micomicona, fell on his knees before him, and with a respect due to a royal presence, “Now may your highness,” said he, “great and illustrious princess, live secure, free from any further apprehensions from your conquered enemy; and now I am acquitted of my engagement, since, by the assistance of Heaven and the influence of her favor by whom I live and conquer, your adventure is so happily achieved.”—­“Did not I tell you so, gentlefolks?” said Sancho;