Chapter 5 HOW DON QUIXOTE WON A HELMET; HOW HE FOUGHT WITH TWO ARMIES; AND HOW SANCHO'S ASS WAS STOLEN

Many were the adventures that now befell Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. In the very first, wherein he fought with a man from Biscay, whom he left lying in a pool of blood, Don Quixote lost part of his helmet, and had the half of one of his ears sliced off by the Biscayan's sword. The accident to the helmet was a great grief to him, and he swore an oath that until he had taken from some other knight as good a helmet as that which was now made useless to him, he would never again eat his food on a table-cloth.

One day as they rode along a highway between two villages Don Quixote halted and looked eagerly at something.

"Sancho," said he, "dost thou not see yonder knight that comes riding this way on a dapple-gray steed, with a helmet of gold on his head?"

"Not a thing can I see," answered Sancho, "but a fellow on just such another ass as mine, with something that glitters on top of his head."

"Can you not see," asked Don Quixote, "that it is a helmet? Do you stand back, and let me deal with him. Soon now shall I possess myself of the helmet that I need."

Now, in those far-away days, when doctors were few, if anybody needed to be bled for a fever or any other illness (for it was then thought that "letting blood" was the cure for most illnesses), it was the custom for the barber to bleed the sick person. For the purpose of catching the blood that ran from a vein when it had been cut, a brass dish was carried, a dish with part of it cut away from one side, so that it might the more easily be held close to the patient's arm or body. A small dish like this you may sometimes still see hanging as a sign at the end of a pole outside barbers' shops. Barbers in those days of old were called barber-surgeons, for the reason that they bled people, as well as shaved them or cut their hair.

And the truth of the matter was this, that the man whom Don Quixote now believed to be a knight, wearing a golden helmet, was a barber riding on his ass to bleed a sick man. And because it was raining, he had put his brass dish on his head, in order to keep his new hat from being spoiled.

Don Quixote did not wait to speak to the man, but, couching his lance, galloped at him as hard as "Rozinante" could go, shouting as he rode, "Defend thyself, base wretch!"

The barber no sooner saw this terrible figure charging down on him, than, to save himself from being run through, he flung himself on to the ground, and then jumping to his feet, ran for his life, leaving his ass and the brass basin behind him. Then Don Quixote ordered Sancho to pick up the helmet.

"O' my word," said Sancho, as he gave it to his master, "it is a fine basin."

Don Quixote at once put it on his head, saying, "It is a famous helmet, but the head for which it was made must have been of great size. The worst of it is that at least one-half of it is gone. What is the fool grinning at now?" he cried, as Sancho laughed.

"Why, master," answered Sancho, "it is a barber's basin."

"It has indeed some likeness to a basin," said Don Quixote, "but I tell you it is an enchanted helmet of pure gold, and for the sake of a little wretched money some one has melted down the half of it. When we come to a town where there is an armorer, I will have it altered to fit my head. Meantime I shall wear it as it is."

As they rode along one day talking of many things, Don Quixote beheld a cloud of dust rising right before them.

"Seest thou that cloud of dust, Sancho?" he asked. "It is raised by a great army marching this way."

"Why, master," said Sancho, "there must be two armies there, for yonder is just such another cloud of dust."

The knight looked, and was overjoyed, believing that two armies were about to meet and fight in the plain.

"What are we to do, master?" asked Sancho.

"Do!" said Don Quixote, "why, what can we do but help the weaker side? Look yonder, Sancho, that knight whom thou seest in the gilded armory with a lion crouching at the feet of a lady painted on his shield, that is the valiant Laurcalco. That other, the giant on his right, Brandabarbaran." And he ran over a long list of names of knights whom he believed that he saw.

Sancho listened, as dumb as a fish; but at last he gasped. "Why, master, you might as well tell me that it snows. Never a knight, nor a giant, nor a man can I see."

"How!" answered Don Quixote, "canst thou not hear their horses neigh, and their drums beating?"

"Drums!" said Sancho. "Not I! I hear only the bleating of sheep."

"Since you are afraid," said the Knight, "stand aside, and I will go by myself to fight."

With that, he galloped down on to the plain, shouting, leaving Sancho bawling to him, "Hold, sir! Stop! For Heaven's sake come back. As sure as I'm a sinner, they are only harmless sheep. Come back, I say."

But Don Quixote, paying not the least heed, galloped on furiously and charged into the middle of the sheep, spearing them right and left, trampling the living and the dead under "Rozinante's" feet. The shepherds, finding that he took no notice of their shouts, now hurled stones at him from their slings, and one big stone presently hit the Knight fair in his ribs and doubled him up in the saddle.

Gasping for breath, with all speed Don Quixote got from his wallet a bottle filled with a mixture he had made, a mixture which he firmly believed to be a certain cure for all wounds. Of this he took a long gulp, but just at that moment another big stone hit him such a rap on the mouth that the bottle was smashed into a thousand pieces, and half of his teeth were knocked out.

Down dropped the Knight on the ground, and the shepherds thinking that he was killed, ran away, taking with them seven dead sheep which he had slain.

Sancho Panza found his master in a very bad way, with nearly all the teeth gone from one side of his mouth, and with a terrible pain under his ribs.

"Ah! master," he said, "I told you they were sheep. Why would not you listen to me?"

"Sheep! Sancho. No, no! There is nothing so easy for a wizard like Freston as to change things from one shape to the other. I will wager if you now mount your ass and ride over the hill after them, you will find no sheep there, but the knights and squires come back to their own shape, and the armies marching as when we first saw them."

Now, after this and many other adventures (about which, perhaps, you may some day read for yourself), Don Quixote and Sancho Panza rode away into the mountains, for the Knight was sorely in need of a quiet place in which to rest.

So weary were he and his squire, that one night, when they had ridden into a wood, and it chanced that the horse and the ass stood still, both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza fell sound asleep without even getting out of their saddles. There sat the Knight, leaning on his lance; and Sancho, doubled over the pommel, snored as loud as if he had been in a four-post feather bed.

It happened that a wandering thief saw them as he passed.

"Now," thought he, "I want something to ride upon, for I'm tired of walking in these abominable mountains. Here's a chance of a good ass. But how am I to get it, without waking its master?"

Very quietly he cut four long sticks. One after the other he placed these under each side of Sancho's saddle; then loosening the girths, he gradually raised the sticks till the saddle was clear of the animal's back.

Gently, in the moonlight, he led the tired ass away, and Sancho, undisturbed, snored on.

When it was broad daylight, the squire awoke, and without opening his eyes, stretched himself. Down fell the sticks; down with a terrible bump fell Sancho.

"Body o' me!" he yelled, "where is my ass?" And with many tears he searched high and low, but no ass was then to be found, nor for many months afterwards. And how at last Sancho got back the ass you must read for yourself in the History of Don Quixote. For yourself, too, you must read of Don Quixote's adventures in the mountains; how he there did penance; and of many other things, till at last the Curate and the Barber of La Mancha took him home in a cart which the Knight believed to be an enchanted chariot.