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“Good God! What my master says about enchantments in this castle is true! You can’t have an hour’s peace here!”

Don Fernando separated the officer and Don Quixote, and to the relief of both he loosened the hands of both men, for one was clutching a collar and the other was squeezing a throat; but this did not stop the officers from demanding that Don Quixote be arrested and that the others assist in binding him and committing him to their authority, as demanded by their duty to the king and the Holy Brotherhood, which once again was asking for their help and assistance in the arrest of this highway robber and roadway thief.

Don Quixote laughed when he heard these words and said very calmly:

“Come, lowborn and filthy creatures, you call it highway robbery to free those in chains, to give liberty to the imprisoned, to assist the wretched, raise up the fallen, succor the needy? Ah, vile rabble, your low and base intelligence does not deserve to have heaven communicate to you the great worth of knight errantry, or allow you to understand the sin and ignorance into which you have fallen when you do not reverence the shadow, let alone the actual presence, of any knight errant. Come, you brotherhood of thieves, you highway robbers sanctioned by the Holy Brotherhood, come and tell me who was the fool who signed an arrest warrant against such a knight as I? Who was the dolt who did not know that knights errant are exempt from all jurisdictional authority, or was unaware that their law is their sword, their edicts their courage, their statutes their will? Who was the imbecile, I say, who did not know that there is no patent of nobility with as many privileges and immunities as those acquired by a knight errant on the day he is dubbed a knight and dedicates himself to the rigorous practice of chivalry? What knight errant ever paid a tax, a duty, a queen’s levy, a tribute, a tariff, or a toll? What tailor ever received payment from him for the clothes he sewed? What castellan welcomed him to his castle and then asked him to pay the cost? What king has not sat him at his table? What damsel has not loved him and given herself over to his will and desire? And, finally, what knight errant ever was, is, or will be in the world who does not have the courage to single-handedly deliver four hundred blows to four hundred Brotherhoods if they presume to oppose him?”

CHAPTER XLVI

Regarding the notable adventure of the officers of the Holy Brotherhood, and the great ferocity of our good knight Don Quixote

As Don Quixote was saying this, the priest was attempting to persuade the officers that Don Quixote was not in his right mind, as they could see by his actions and his words, and that they had no need to proceed with the matter, for even if they arrested him and took him away, they would have to release him immediately because he was a madman, to which the officer with the warrant replied that it was not up to him to judge the madness of Don Quixote, but only to do what his commanding officer ordered him to do, and once Don Quixote had been arrested, it was all the same to him if they let him go three hundred times over.

“Even so,” said the priest, “this one time you should not take him, and as far as I can tell, he will not allow himself to be taken.”

In fact, the priest was so persuasive, and Don Quixote did so many mad things, that the officers would have been crazier than he if they had not recognized Don Quixote’s affliction, and so they thought it best not to proceed, and even to intervene and make peace between the barber and Sancho Panza, who still persisted with great rancor in their dispute. In short, as officers of the law, they mediated and arbitrated the matter in a manner that left both parties, if not completely happy, at least somewhat satisfied, because they exchanged saddles but not cinches and headstalls; as for the helmet of Mambrino, the priest secretly, and without Don Quixote’s knowing anything