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all to commend her to God and Our Lady, His Mother, and she did this with so much feeling it made me cry, though I’m not usually much of a weeper. By my faith, there were many who wanted to hide her and take her from those she was leaving with, but fear of defying the orders of the king stopped them. The one who seemed most affected was Don Pedro Gregorio, that rich young man who’s going to inherit his father’s estate, you know who I mean, they say he loved her very much, and after she left he’s never been seen in our village again, and we all think he went after them to abduct her, but so far we haven’t heard anything.”

“I always suspected,” said Ricote, “that he was wooing my daughter, but I trusted in the principles of my Ricota, and knowing he loved her never troubled me, because you must have heard, Sancho, that Moriscas rarely if ever become involved with Old Christians, and my daughter, who, I believe, cared more for being a better Christian than for being in love, would not pay attention to that young gentleman’s entreaties.”

“May it be God’s will,” replied Sancho, “because that would not be good for either one of them. And now let me leave here, Ricote my friend; tonight I want to reach the place where my master, Don Quixote, is.”

“God go with you, Sancho my friend; my companions are beginning to stir, and it’s time for us to leave, too.”

Then the two of them embraced, and Sancho mounted his donkey, and Ricote grasped his staff, and they went their separate ways.

CHAPTER LV

Regarding certain things that befell Sancho on the road, and others that are really quite remarkable

Sancho’s having stopped with Ricote did not permit him to reach the duke’s castle that day, for although he had come to within half a league of it, night, which was somewhat dark and gloomy, overtook him; as it was summer, this did not trouble him very much, and so he moved off the road, intending to wait for morning, and it was his bad luck and misfortune that as he was looking for a spot where he would be comfortable, he and the gray fell into a deep and very dark pit that lay between some very old buildings, and as he fell he commended himself to God with all his heart, thinking he would not stop falling until he reached the depths of the abyss. But this was not the case, because after a little more than three estados the donkey hit bottom, and Sancho found himself on top of him, not having received any kind of wound or injury.

He felt his body and took a deep breath to see if he was whole or had been punctured anywhere; and seeing that he was safe and sound and in perfect health, he could not give enough thanks to Our Lord God for the mercy He had shown him, for he no doubt thought he had broken into a thousand pieces. He also felt the walls of the pit with his hands to see if it would be possible to climb out without anyone’s help, but he found that all of them were smooth, without any kind of foothold, which greatly distressed Sancho, especially when he heard the donkey moaning woefully and grievously, and no wonder, for he was not lamenting capriciously; in truth, he was not in very good condition.

“Oh,” said Sancho then, “what unexpected things can happen to those who live in this miserable world! Who could have said that the person who only yesterday sat on the governor’s throne on an ínsula, giving orders to his servants and vassals, today would find himself buried in a pit with no one to comfort him, and no servant or vassal to come and help him? Here my donkey and I will starve to death, if we don’t die first, he because he’s bruised and broken, and me because I’m full of grief. At least I won’t be as lucky as my master, Don Quixote of La Mancha, when he went down and descended into the cave of the enchanted Montesinos, where he found somebody who treated him better than they do in his own house, because it seems he found the table laid and the bed made. There he saw beautiful and peaceable visions, and here, it seems, I’ll see frogs and snakes. Woe is me, just look where my madness and fantasy have brought me! They’ll