are her knight, to make me bite my tongue out before I compared her to
anything save heaven itself.' After this apology which the great
Montesinos made me, my heart recovered itself from the shock I had
received in hearing my lady compared with Belerma."

"Still I wonder," said Sancho, "that your worship did not get upon the
old fellow and bruise every bone of him with kicks, and pluck his beard
until you didn't leave a hair in it."

"Nay, Sancho, my friend," said Don Quixote, "it would not have been right
in me to do that, for we are all bound to pay respect to the aged, even
though they be not knights, but especially to those who are, and who are
enchanted; I only know I gave him as good as he brought in the many other
questions and answers we exchanged."

"I cannot understand, Senor Don Quixote," remarked the cousin here, "how
it is that your worship, in such a short space of time as you have been
below there, could have seen so many things, and said and answered so
much."

"How long is it since I went down?" asked Don Quixote.

"Little better than an hour," replied Sancho.

"That cannot be," returned Don Quixote, "because night overtook me while
I was there, and day came, and it was night again and day again three
times; so that, by my reckoning, I have been three days in those remote
regions beyond our ken."

"My master must be right," replied Sancho; "for as everything that has