"I don't believe a bit of it," said Sancho; "still, I'll do as your
worship bids me; though I don't know what need there is for trying these
experiments, for I can see with my own eyes that we have not moved five
yards away from the bank, or shifted two yards from where the animals
stand, for there are Rocinante and Dapple in the very same place where we
left them; and watching a point, as I do now, I swear by all that's good,
we are not stirring or moving at the pace of an ant."

"Try the test I told thee of, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and don't mind
any other, for thou knowest nothing about colures, lines, parallels,
zodiacs, ecliptics, poles, solstices, equinoxes, planets, signs,
bearings, the measures of which the celestial and terrestrial spheres are
composed; if thou wert acquainted with all these things, or any portion
of them, thou wouldst see clearly how many parallels we have cut, what
signs we have seen, and what constellations we have left behind and are
now leaving behind. But again I tell thee, feel and hunt, for I am
certain thou art cleaner than a sheet of smooth white paper."

Sancho felt, and passing his hand gently and carefully down to the hollow
of his left knee, he looked up at his master and said, "Either the test
is a false one, or we have not come to where your worship says, nor
within many leagues of it."

"Why, how so?" asked Don Quixote; "hast thou come upon aught?"

"Ay, and aughts," replied Sancho; and shaking his fingers he washed his
whole hand in the river along which the boat was quietly gliding in
midstream, not moved by any occult intelligence or invisible enchanter,
but simply by the current, just there smooth and gentle.