result of the adventure of the Distressed One, that they resolved to
carry on the joke, seeing what a fit subject they had to deal with for
making it all pass for reality. So having laid their plans and given
instructions to their servants and vassals how to behave to Sancho in his
government of the promised island, the next day, that following
Clavileno's flight, the duke told Sancho to prepare and get ready to go
and be governor, for his islanders were already looking out for him as
for the showers of May.

Sancho made him an obeisance, and said, "Ever since I came down from
heaven, and from the top of it beheld the earth, and saw how little it
is, the great desire I had to be a governor has been partly cooled in me;
for what is there grand in being ruler on a grain of mustard seed, or
what dignity or authority in governing half a dozen men about as big as
hazel nuts; for, so far as I could see, there were no more on the whole
earth? If your lordship would be so good as to give me ever so small a
bit of heaven, were it no more than half a league, I'd rather have it
than the best island in the world."

"Recollect, Sancho," said the duke, "I cannot give a bit of heaven, no
not so much as the breadth of my nail, to anyone; rewards and favours of
that sort are reserved for God alone. What I can give I give you, and
that is a real, genuine island, compact, well proportioned, and
uncommonly fertile and fruitful, where, if you know how to use your
opportunities, you may, with the help of the world's riches, gain those
of heaven."

"Well then," said Sancho, "let the island come; and I'll try and be such
a governor, that in spite of scoundrels I'll go to heaven; and it's not
from any craving to quit my own humble condition or better myself, but