"What!" said Don Antonio, "has Sancho been a governor?"

"Ay," said Sancho, "and of an island called Barataria. I governed it to
perfection for ten days; and lost my rest all the time; and learned to
look down upon all the governments in the world; I got out of it by
taking to flight, and fell into a pit where I gave myself up for dead,
and out of which I escaped alive by a miracle."

Don Quixote then gave them a minute account of the whole affair of
Sancho's government, with which he greatly amused his hearers.

On the cloth being removed Don Antonio, taking Don Quixote by the hand,
passed with him into a distant room in which there was nothing in the way
of furniture except a table, apparently of jasper, resting on a pedestal
of the same, upon which was set up, after the fashion of the busts of the
Roman emperors, a head which seemed to be of bronze. Don Antonio
traversed the whole apartment with Don Quixote and walked round the table
several times, and then said, "Now, Senor Don Quixote, that I am
satisfied that no one is listening to us, and that the door is shut, I
will tell you of one of the rarest adventures, or more properly speaking
strange things, that can be imagined, on condition that you will keep
what I say to you in the remotest recesses of secrecy."

"I swear it," said Don Quixote, "and for greater security I will put a
flag-stone over it; for I would have you know, Senor Don Antonio" (he had
by this time learned his name), "that you are addressing one who, though
he has ears to hear, has no tongue to speak; so that you may safely
transfer whatever you have in your bosom into mine, and rely upon it that
you have consigned it to the depths of silence."