THE MISHAP THAT BEFELL SANCHO PANZA THROUGH THE VISIT TO THE GALLEYS
The afternoon of that same day Don Antonio took Don Quixote and Sancho
on board one of the galleys, amid all the honors that accompany the
visits of great and famous personages. There were fanfares, and
cheers, and the firing of guns, and all the high-ranking officers of
the army and navy who were in the city had been appealed to by Don
Antonio Moreno and turned out to pay him their respects.
Don Quixote was delighted. He could scarcely find words to express his
appreciation of such a magnificent and royal reception; and Sancho was
almost carried away by the honors that were being paid his master. But
when he saw all the men at the oars--stripped to the skin by the
captain's command--he became afraid, for they seemed to him like so
many devils.
When Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had been presented to all the
dignitaries, the captain escorted them to a platform on which he
begged them to take their seats beside him. Sancho sat at the edge of
the platform, next to one of the rowing devils (who had been
instructed in advance by the captain what to do) and suddenly he felt
himself lifted in the air by a pair of strong, muscular arms. The next
instant he was in the clutches of another devil; and passing from
hand to hand, he went the rounds of the crew with such swiftness that
the poor superstitious Sancho did not know whether he was dead,
dreaming, or alive. Sancho's aerial expedition did not come to an end
until he had been most unceremoniously deposited on the poop, where he
landed in a strangely unbalanced condition--to the tremendous
amusement of the crew and the onlookers. He was so dazed that it is
doubtful whether he would have known his name, if he had been asked.
Seeing what had happened to his squire, Don Quixote thought it best to
forestall himself from being put through any such ceremony; so he
stood up, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and announced with fire
in his eyes that any one who dared to attempt such a thing to him
would suffer by having his head cut off. He had hardly finished his
sentence before a noise was heard that frightened Sancho almost into
insensibility. He thought that Heaven was coming off its hinges and
about to fall on his sinful head. And even Don Quixote trembled with
something closely akin to fear, and grew (if that were possible) pale
under his yellow hue.
What the crew had done was to strike the awning and lower the yard and
then hoist it up again with as much clatter and speed as they could
produce, yet without uttering any human sound. This being done, the
boatswain gave orders to weigh anchor, and as he went about on deck
signaling with a whistle, he continually lashed and beat the backs of
the naked oarsmen with a whip he had in his hand.
When Sancho saw all the red oars moving, he took them to be the feet
of enchanted beings, and he thought to himself: "It is these that are
the real enchanted things, and not the ones my master talks of. What
can those wretches have done to be whipped in that way; and how does
that one man who goes along there whistling dare to whip so many? I
declare this is Hell, or at least Purgatory!"
But when Don Quixote noticed his squire's interest in the naked creatures
at the oars, he turned and said to him softly: "Ah, Sancho my friend, how
quickly and cheaply you might finish off the disenchantment of Dulcinea,
if you would strip to the waist and take your place among those gentlemen!
Amid the pain and sufferings of so many you would not feel your own much;
and, moreover, perhaps the sage Merlin would allow each of these lashes,
being laid on with a good hand, to count for ten of those which you must
give yourself at last."
But Sancho was not to be persuaded, and the general of the fortress,
who was eager to know why Sancho was urged to lash himself, could not
wait for a reply to his question, for there loomed up on the horizon a
ship which attracted his attention, and he immediately gave orders to
the captain to steer down upon it.
After an adventure on the seas, the first they had ever experienced,
Don Quixote and Sancho came back to Barcelona that afternoon, and
returned to the house of their host, escorted by the Viceroy, the
General and the other high dignitaries.