It was now time for dinner, and soon afterward Don Quixote, having dined with the Duke and the Duchess, made his departure from the castle with Sancho, and started again for his home.
OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO ON THE WAY TO THEIR VILLAGE
Don Quixote and Sancho traveled along, both in a state of depression. Don Quixote was sad because he had been forced to give up the glories of knight-errantry and chivalry; Sancho because Altisidora had not kept her word when she promised to give him the smocks. To Sancho it seemed a terrible injustice that physicians should be paid even if their patients died, and here he had brought back a human being from the dead, and was being rewarded in this ungrateful manner!
But Don Quixote's sadness was suddenly brightened by a hope that he might at last be able to prevail upon Sancho to bring about the disenchantment of Dulcinea. Knowing Sancho's covetousness, he offered him money as a bribe. Now Sancho became interested, and consented, for the love of his wife and children, to whip himself at a price of a quarter-real a lash, generously throwing the five lashes he had already given himself into the bargain.
"O blessed Sancho! O dear Sancho!" exclaimed Don Quixote. "How we shall be bound to serve thee, Dulcinea and I, all the days of our lives that Heaven may grant us! But look here, Sancho: when wilt thou begin the scourging? For if thou wilt make short work of it, I will give thee a hundred reals over and above."
Sancho swore that he would begin the scourging that very night, and begged his master that he arrange it so that they spend the night in the open.
Night came at last, and when they had supped, Sancho proceeded to make a sturdy whip out of Dapple's halter. When he had finished this task he made off for a distant part of the woods. He left his master with such a determined look in his eyes that Don Quixote thought it best to warn him not to go too fast but to take a breathing-space between lashes so that he would not cut his body to pieces. He was afraid also, he said, that Sancho might become so enthusiastic over what he was doing, or so anxious to come to the end of the lashes that he might overtax his strength, collapse and die; and he begged Sancho particularly not to do that, for then he would have gone through all his suffering in vain. When Sancho had stripped himself to the waist, Don Quixote placed himself where he could hear the sound of the lashes, and counted them on his rosary that Sancho would make neither too much nor too little effort to disenchant Dulcinea.