Sancho hurried to his master's side as fast as his donkey could carry him. He was worried beyond words, for he expected to find Don Quixote well nigh dead, and he was not bent on giving up all hopes of governing an island, at so early a stage. The misguided knight was unable to move. Nevertheless Sancho Panza could not resist the impulse to reprimand his master. "Did I not tell your worship so!" he admonished. But Don Quixote would hear nothing, answering in a sportsmanlike fashion:
"Hush, friend Sancho! The fortunes of war fluctuate, that's all." And then he added his suspicion that the same Sage Friston, the magician who had carried off his room of books, had turned the giants into windmills so that he would be unable to boast of having conquered them--all out of sheer envy and thirst for vengeance. What he most bewailed, however, was the loss of his lance.
With much difficulty Sancho succeeded in placing Don Quixote on his horse, and they proceeded on their way, following the road to Puerto Lapice. All the while Don Quixote was scanning the woods along the roadside for the branch of an oak-tree that he would deem a worthy substitute for his departed spear. It seemed to him as if he had read somewhere in one of his books that some knight had done such a thing in an emergency.
Having reminded Don Quixote that he must sit straight in the saddle, Sancho was in turn reminded by an inner feeling that it was time to eat. His master, however, scorned this idea, and let Sancho indulge by himself, while he fasted.
Finally night fell, and they passed it in the woods. There Don Quixote chose at last the branch of an oak-tree that was to serve him as a spear, and to one of its ends he attached the head of his broken lance. All night long he lay looking up into the sky, visioning his sweet Dulcinea--all for the purpose of emulating other heroes of the past age of chivalry who could not sleep for thinking of their lady loves.
Sancho Panza, unluckily, was stimulated in no such blessed way. He was supported by no sweet dreams of any beloved one of his. As for his wife, he had forgotten all about her. But as a matter of truth he had no memory of anything, having absorbed too much fluid out of his leather wine-bag, or _bota_, as it is called in Spanish. On getting up in the morning Sancho Panza was grieved to find the contents of his _bota_ decidedly diminished.