XV.
They chance to come out on the public road, and shortly afterward they come in sight of an inn. The Don will have it that it is a castle; and they are still arguing the point when they arrive at the door. The innkeeper thinks at first that the knight is dead, but is re-assured by the Don’s own voice. Sancho, unwilling to reveal their disgraceful defeat, explains the Don’s condition as due to his having fallen down a cliff. The kind-hearted bean an tighe, assisted by her daughter and an extra-ordinarily ugly servant girl (Maritornes) attend upon the wounded knight, and a bed is prepared for him on the loft. When he is safely in bed they cover him with plasters. The hostess remarks that the Don's contusions look very like the result of a cudgelling; but Sancho assures her that they are the result of a fall over a cliff, and persuades her that his own contusions have been produced by the mental shock caused by the sight of his master falling! He reveals his master’s identity, and treats her to a lecture on knight-errantry. The Don chimes in with an explanation that his loyalty to Dulsinea prevents him addressing her daughter as a knight-errant should. Sancho gets his share of the plasters, and they retire. Sancho’s bed is at one end of the loft, the Don’s in the middle, and at the other end is a bed occupied by a carrier, who is lying awake waiting for some wine which Maritornes promised to steal for him.
XVI.
At last he hears her coming: so does the Don. The only light in the loft is that thrown by a badly lit lamp in the porch. When she enters, the Don is certain that it is a spéir-bhean who has come to his aid, as happened in the tales of knight-errantry. He seizes her by the arm, and begins to make a long romantic speech. The carrier, who is under the impression that the Don is trying to take the wine from her, glides over to them and knocks the Don senseless with a violent blow on the mouth. The wine is spilt. Maritornes, in a fright, leaps on the bed where Sancho is asleep; and he, thinking that she is a nightmare, begins to kick and fight; she returns his blows with interest. Meantime the carrier, enraged at the loss of his wine, rains a shower of blows and kicks on the Don; and ends by jumping on him. The bed, which is only supported by trestles, collapses. The innkeeper hearing the uproar rushes in with a candle. He sees Sancho and Maritornes at fisticuffs, and his foot encounters the empty wine jar on the floor. As he stoops to pick it up the candle goes out, and he assaults poor Sancho in the dark, thinking that he is beating Maritornes; who mauls the innkeeper, thinking that he is Sancho. A policeman, who is looking for an escaped thief, hears the noise on the inn loft; and, thinking that he has found his man, rushes up. Groping in the darkness he catches some apparently lifeless form by the
