CHAPTER XII

The great Adventure and rich Winning of the Helmet of Mambrino

It now began to rain, and Sancho would have entered one of the fulling-mills for shelter, but Don Quixote had taken such a dislike to them, on account of the jest of which he had been the victim, that he would not go near them.

Turning to the right, he made away into a highroad not unlike the one on which they had travelled the day before. Very shortly Don Quixote espied a man a-horseback who wore on his head something that glittered like gold. Scarce had he seen him when he turned to Sancho and said: 'Methinks, Sancho, that there is no proverb that is not true, for all proverbs are sentences taken out of experience itself, which is the universal mother of all sciences. And there is a proverb which says, "When one door shuts another opens." I say this because if Fortune closed the door for us last night, deceiving us in the adventure of the fulling-mills, to-day it opens wide the door to a better and more certain adventure. For here, if I be not deceived, there comes one towards us that wears on his head the helmet of Mambrino, about which I made the oath thou knowest of.'

'See well what you say, Sir, and better what you do,' said Sancho, 'for I would not meet with more fulling-mills to hammer us out of our senses.'

'Peace, fellow!' cried Don Quixote; 'what has a helmet to do with fulling-mills?'

'I know not,' replied Sancho; 'but if I might speak as I used to, I would give you such reasons that your Worship should see that you were mistaken in what you say.'

'How can I be mistaken in what I say?' cried Don Quixote. 'Tell me, seest thou not that Knight who comes riding towards us on a dapple grey horse, with a helmet of gold on his head?'

'That which I see and make out,' replied Sancho, 'is nothing but a man on a grey ass like mine carrying on his head something which shines.'

'Why that is Mambrino's helmet,' said Don Quixote. 'Stand aside and leave me alone with him, and thou shalt see how, without a word, this adventure shall be ended and the helmet I have longed for be mine.'

'As to standing aside,' muttered Sancho, 'that I will take care to do, but I trust this is not another case of fulling-mills.'

'I have already told thee,' said Don Quixote angrily, 'to make no mention of the mills, and if thou dost not obey me, I vow that I will batter the soul out of thy body.'

At this Sancho, fearing lest his Master should carry out his threat, held his peace.

Now the truth of the matter as to the helmet, the horse, and the Knight which Don Quixote saw, was this. There were in that neighbourhood two villages, the one so small that it had neither shop nor barber, but the larger one had; and the barber, therefore, served the smaller village on any occasion when any one wanted his beard trimmed. It so happened that he was now journeying to the smaller village, bringing with him a brazen basin, and as he rode along it chanced to rain, and therefore, to save his hat, which was a new one, he clapped the basin on his head, and the basin being clean scoured, glittered half a league off. He rode upon a grey ass, as Sancho said, and that was the reason why Don Quixote took him to be a Knight with a helmet of gold riding on a dapple grey steed, for everything he came across he made to fit in with the things he had read of in the books of Knighthood.

And when he saw the unfortunate rider draw near, without stopping to speak a word, he ran at him with his lance, putting Rozinante at full gallop, and intending to pierce him through and through. And as he came up to him, without stopping his horse, he shouted to him: 'Defend thyself, caitiff wretch, or else render to me of thine own will what is mine by all the rights of war.'

The barber, who saw this wild figure bearing down on him as he was riding along without thought or fear of attack, had no other way to avoid the thrust of the lance than to fall off his ass on to the ground. And no sooner did he touch the earth than he sprang up more nimbly than a deer and raced away across the plain faster than the wind, leaving behind him on the ground the coveted basin. With this Don Quixote was well content, and said that the Pagan was a wise man in leaving behind him that for which he was attacked.

Then he commanded Sancho to take up the helmet, who lifting it said: 'The basin is a good one, and is worth eight _reals_ if it is worth a farthing.'

He gave it to his Master, who placed it upon his head, turning it about from side to side in search of the visor, and seeing he could not find it, said: 'Doubtless the Pagan for whom this helmet was first forged had a very great head, and the worst of it is that half of the helmet is wanting.'

When Sancho heard him call the basin a helmet he could not contain his laughter, but presently remembering his Master's anger, he checked himself in the midst of it.

'Why dost thou laugh, Sancho?' said Don Quixote.

'I laugh,' said he, 'to think of the great head the Pagan owner of this helmet had. For it is all the world like a barber's basin.'

'Know, Sancho, that I imagine,' replied Don Quixote, 'that this famous piece of the enchanted helmet must by some strange accident have fallen into some one's hands that knew not its great worth, and seeing that it was of pure gold, he hath melted down one half and made of the other half this, which seems, as thou sayest, to be a barber's basin. But be that as it may, to me, who know its value, its transformation makes no matter. I will have it altered at the first village where I can find a smith, and meanwhile I will wear it as well as I can, for something is better than nothing, all the more as it will do to protect me against any blow from a stone.'

'That is,' said Sancho, 'if they do not shoot from a sling, as they shot in the battle of the two armies, when they made their mark on your Worship's grinders and broke the oil-pot wherein you carried that blessed Balsam.'

'I do not much care for the loss of the Balsam,' replied Don Quixote, 'for as thou knowest, Sancho, I have the receipt for it in my memory.'

'So have I too,' groaned Sancho; 'but if ever I make it or try it again as long as I live may this be my last hour. But letting that pass, what shall we do with this dapple grey steed that looks so like a grey ass, that Martino, or whatever his name was, has left behind him? For from the haste he made to get away I do not think he intends to come back, and by my beard the beast is a good one.'

'I am not accustomed to ransack and spoil those whom I overcome, nor is it the practice of Knighthood to take the horses of others unless the victor chance in combat to lose his own. Therefore, Sancho, leave the horse or ass, or what else thou pleasest to call it, for when his owner sees us departed he will return again for it.'

'Truly,' said Sancho, 'the laws of Knighthood are strict, and if I may not change one ass for another, may I at least change the harness?'

'Of that I am not very sure,' said Don Quixote, 'and as it is a matter of doubt, you must not change them unless thy need is extreme.'

'So extreme,' said Sancho, 'that if they were for mine own person I could not need them more.'

So saying he decked out his Ass with a thousand fineries robbed from the other, and made him look vastly better. Then, having taken a drink at the stream, they turned their backs on the hateful fulling-mills, and rode along the highroad, Don Quixote all the way describing to Sancho the successes in store for them, until he was interrupted by an adventure that must be told in another chapter.