DON QUIXOTE

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thy honour; but thou, casting behind thee all thou owest to my true love,
wouldst surrender what is mine to another whose wealth serves to bring
him not only good fortune but supreme happiness; and now to complete it
(not that I think he deserves it, but inasmuch as heaven is pleased to
bestow it upon him), I will, with my own hands, do away with the obstacle
that may interfere with it, and remove myself from between you. Long live
the rich Camacho! many a happy year may he live with the ungrateful
Quiteria! and let the poor Basilio die, Basilio whose poverty clipped the
wings of his happiness, and brought him to the grave!"

And so saying, he seized the staff he had driven into the ground, and
leaving one half of it fixed there, showed it to be a sheath that
concealed a tolerably long rapier; and, what may be called its hilt being
planted in the ground, he swiftly, coolly, and deliberately threw himself
upon it, and in an instant the bloody point and half the steel blade
appeared at his back, the unhappy man falling to the earth bathed in his
blood, and transfixed by his own weapon.