DON QUIXOTE

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and kissed and swept the water, while on board the bugles, trumpets, and
clarions were sounding and filling the air far and near with melodious
warlike notes. Then they began to move and execute a kind of skirmish
upon the calm water, while a vast number of horsemen on fine horses and
in showy liveries, issuing from the city, engaged on their side in a
somewhat similar movement. The soldiers on board the galleys kept up a
ceaseless fire, which they on the walls and forts of the city returned,
and the heavy cannon rent the air with the tremendous noise they made, to
which the gangway guns of the galleys replied. The bright sea, the
smiling earth, the clear air--though at times darkened by the smoke of
the guns--all seemed to fill the whole multitude with unexpected delight.
Sancho could not make out how it was that those great masses that moved
over the sea had so many feet.

And now the horsemen in livery came galloping up with shouts and
outlandish cries and cheers to where Don Quixote stood amazed and
wondering; and one of them, he to whom Roque had sent word, addressing