DON QUIXOTE

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quailed with fear, for the persons approaching them carried lances and
bucklers, and were in very warlike guise. Don Quixote turned to Sancho
and said, "If I could make use of my weapons, and my promise had not tied
my hands, I would count this host that comes against us but cakes and
fancy bread; but perhaps it may prove something different from what we
apprehend." The men on horseback now came up, and raising their lances
surrounded Don Quixote in silence, and pointed them at his back and
breast, menacing him with death. One of those on foot, putting his finger
to his lips as a sign to him to be silent, seized Rocinante's bridle and
drew him out of the road, and the others driving Sancho and Dapple before
them, and all maintaining a strange silence, followed in the steps of the
one who led Don Quixote. The latter two or three times attempted to ask
where they were taking him to and what they wanted, but the instant he
began to open his lips they threatened to close them with the points of
their lances; and Sancho fared the same way, for the moment he seemed
about to speak one of those on foot punched him with a goad, and Dapple
likewise, as if he too wanted to talk. Night set in, they quickened their