Don Quixote blister

For several days, Don Quixote had been wandering around the small town that had grown at the foot of the fortress, and whose inhabitants had sought the protection of our walls as soon as the enemy began to approach. At first we took him to be some old vagabond. Indeed, his endless ranting about some man named Panza, whom he claimed was his valet, led us to believe that he was quite insane. Worse still, the man seemed to think that he was still in Castile!

However, at the very second that our dastardly officer opened the door to the enemy, we were faced with a completely different Hidalgo! Digging his spurs into his tired mare, he engaged the Demons with so much gusto that we almost felt we were watching the charge of a whole company! It was as if someone had tied a quintaine on top of an enraged horse: with his arms flailing wildly like an armed scarecrow, he both terrified and stunned the enemy troops. In the middle of this inarticulate massacre, the man began to shout at us, urging us on! He had that gleam in his eye, the one that only angels and wild beasts have, and his cracked old voice warmed our very souls by reminding us of Roland at Roncevaux. His call had a ring to it, something of the trumpets of Judgement Day, and I think that with a few more words, he could even have convinced our dead to rise up and fight by our side for an hour or two.