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To this they willingly agreed, and in less than half an hour they had won from him twelve reals and twenty-two maravedis, which he felt as sorely as twelve stabs with a dagger and twenty-two thousand sorrows.

And he came up with them between Atienza and San Estevan de Gormaz, as they were carrying away a great booty in captives and in flocks, and there he had a brave battle with them in the field; and in fine Rodrigo conquered, smiting and slaying, and the pursuit lasted for seven leagues, and he recovered all the spoil, which was so great that two hundred horses were the fifth, for the whole spoil was worth a hundred times a thousand maravedis.

To which Sancho answered, "I spent them for my own good, and my wife's, and my children's, and it is they that have made my wife bear so patiently all my wanderings on highways and byways, in the service of my master, Don Quixote; for if after all this time I had come back to the house without a rap and without the ass, it would have been a poor look-out for me; and if anyone wants to know anything more about me, here I am, ready to answer the king himself in person; and it is no affair of anyone's whether I took or did not take, whether I spent or did not spend; for the whacks that were given me in these journeys were to be paid for in money, even if they were valued at no more than four maravedis apiece, another hundred crowns would not pay me for half of them.

He purchased of him three-and-twenty towns and villages in the valleys of Andarax and Alhaurin, for which he gave him five millions of maravedis. El Zagal relinquished his right to one-half of the salinas or salt-pits of Malaha in favor of his brother-in-law, Cid Hiaya.

Now it came to pass that Juan Lanas, for the castigation of his sins, must needs commit himself to a lawsuit with one of his neighbors about a vine stock which was worth about fifty maravedis; and Juan was in the right, and the judges gave the verdict in his favor, so that he won his case, excepting that the suit lasted no less than ten years and the costs amounted to nothing less than fifty thousand maravedis, not to speak of a disease of the eyes which, after all was over, left him blind.

They receive each an annual salary of five hundred thousand maravedis for their support, which is paid from the royal treasury of Manila, besides their offerings and pontifical dues. All together it is quite sufficient for their support, according to the convenience of things and the cheapness of the country.

Master Pedro, perceiving that Don Quixote was beginning to wander, and return to his original fancy, was not disposed to let him escape, so he said to him, "This cannot be Melisendra, but must be one of the damsels that waited on her; so if I'm given sixty maravedis for her, I'll be content and sufficiently paid."

XXXI. Presently on the morrow they sent five good men as messengers to the King of Zaragoza, and as many more to Murcia; and it had been covenanted that neither of these messengers should take with him more than fifty maravedis for his journey, and that they should go by sea as far as Denia, in a ship of the Christians, and from thence by land.

He told Sancho to pick up the helmet, and he taking it in his hands said: "By God the basin is a good one, and worth a real of eight if it is worth a maravedis," and handed it to his master, who immediately put it on his head, turning it round, now this way, now that, in search of fitment, and not finding it he said, "Clearly the pagan to whose measure this famous head-piece was first forged must have had a very large head; but the worst of it is half of it is wanting."

O, what a brave thing it is, in every case and circumstance of a matter, to be thoroughly well informed! The sum of the expense hereof, being cast up, brought in, and laid down upon his council-board carpet, was found to amount to no more quarterly than the charge of the nuptials of a Hircanian tigress; even, as you would say, 600,000 maravedis.