"I do not understand it," said Don Quixote; but one of the guards said to him, "Sir, to sing under suffering means with the non sancta fraternity to confess under torture; they put this sinner to the torture and he confessed his crime, which was being a cuatrero, that is a cattle-stealer, and on his confession they sentenced him to six years in the galleys, besides two bundred lashes that he has already had on the back; and he is always dejected and downcast because the other thieves that were left behind and that march here ill-treat, and snub, and jeer, and despise him for confessing and not having spirit enough to say nay; for, say they, 'nay' has no more letters in it than 'yea,' and a culprit is well off when life or death with him depends on his own tongue and not on that of witnesses or evidence; and to my thinking they are not very far out."
Y va siempre pensativo y triste, porque los demás ladrones que allá quedan y aquí van le maltratan y aniquilan, y escarnecen y tienen en poco, porque confesó y no tuvo ánimo de decir nones. Porque dicen ellos que tantas letras tiene un no como un sí, y que harta ventura tiene un delincuente, que está en su lengua su vida o su muerte, y no en la de los testigos y probanzas; y para mí tengo que no van muy fuera de camino.