"For all that," answered the traveller, "I feel some doubt still, because often I have read how words will arise between two knights-errant, and from one thing to another it comes about that their anger kindles and they wheel their horses round and take a good stretch of field, and then without any more ado at the top of their speed they come to the charge, and in mid-career they are wont to commend themselves to their ladies; and what commonly comes of the encounter is that one falls over the haunches of his horse pierced through and through by his antagonist's lance, and as for the other, it is only by holding on to the mane of his horse that he can help falling to the ground; but I know not how the dead man had time to commend himself to God in the course of such rapid work as this; it would have been better if those words which he spent in commending himself to his lady in the midst of his career had been devoted to his duty and obligation as a Christian.
-Con todo eso -replicó el caminante-, me queda un escrúpulo, y es que muchas veces he leído que se traban palabras entre dos andantes caballeros, y, de una en otra, se les viene a encender la cólera, y a volver los caballos y tomar una buena pieza del campo, y luego, sin más ni más, a todo el correr dellos, se vuelven a encontrar; y, en mitad de la corrida, se encomiendan a sus damas; y lo que suele suceder del encuentro es que el uno cae por las ancas del caballo, pasado con la lanza del contrario de parte a parte, y al otro le viene también que, a no tenerse a las crines del suyo, no pudiera dejar de venir al suelo. Y no sé yo cómo el muerto tuvo lugar para encomendarse a Dios en el discurso de esta tan acelerada obra.