DON QUIXOTE AND HIS STEED 189 



out his hunting knife. Then he began to prod 

 the animal with its point, first on one side of its 

 neck, then on the other, until at last he succeeded 

 in forcing the stag to gallop round to a point 

 within a few yards of the very spot where the 

 queen sat waiting. 



At last, when the animal was very near the 

 queen, its rider suddenly plunged his knife deep 

 into its throat, " so that the blood spurted out and 

 the beast fell dead just by her feet." 



This display is said to have delighted the queen 

 so greatly that she soon afterwards granted 

 Selwyn several favours, and on the monument 

 still to be seen at Walton-on-Thames he is 

 portrayed in the act of stabbing, in the manner 

 described, the stag slaughtered on that memorable 

 occasion. Selwyn died on 27th March, 1587. 



Of the famous horses of fiction and romance 

 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one or 

 two more must be mentioned. Don Quixote's 

 immortal squire, Sancho Panza, who, it will be 

 remembered, rode upon an ass named Dapple, 

 was Governor of Barataria. 



Though endowed with common sense, and 

 though his proverbs have become historical, he 

 was wholly devoid of what is sometimes called 

 " spirituality." 



