Master Pedro Unmasked and the Braying Battle — Don Quixote

Hamete swears he tells the truth when he reveals Master Pedro as Gines de Pasamonte, the galley slave freed in the Sierra Morena who stole Dapple and now runs a puppet show and a rigged divining ape by learning each town's gossip first.

Leaving the inn, Don Quixote rides toward the Ebro until he finds the braying town's army under a standard painted with an ass and the lines about the two alcaldes. He joins them and delivers a long speech arguing that a private insult cannot justify communal war, listing the only lawful causes for arms and urging Christian forgiveness instead of revenge for a joke.

Sancho declares his master a theologian, then brays to prove the sound harmless, is knocked down for seeming to mock them, and Don Quixote flees under a shower of stones and levelled muskets while commending himself to God. The troop restores Sancho to Dapple and lets him follow, then returns home exulting when the rival town never appears.