about eight in the morning
Before it was daylight the man with the lances and halberds took his departure , and soon after daybreak the cousin and the page came to bid Don Quixote farewell , the former returning home , the latter resuming his journey , towards which , to help him , Don Quixote gave him twelve reals . Master Pedro did not care to engage in any more palaver with Don Quixote , whom he knew right well ; so he rose before the sun , and having got together the remains of his show and caught his ape , he too went off to seek his adventures . The landlord , who did not know Don Quixote , was as much astonished at his mad freaks as at his generosity . To conclude , Sancho , by his master 's orders , paid him very liberally , and taking leave of him they quitted the inn at about eight in the morning and took to the road , where we will leave them to pursue their journey , for this is necessary in order to allow certain other matters to be set forth , which are required to clear up this famous history . Cide Hamete , the chronicler of this great history , begins this chapter with these words , `` I swear as a Catholic Christian ; '' with regard to which his translator says that Cide Hamete 's swearing as a Catholic Christian , he being -- as no doubt he was -- a Moor , only meant that , just as a Catholic Christian taking an oath swears , or ought to swear , what is true , and tell the truth in what he avers , so he was telling the truth , as much as if he swore as a Catholic Christian , in all he chose to write about Quixote , especially in declaring who Master Pedro was and what was the divining ape that astonished all the villages with his divinations . He says , then , that he who has read the First Part of this history will remember well enough the Gines de Pasamonte whom , with other galley slaves , Don Quixote set free in the Sierra Morena : a kindness for which he afterwards got poor thanks and worse payment from that evil-minded , ill-conditioned set . This Gines de Pasamonte -- Don Ginesillo de Parapilla , Don Quixote called him -- it was that stole Dapple from Sancho Panza ; which , because by the fault of the printers neither the how nor the when was stated in the First Part , has been a puzzle to a good many people , who attribute to the bad memory of the author what was the error of the press .