THE WONDERFUL WAY IN WHICH PANTAGRUEL DISPOSED OF THE GIANT LOUPGAROU
AND HIS TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE GIANTS.
[Illustration: Initial A.]
As soon as the body-guard of Giants saw flames bursting from the
tents, all they could think of doing was to snatch up their little
King Anarchus, tie him to the neck of one of them, and get out of the
burning city as fast as their long legs could take them. Panurge, as
usual, was the first to see the Giants racing out of the city.
"My lord," he said, "just look at those big rogues over there! All you
have to do is to charge with that mast you have in your hand. You can
have no better way to prove your skill. We, on our part, are not going
to fail you."
"Ho! ho!" answered Pantagruel, "I do not lack courage. But even
Hercules did not dare fight against two, and here thou wouldst have me
fight against three hundred!"
"What!" retorted Panurge, while his tip-tilted nose curled higher in
the air than usual, "does Your Highness seriously mean to compare
yourself with Hercules? God has given you stronger teeth and stouter
limbs than ever Hercules had." Panurge was going to say a good deal
more, but here came Loupgarou with all his Giants.
When Loupgarou saw that Pantagruel was alone,--for, after all, to the
eyes of giants common-sized men, like Panurge, Epistemon, Carpalim, and
Eusthenes, must have looked like so many dwarfs,--he felt sure that he
would be able to make away with him. In fact, he was so sure that he
turned to his Giants, laughing all the time so as to show all his big,
cruel, yellow teeth. "By Mahomet! if any of you dare fight with that
great braggart over there, you shall die at these hands! I, alone, wish
to fight with him! Meanwhile, you shall have rare sport in looking on."
Laughing loudly, the other Giants fell back a short distance, where
the wine and victuals had been left, carrying their little King along
with them. They had hardly got there when the cunning Panurge and his
friends, putting on a most humble, miserable look, crawled up, saying:--
"We surrender, good comrades. We have no taste for war. All we ask is
to join with you in feasting while our masters are fighting."
The poor little King was willing; the Giants were willing; and so they
began to feast, Panurge and the others along with them.
Loupgarou had, by this time, advanced upon Pantagruel, with a fearful
mace of steel, weighing nine hundred and seventy thousand pounds.
At the end of the mace there were thirteen diamond points, the very
smallest of which was as big as the largest bell of the _Nôtre Dâme_,
in Paris. But what made that mace so terrible was, that it was formed
of fairy steel, so that it had only to touch the strongest thing in
the world to break it into pieces. But Pantagruel, as we know, put his
faith in God alone. As every good Christian, when he sees a fearful
enemy near him, calls upon God, so Pantagruel prayed to Him, while
Loupgarou was cursing furiously, to aid him who had always loved the
Church and obeyed the Ten Commandments. He had scarcely ended his
prayer when he heard a voice from the sky, saying: "Have faith, and
thou shall gain the victory."
By this time, Loupgarou, with his mouth wide open, was drawing near
him, and Pantagruel, who had no enchanted weapon, but only his mast,
thought to frighten the monster by crying out, as the old Lacedæmonians
used to do, in his most awful tones: "_Thou diest, rascal! Thou
diest!_" Even while he was saying this, he was digging his big hands
into the ship which he carried at his waist, from which he took
more than eighteen kegs and four bushels of salt, which he threw,
filling Loupgarou's mouth, throat, nose, and eyes. This only made
Loupgarou rage worse than ever. Roaring with pain and anger, he rushed
against Pantagruel, thinking to break his skull with his fairy mace.
Pantagruel, luckily, was both quick of foot and keen of eye. Seeing
what Loupgarou was at, he stepped with his left foot back one pace; but
even then he was not so quick as to save the ship. Loupgarou's blow
fell upon its prow, which was enough to smash it into four thousand and
eighty-six pieces, scattering, of course, the rest of the salt along
the ground.
[Illustration: THE FIGHT WITH LOUPGAROU.]
When Pantagruel saw his good ship all in pieces he did not despair, but
gallantly attacked Loupgarou with its mast, striking him two blows;
one fell above the breast, the other between neck and shoulders. The
monster did not relish such treatment. So, when Pantagruel wanted
to give another blow in the same sharp style, Loupgarou raised his
enchanted mace and rushed upon him, knowing that he had only to touch
him with it to cleave him from head to foot. But, by God's blessing,
Pantagruel's nimbleness saved him here a second time. Stepping briskly
to one side, the terrible mace swept with a hissing noise through
the air, striking a great rock which stood in the way, into which it
crashed more than seventy-three feet, making a fire greater in bulk
than nine thousand and six tons flash from the hole it had made.
Here was another chance for Pantagruel.
Seeing that Loupgarou was tugging away at his enchanted mace to pull it
from the rock, Pantagruel ran towards him with his mast well-poised,
feeling sure that, this time, he would take off his head; but, by bad
luck, his mast just grazed the stock of Loupgarou's mace. Of course it
broke, and, what is worse, broke within three hand-breadths of his own
hand. Pantagruel was so much amazed at all this, as he had never before
heard that Loupgarou's mace was enchanted, that he cried out, without
very well knowing what he was doing: "Ho! Panurge, where art thou?"
Panurge, whose eyes and cars had been stretched wide open ever since
the beginning of the fight, shouted out to the King and the Giants: "By
Heaven! if we don't get them apart, they will hurt one another."
But the Giants, on their side, were in high chuckles. When Carpalim
wanted to get up to help his master, one of them said:--
"By Golfarim!"--who is the nephew of Mahomet,--"if thou stir from here,
I shall tuck thee in my belt."
Meanwhile Pantagruel, having lost his staff, caught hold of the little
stump that was left of the mast, striking blows, here and there, with
it on the Giant's body. But the stump was so short that no harm was
done. Of course, all this time, Loupgarou was puffing and blowing hard
to pull his mace out from the rock. He at last succeeded. All the
time he was getting ready to swing it once more, he was bawling out:
"Villain! this time I shall surely kill thee! Never after this shalt
thou make honest people thirsty!" In trying to get his mace in proper
position to strike, he was, of course, bending a little.
Here was one more chance for Pantagruel; and Pantagruel took it.
While Loupgarou had his body half-bent, Pantagruel gave him such a
kick in the stomach that he made him fall backwards, heels over head,
and as he began to drag him along the ground, Loupgarou was bleeding
at the throat, and could only find breath to call out three times:
"Mahomet! Mahomet!! Mahomet!!!"
[Illustration: DEATH OF LOUPGAROU.]
The moment they heard that cry, up started all the Giants to help their
leader; but now came Panurge's time to interfere.
"Gentlemen, don't you go, if you have the slightest faith in me. My
master is mad, and is striking out blindly. He may hurt you in his
anger."
But the Giants only ha-ha'd at all this, having seen that poor
Pantagruel's only weapon, the mast, had been shivered to the handle by
the fairy mace. So, like idiots, they started in a body to Loupgarou's
rescue. The moment Pantagruel, who was just then breathing a little
hard, saw the Giants coming up, he caught Loupgarou's body, encased in
an armor of stout anvils, up by the two feet, lifting it high in the
air with the same ease as he might have raised a pike; and, with the
master's own body, he slashed around right and left among the Giants,
knocking them down as a mason chips with his hammer little bits off
a stone. Not one of the Giants could stand before Pantagruel without
being struck flat to the ground. While Pantagruel was performing
such wonders with Loupgarou's body and his armor of anvils, Panurge,
together with Carpalim and Eusthenes, were not idle. They, who had been
so humble a few moments before, were now going from one to the other
of the party who lay stretched on the ground, cutting the throats of
such as had not fallen quite dead. When the battle seemed to be at an
end, up came a fearful Giant, whom Pantagruel did not know, but who
was so much taller and stouter than his comrades that Loupgarou had
made him his first officer. Pantagruel felt perfectly safe with his
new weapon; but, seeing how big the Giant was, he gave an extra strong
blow with the body, which sent Loupgarou's head rolling on the ground.
This new Giant was the last, and that one strong blow killed him. Then
Pantagruel, seeing that none of the Giants had escaped, with one great
swing of the arm, threw the headless body into the city, which was not
very far off.
It fell into the great Square, where it crushed with its weight one
singed cat, one wet cat, one lame duck, and one bridled goose.