“I could find it in my heart,” said Morgante, “to go down to those same regions below, and make all the devils disappear in like manner.  Why shouldn’t we do it?  We’d set free all the poor souls there.  Egad, I’d cut off Minos’s tail—­I’d pull out Charon’s beard by the roots—­make a sop of Phlegyas, and a sup of Phlegethon—­unseat Pluto,—­kill Cerberus and the Furies with a punch of the face a-piece—­and set Beelzebub scampering like a dromedary.”

“You might find more trouble than you wot of,” quoth Orlando, “and get worsted besides.  Better keep the straight path, than thrust your head into out-of-the-way places.”

Morgante took his lord’s advice, and went straightforward with him through many great adventures, helping him with loving good-will as often as he was permitted, sometimes as his pioneer, and sometimes as his finisher of troublesome work, such as a slaughter of some thousands of infidels.  Now he chucked a spy into a river—­now felled a rude ambassador to the earth (for he didn’t stand upon ceremony)—­now cleared a space round him in battle with the clapper of an old bell which he had found at the monastery—­now doubled up a king in his tent, and bore him away, tent and all, and a Paladin with him, because he would not let the Paladin go.

In the course of these services, the giant was left to take care of a lady, and lost his master for a time; but the office being at an end, he set out to rejoin him, and, arriving at a cross-road, met with a very extraordinary personage.

This was a giant huger than himself, swarthy-faced, horrible, brutish.  He came out of a wood, and appeared to be journeying somewhere.  Morgante, who had the great bell-clapper in his hand above-mentioned, struck it on the ground with astonishment, as much as to say, “Who the devil is this?” and then set himself on a stone by the way-side to observe the creature.

“What’s your name, traveller?” said Morgante, as it came up.

“My name’s Margutte,” said the phenomenon.  “I intended to be a giant myself, but altered my mind, you see, and stopped half-way; so that I am only twenty feet or so.”

“I’m glad to see you,” quoth his brother-giant.  “But tell me, are you Christian or Saracen?  Do you believe in Christ or in Apollo?”

“To tell you the truth,” said the other, “I believe neither in black nor blue, but in a good capon, whether it be roast or boiled.  I believe sometimes also in butter, and, when I can get it, in new wine, particularly the rough sort; but, above all, I believe in wine that’s good and old.  Mahomet’s prohibition of it is all moonshine.  I am the son, you must know, of a Greek nun and a Turkish bishop; and the first thing I learned was to play the fiddle.  I used to sing Homer to it.  I was then concerned in a brawl in a mosque, in which the old bishop somehow happened to be killed; so I tied a sword to my side, and went to seek my fortune, accompanied by all the possible