large deep bowl full of excellent claret with these words—­Fair and softly, gossip, you suck up as if you were mad —­I give thee to the devil, said he; thou hast not found here thy little tippling sippers of Paris, that drink no more than the little bird called a spink or chaffinch, and never take in their beakful of liquor till they be bobbed on the tails after the manner of the sparrows.  O companion! if I could mount up as well as I can get down, I had been long ere this above the sphere of the moon with Empedocles.  But I cannot tell what a devil this means.  This wine is so good and delicious, that the more I drink thereof the more I am athirst.  I believe that the shadow of my master Pantagruel engendereth the altered and thirsty men, as the moon doth the catarrhs and defluxions.  At which word the company began to laugh, which Pantagruel perceiving, said, Panurge, what is that which moves you to laugh so?  Sir, said he, I was telling them that these devilish Turks are very unhappy in that they never drink one drop of wine, and that though there were no other harm in all Mahomet’s Alcoran, yet for this one base point of abstinence from wine which therein is commanded, I would not submit myself unto their law.  But now tell me, said Pantagruel, how you escaped out of their hands.  By G—­, sir, said Panurge, I will not lie to you in one word.

The rascally Turks had broached me upon a spit all larded like a rabbit, for I was so dry and meagre that otherwise of my flesh they would have made but very bad meat, and in this manner began to roast me alive.  As they were thus roasting me, I recommended myself unto the divine grace, having in my mind the good St. Lawrence, and always hoped in God that he would deliver me out of this torment.  Which came to pass, and that very strangely.  For as I did commit myself with all my heart unto God, crying, Lord God, help me!  Lord God, save me!  Lord God, take me out of this pain and hellish torture, wherein these traitorous dogs detain me for my sincerity in the maintenance of thy law!  The roaster or turnspit fell asleep by the divine will, or else by the virtue of some good Mercury, who cunningly brought Argus into a sleep for all his hundred eyes.  When I saw that he did no longer turn me in roasting, I looked upon him, and perceived that he was fast asleep.  Then took I up in my teeth a firebrand by the end where it was not burnt, and cast it into the lap of my roaster, and another did I throw as well as I could under a field-couch that was placed near to the chimney, wherein was the straw-bed of my master turnspit.  Presently the fire took hold in the straw, and from the straw to the bed, and from the bed to the loft, which was planked and ceiled with fir, after the fashion of the foot of a lamp.  But the best was, that the fire which I had cast into the lap of my paltry roaster burnt all his groin, and was beginning to cease (seize) upon his cullions, when he became sensible of the danger, for his smelling