thence to help his master; but one of the giants said
unto him, By Golfarin, the nephew of Mahoom, if thou
stir hence I will put thee in the bottom of my breeches
instead of a suppository, which cannot choose but
do me good. For in my belly I am very costive,
and cannot well cagar without gnashing my teeth and
making many filthy faces. Then Pantagruel, thus
destitute of a staff, took up the end of his mast,
striking athwart and alongst upon the giant, but he
did him no more hurt than you would do with a fillip
upon a smith’s anvil. In the (mean) time
Loupgarou was drawing his mace out of the ground, and,
having already plucked it out, was ready therewith
to have struck Pantagruel, who, being very quick in
turning, avoided all his blows in taking only the
defensive part in hand, until on a sudden he saw that
Loupgarou did threaten him with these words, saying,
Now, villain, will not I fail to chop thee as small
as minced meat, and keep thee henceforth from ever
making any more poor men athirst! For then, without
any more ado, Pantagruel struck him such a blow with
his foot against the belly that he made him fall backwards,
his heels over his head, and dragged him thus along
at flay-buttock above a flight-shot. Then Loupgarou
cried out, bleeding at the throat, Mahoom, Mahoom,
Mahoom! at which noise all the giants arose to succour
him. But Panurge said unto them, Gentlemen, do
not go, if will believe me, for our master is mad,
and strikes athwart and alongst, he cares not where;
he will do you a mischief. But the giants made
no account of it, seeing that Pantagruel had never
a staff.
And when Pantagruel saw those giants approach very
near unto him, he took Loupgarou by the two feet,
and lift up his body like a pike in the air, wherewith,
it being harnessed with anvils, he laid such heavy
load amongst those giants armed with free-stone, that,
striking them down as a mason doth little knobs of
stones, there was not one of them that stood before
him whom he threw not flat to the ground. And
by the breaking of this stony armour there was made
such a horrible rumble as put me in mind of the fall
of the butter-tower of St. Stephen’s at Bourges
when it melted before the sun. Panurge, with
Carpalin and Eusthenes, did cut in the mean time the
throats of those that were struck down, in such sort
that there escaped not one. Pantagruel to any
man’s sight was like a mower, who with his scythe,
which was Loupgarou, cut down the meadow grass, to
wit, the giants; but with this fencing of Pantagruel’s
Loupgarou lost his head, which happened when Pantagruel
struck down one whose name was Riflandouille, or Pudding-plunderer,
who was armed cap-a-pie with Grison stones, one chip
whereof splintering abroad cut off Epistemon’s
neck clean and fair. For otherwise the most
part of them were but lightly armed with a kind of
sandy brittle stone, and the rest with slates.
At last, when he saw that they were all dead, he
threw the body of Loupgarou as hard as he could against
the city, where falling like a frog upon his belly
in the great Piazza thereof, he with the said fall
killed a singed he-cat, a wet she-cat, a farting duck,
and a bridled goose.