The devil, you must know, came to the poor man’s door, and rapping there, cried, So ho! ho, the house! ho, clodpate! where art thou?  Come out with a vengeance; come out with a wannion; come out and be damned; now for clawing.  Then briskly and resolutely entering the house, and not finding the countryman there, he spied his wife lying on the ground, piteously weeping and howling.  What is the matter? asked the devil.  Where is he? what does he?  Oh! that I knew where he is, replied threescore and five; the wicked rogue, the butcherly dog, the murderer!  He has spoiled me; I am undone; I die of what he has done me.  How, cried the devil, what is it?  I’ll tickle him off for you by-and-by.  Alas! cried the old dissembler, he told me, the butcher, the tyrant, the tearer of devils told me that he had made a match to scratch with you this day, and to try his claws he did but just touch me with his little finger here betwixt the legs, and has spoiled me for ever.  Oh!  I am a dead woman; I shall never be myself again; do but see!  Nay, and besides, he talked of going to the smith’s to have his pounces sharpened and pointed.  Alas! you are undone, Mr. Devil; good sir, scamper quickly, I am sure he won’t stay; save yourself, I beseech you.  While she said this she uncovered herself up to the chin, after the manner in which the Persian women met their children who fled from the fight, and plainly showed her what do ye call them.  The frightened devil, seeing the enormous solution of the continuity in all its dimensions, blessed himself, and cried out, Mahon, Demiourgon, Megaera, Alecto, Persephone! ’slife, catch me here when he comes!  I am gone! ’sdeath, what a gash!  I resign him the field.

Having heard the catastrophe of the story, we retired a-shipboard, not being willing to stay there any longer.  Pantagruel gave to the poor’s box of the fabric of the church eighteen thousand good royals, in commiseration of the poverty of the people and the calamity of the place.

Chapter 4.XLVIII.

How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Papimany.

Having left the desolate island of the Pope-figs, we sailed for the space of a day very fairly and merrily, and made the blessed island of Papimany.  As soon as we had dropt anchor in the road, before we had well moored our ship with ground-tackle, four persons in different garbs rowed towards us in a skiff.  One of them was dressed like a monk in his frock, draggle-tailed, and booted; the other like a falconer, with a lure, and a long-winged hawk on his fist; the third like a solicitor, with a large bag, full of informations, subpoenas, breviates, bills, writs, cases, and other implements of pettifogging; the fourth looked like one of your vine-barbers about Ocleans, with a jaunty pair of canvas trousers, a dosser, and a pruning knife at his girdle.