All this was being done under a fearful tempest of rain. The storm had burst, as the Lord of Vauguyon had foreseen. Ponocrates could hardly sit on his horse, for the heavy drops fell like so much lead; dainty little Eude- mon was quite crushed, and could only keep himself "O from falling by clasping his horse's neck; and all Hf^ Gynanaste could do to keep his spirits up and his blood warm was, every now and then, to turn somersaults on the back of his horse, stand on his head, on the tip of his thumb, and
GYIVTNASTE WARMS HIMSELF
skip from side to side like a monkey. All this time Gargantua, seated on his great Mare, did not feel the rain any more than if it was not roaring and hissing around him, filling all the streams along the road, and making a deluge around the Ford. He was soon to see, however, that if he himself, being a Giant, could stand this sudden flood, smaller men could not. The first thing he heard on going a little farther, from some people who were running to the high grounds for safety, was that the Ford was all swollen, and that thousands of men had been drowned in it.
He could not understand this, — of course he could not, being a Giant, — but what he did understand better was what that sly little page Eudemon, who had galloped ahead to get shelter from the rain, told him. The news Eudemon brought was that Picrochole's men were in a Castle this side of the Ford, and that before his master could hope to reach it he must take ¥ the Castle, or they would take him.
In a little came near tie. The while they the Cas-
THE CASTLE OF BOCHE-CLERMAUD.
great, gloomy seemed deserted, was to be seen dow or turret.
the front of it, Gar-out at the top of his voice to those inside : — building Not a face either from win-Riding alone to gantua shouted
"Are you there, or are you not? If you are there, don't stay! If you are not there, I shall have all this trouble for nothing."
All the answer a bold cannoneer, who had not been seen, and who was watching behind the ramparts, gave, was, after taking aim point-blank, to fire his cannon off, the ball furiously striking Gargantua on the right temple, but for all that not hurting him in the least.
" What is that?" he shouted. "How, are those fellows throwing
CANNONADING GAROANTUA.
grape-seeds at us ? If they are, the harvest will cost them dear," thinking that the balls were only grape-seeds.
On hearing his words — they could have been heard a mile off— those in the Castle rushed pell-mell to the towers and ramparts, and
GABGANTUA DESTROYS THE CASTLE.
fired more than nine thousand and twenty-five shots from their falcons and arquebuses, aiming each shot straight at Gargantua's head, which towered high above the ramparts. The guns were well pointed, and the balls hit the Giant so often that they began to bother him.
"Look here, Ponocrates, niy friend," he called to Ponocrates, who had just come up ; " these flies are blinding my eyes ! Jump down, please, and get me the biggest branch you can find to drive them away."
All this time, he was fully convinced that the leaden balls and the big stones hurled from the artillery were so many flies.
Giants are always very hard-headed, and sometimes as simple as they are hard-headed. Ponocrates, who knew better than that, told him what it was that was falling around him. Then, for the first time, Gargantua got really mad. He raised his big tree in proper position, and, turning the head of his Mare well towards the Castle, rushed furiously against the walls, tearing down all the towers and buttresses, and laying them in ruins on the ground. Not one of all those in the Castle, who had been laughing and making Gargantua their target from the ramparts, escaped. Paying no more attention to the ruins he went on to the mill-bridge, and found all the Ford, swollen by the rain, covered over with corpses, and in such number that the dead bodies had actually caused the water of the mill to stop running. Standing on the bank the party waited a bit, not at all liking to ride over dead men. That skipping monkey, Gymnaste, was the first to cross. He loudly swore that his horse was afraid of nothing, and that at home the beast never could get his feed without first stepping over a stuffed body, always put for that purpose in his way.
This satisfied the others, who soon crossed after Gymnaste, and Gargantua and his great Mare slowly followed, last of all.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW GARGANTUA COMBED CANNON-BALLS OUT OF HIS HAIR, AND HOW HE ATE SIX PILGRIMS IN A SALAD BEFORE SUPPER.
RANDGOUSIER'S Palace was not far from the Ford. In a very short time after leaving the river Gargantua galloped into the court-yard, where he was joyfully welcomed by the old King himself. You may imagine how he laughed, and then cried, and then laughed once more, loud and long, over his bis' son, for whom he had been so anxiously waiting. But the laughter lived after the tears. A queer thing happened after everybody had got comfortably seated. Gargantua, feeling a little warm after his ride, had already washed himself and put on some clean clothes, for he had learned to be a neat man ever since Ponocrates had given him that mysterious dose. He was now combing his thick hair, in a lazy sort of a way, with his own comb, which had been specially made in Africa for the young Prince on his tenth birthday. It was very large, —larger, in fact, than any comb that had ever before passed through a Giant's hair. Each tooth was an elephant's tusk, taken just as it had stood in the elephant's jaw. Every time Gargantua passed the comb through his locks, half a dozen of those balls which had stuck there when he was going through the wood of Vede would drop on the floor with a clattering noise.
The amazement of good Father Grandgousier, who had his glasses off and was nearly blind without them, when he heard these cannon-balls tumbling down from his sou's head on the floor, was something worth seems 1 .
" Ho ! ho ! ho ! my good son, hast thou brought fleas all this way from Paris ? Didst thou think we had none of our own here ? "
When Gargantua, on looking down, saw several balls at his feet, he did not know what to say. He had not felt them, and was even more puzzled than his father. But wise Master Ponocrates was always ready to give the best answer, in the best place, and in the wisest way, to any question asked. Stooping and picking up one of the balls, he said, bowing respectfully : —
GARGANTUA COMBS HIS HAIR.
'This,
Your Majesty, is one of the cannon-balls which your son, while he was passing the wood of Vede, received through the treachery of your enemies."
"So that's it, is it?" cried Father Grandgousier. "Oh! the audacious vermin, to try and shoot my only son ! Ho ! ho ! I hope not one of the rascals was allowed to escape."
"All of them," answered Ponocrates solemnly, "perished in the ruins."
" That is just as it should be," the old King said. " Now, ray lords, to supper ! "
There never was a supper so soon ready ! For, when the order had been first given, the three Very Fat Cooks — Snapsauce, Hotchpotch, and Braverjuice — all came forward gravely, and with their right hands on their hearts swore they would soon have the finest supper that had ever been eaten, even in the Palace which was famed throughout the world for the perfection of its feasts.
And such a supper as they did make !
When the Chief Cook Snapsauce was asked for an account of what he had sent up, here is the list he gave, all the while strutting like a turkey-cock; and he was just as red as one, too, as he read it, — so full of pride and of the kitchen-fire was he: —