"That long-nosed fellow knows how to choose ! That ram he has taken was the very one I had put aside for my best friend, the Lord of Cancale !"
As quick as lightning — before anybody knew what he was about; even before Dindeno in fact, had turned away from whispering to his shepherds — Panurge had caught up his bargain, bleating louder than ever, and thrown it overboard into the sea. At this, all the other sheep on the ship, crying and bleating just in the same sad key as their leader, began to scamper to the side and leap into the sea one after another. It was, with all of them, " Who shall be first after our leader?" it being the nature of sheep, which are the silliest creatures in the world, always to follow their leader.
When Dindeno turned round and saw his precious sheep frisking and drowning themselves before his eyes, he was at his wits' end. He tore his hair, and called out to his shepherds, " Help me save my sheep ! help me !" Then he ran forward, and tried to keep, by might and main, the sheep from jumping into the sea; but it was all in vain. One after the other frisked gaily forward, bleating sadly all the while, to the spot where they had seen Panurge throw their leader overboard. At last Dindeno, in his despair, caught hold of a big ram by the fleece,
PANURGE THROWS HIS RAM OVERBOARD.
hoping to be able to keep him back, and, in that way, to save the rest. But the ram was stronger than Dindeno, and bore him away with him into the sea, where both were drowned.
This was, of course, bad enough; but there was something worse to come. All of Dindeno's shepherds rushed forward to save the sheep, some catching them by the horns, some by the fleece, others by the legs, others still by their stumpy tails. It mattered little which way the poor innocent shepherds caught hold of the sheep, the sheep were too much for them, and they were all carried overboard into the sea, and drowned along with their master.
All this time Panurge was standing near the galley of the ship, holding an oar in his hand. This was not, you may
THE SHEEP AND SHEPHERDS DROWN.
well believe, to keep the poor shepherds from drowning. No ! no ! Panurge was not so soft-hearted as that! He used his oar only to keep the sheep from swimming up to the ship, crying out all the time, —
"Drown, foolish sheep, drown! It is sweeter to drown than to live and be butchered, you foolish sheep ! "
Wicked Panurge ! He never once thought of Dindeno and the innocent shepherds!
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE ISLAND OF ALLIANCES.
AFTER the slaughter of Dindeno, his shepherds, and his sheep, Pantagruel returned to his ship, and continued on his way to that land where he was hoping soon to meet the lovely Princess, whose beauty had reached his ears from far India. As to the affair on board the merchant-ship, nobody could be found who was really to blame. Panurge put on his most innocent look, and declared to Pantagruel that he had only done what he had a perfect right to do, — thrown his own ram overboard.
With a spanking breeze, the fleet made great speed. On the third day a triangular island, having something of the shape of Sicily about it, was sighted. Pantagruel and his friends, on landing, were met by one who called himself the Mayor, who came puffing, and all red in the face from the haste he had made to get to the harbor, as soon as he heard that a strange craft was in port.
"What is the name of this queer, three-cornered land, and who are its queer-nosed people?" whispered Panurge, sharply twitching the Mayor by the sleeve, as he was making his twelfth bow to Pantagruel. Nothing ever pleased the Mayor more than to be called upon for an account of the island and its people. He had written a little history for the benefit of travellers, and knew every page of it by heart. In his own mind, he at once put Panurge down as a very gifted personage, although he was willing to grant that Pantagruel was the tallest and the noblest man who had ever stepped on the island. Bowing to Panurge, therefore, very politely, and having learned that it was
Pantagruel's wish for him to go on, he gave them an account as he led them from one point of interest in the island to the other.
According to the Mayor, the island was known as the " Island of Alliances." It used to be called, in the old times, " Island of the Noseless People," from the fact that the noses of all the men and women and little children were flat, and shaped like the ace of clubs. The island was small, but it was full of people, and had been inhabited for many thousand years. As ages rolled by, it was found to be of no use to try and keep up the family names; for, as there was no difference in the faces, — since all, big and little, rich and poor, had the same kind of club-nose, dumped exactly in the middle of the face, —nobody could claim any particular name. In their trouble, through much thinking, they at last formed a plan by which they could tell one from another.
This was their plan : —
They made up their minds to forget altogether, as unworthy of them, such barbarous relationships as father, mother, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, etc., and to call each other by the name of whatever one most wanted. In this way, the people of the island became as one family. So loving did they grow under this new rule that each one seemed to have a certain right to his neighbor, and never spoke to him without putting " my " before his name. If a little girl, for instance, wanted butter for her bread, she would call her mother "my Butter; w if the mother wanted her thread, the call, "my Thread" would bring the little girl running to find it for her. A young man would bow to a young lady, and say, " A lovely day, my sweet Evening Walk," and she would smile, and reply, " Yes, my Fairest Nosegay ." An old man would call to his son, " Hurry, my Staff" and the boy would answer, "At once, coming, my Purse; " a learned professor would call his class to recite by ringing his bell for " My Good Lessons" and each scholar would salute him respectfully, as he marched into his room, with " Good-morning, my Success" A hungry man would call the bar-maid, "Quick, my Oysters" and she would answer, "Yes, my Sixpence."
There could be no trouble under this new and wise law, for everything — even in the smallest matters — worked smoothly.
There could be no sad marriages, because each one called for in the other what he or she most needed, and did not have. Young men and maidens danced and sung half the year round, since they were always calling each other, " My gay Holiday " and " My rich Feast" The children, too, were happy, and laughed and played from eye-opening to eye-shutting time ; old men and women talked around the fireside of the time when they were young, tenderly calling each other, " My dear gossip Snuff" and " My good neighbor Pipe" So close together
THE ACE OF CLUBS NOSES.
did this people get to be that, in case of need, over three hundred thousand men, whose boast was that they all belonged to the same family, could march out of the city gates. So, at least, the Mayor of Club-noses declared.
Good Pantagruel kept his eyes fixed upon the Mayor, and his ears open to all that he was saying; but, at this last boast of three hundred thousand men in one family, he slightly frowned, and came near losing his usual sweet temper. The wordy Mayor, frightened by the awful eyebrows about to meet together, began to feel a strange thirst; and, making a very low bow, proposed a cup of good-cheer at a neighboring inn.
After some twenty or thirty bumpers each, Pantagruel's party all went on board, and sailed at once, right before the wind, from the Island of Alliances, without stopping to see any more of its queer-nosed people.