tools, in I don't know what manner, and I don't know what place.

Chapter 5.X.

How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Sharping.

We left the island of Tools to pursue our voyage, and the next day stood in
for the island of Sharping, the true image of Fontainebleau, for the land
is so very lean that the bones, that is, the rocks, shoot through its skin.
Besides, 'tis sandy, barren, unhealthy, and unpleasant. Our pilot showed
us there two little square rocks which had eight equal points in the shape
of a cube. They were so white that I might have mistaken them for
alabaster or snow, had he not assured us they were made of bone.

He told us that twenty chance devils very much feared in our country dwelt
there in six different storeys, and that the biggest twins or braces of
them were called sixes, and the smallest ambs-ace; the rest cinques,
quatres, treys, and deuces. When they were conjured up, otherwise coupled,
they were called either sice cinque, sice quatre, sice trey, sice deuce,
and sice ace; or cinque quatre, cinque trey, and so forth. I made there a
shrewd observation. Would you know what 'tis, gamesters? 'Tis that there
are very few of you in the world but what call upon and invoke the devils.
For the dice are no sooner thrown on the board, and the greedy gazing
sparks have hardly said, Two sixes, Frank; but Six devils damn it! cry as
many of them. If ambs-ace; then, A brace of devils broil me! will they
say. Quatre-deuce, Tom; The deuce take it! cries another. And so on to
the end of the chapter. Nay, they don't forget sometimes to call the black
cloven-footed gentlemen by their Christian names and surnames; and what is
stranger yet, they use them as their greatest cronies, and make them so
often the executors of their wills, not only giving themselves, but
everybody and everything, to the devil, that there's no doubt but he takes
care to seize, soon or late, what's so zealously bequeathed him. Indeed,
'tis true Lucifer does not always immediately appear by his lawful
attorneys; but, alas! 'tis not for want of goodwill; he is really to be
excused for his delay; for what the devil would you have a devil do? He
and his black guards are then at some other places, according to the
priority of the persons that call on them; therefore, pray let none be so
venturesome as to think that the devils are deaf and blind.

He then told us that more wrecks had happened about those square rocks, and
a gr