d what he thought good, and withal
carried away the six pilgrims, who were in so great fear that they did not
dare to speak nor cough.

Washing them, therefore, first at the fountain, the pilgrims said one to
another softly, What shall we do? We are almost drowned here amongst these
lettuce, shall we speak? But if we speak, he will kill us for spies. And,
as they were thus deliberating what to do, Gargantua put them with the
lettuce into a platter of the house, as large as the huge tun of the White
Friars of the Cistercian order; which done, with oil, vinegar, and salt, he
ate them up, to refresh himself a little before supper, and had already
swallowed up five of the pilgrims, the sixth being in the platter, totally
hid under a lettuce, except his bourdon or staff that appeared, and nothing
else. Which Grangousier seeing, said to Gargantua, I think that is the
horn of a shell-snail, do not eat it. Why not? said Gargantua, they are
good all this month: which he no sooner said, but, drawing up the staff,
and therewith taking up the pilgrim, he ate him very well, then drank a
terrible draught of excellent white wine. The pilgrims, thus devoured,
made shift to save themselves as well as they could, by withdrawing their
bodies out of the reach of the grinders of his teeth, but could not escape
from thinking they had been put in the lowest dungeon of a prison. And
when Gargantua whiffed the great draught, they thought to have been drowned
in his mouth, and the flood of wine had almost carried them away into the
gulf of his stomach. Nevertheless, skipping with their bourdons, as St.
Michael's palmers use to do, they sheltered themselves from the danger of
that inundation under the banks of his teeth. But one of them by chance,
groping or sounding the country with his staff, to try whether they were in
safety or no, struck hard against the cleft of a hollow tooth, and hit the
mandibulary sinew or nerve of the jaw, which put Gargantua to very great
pain, so that he began to cry for the rage that he felt. To ease himself
therefore of his smarting ache, he called for his toothpicker, and rubbing
towards a young walnut-tree, where they lay skulking, unnestled you my
gentlemen pilgrims.

For he caught one by the legs, another by the scrip, another by the pocket,
another by the scarf, another by the band of the breeches, and the poor
fellow that had hurt him with the bourdon, him he hooked to him by the
codpiece, which sn