a vault with
a tomb in it; and out of the tomb came a voice, saying, "You must
encounter with me, or stay here for ever. Lift, therefore, the stone
that covers me."

"Do you hear that?" said Morgante; "I'll have him out, if it's the devil
himself. Perhaps it's two devils, Filthy-dog and Foul-mouth, or Itching
and Evil-tail."[4]

"Have him out," said Orlando, "whoever he is, even were it as many
devils as were rained out of heaven into the centre."

Morgante lifted up the stone, and out leaped, surely enough, a devil in
the likeness of a dried-up dead body, black as a coal. Orlando seized
him, and the devil grappled with Orlando. Morgante was for joining him,
but the Paladin bade him keep back. It was a hard struggle, and
the devil grinned and laughed, till the giant, who was a master of
wrestling, could bear it no longer: so he doubled him up, and, in spite
of all his efforts, thrust him back into the tomb.

"You'll never get out," said the devil, "if you leave me shut up."

"Why not?" inquired the Paladin.

"Because your giant's baptism and my deliverance must go together,"
answered the devil. "If he is not baptised, you can have no deliverance;
and if I am not delivered, I can prevent it still, take my word for it."

Orlando baptised the giant. The two companions then issued forth,
and hearing a mighty noise in the house, looked back, and saw it all
vanished.

"I could find it in my heart," said Morgante, "to go down to those same
regions below, and make all the devils disappear in like manner. Why
shouldn't we do it? We'd set free all the poor souls there. Egad, I'd
cut off Minos's tail--I'd pull out Charon's beard by the roots--make a
sop of Phlegyas, and a sup of Phlegethon--unseat Pluto,--kill Cerberus
and the Furies with a punch of the face a-piece--and set Beelzebub
scampering like a dromedary."

"You might find more trouble than you wot of," quoth Orlando, "and get
worsted besides. Better keep the straight path, than thrust your head
into out-of-the-way places."

Morgante took his lord's advice, and went straightforward with him
through many great adventures, helping him with loving good-will as
often as he was permitted, sometimes as his pioneer, and sometimes as
his finisher of troublesome work, such as a slaughter of some thousands
of infidels. Now he chucked a spy into a river--now felled a rude
ambassador to the earth (for he didn't stand upon ceremony)--now cleared
a space round him in battl