How Panurge played the good fellow when the storm was over.

What cheer, ho, fore and aft? quoth Panurge. Oh ho! all is well, the storm is over. I beseech ye, be so kind as to let me be the first that is sent on shore; for I would by all means a little untruss a point. Shall I help you still? Here, let me see, I will coil this rope; I have plenty of courage, and of fear as little as may be. Give it me yonder, honest tar. No, no, I have not a bit of fear. Indeed, that same decumane wave that took us fore and aft somewhat altered my pulse. Down with your sails; well said. How now, Friar John? you do nothing. Is it time for us to drink now? Who can tell but St. Martin’s running footman Belzebuth may still be hatching us some further mischief? Shall I come and help you again? Pork and peas choke me, if I do heartily repent, though too late, not having followed the doctrine of the good philosopher who tells us that to walk by the sea and to navigate by the shore are very safe and pleasant things; just as ’tis to go on foot when we hold our horse by the bridle. Ha! ha! ha! by G—, all goes well. Shall I help you here too? Let me see, I will do this as it should be, or the devil’s in’t.

Epistemon, who had the inside of one of his hands all flayed and bloody, having held a tackling with might and main, hearing what Pantagruel had said, told him: You may believe, my lord, I had my share of fear as well as Panurge; yet I spared no pains in lending my helping hand. I considered that, since by fatal and unavoidable necessity we must all die, it is the blessed will of God that we die this or that hour, and this or that kind of death. Nevertheless, we ought to implore, invoke, pray, beseech, and supplicate him; but we must not stop there; it behoveth us also to use our endeavours on our side, and, as the holy writ saith, to co-operate with him.

You know what C. Flaminius, the consul, said when by Hannibal’s policy he was penned up near the lake of Peruse, alias T............