a man might here drink easily without stooping.  I am apt to believe one might.  Helm a-lee, hoh, cried the pilot.  Helm a-lee; a hand or two at the helm; about ships with her; helm a-lee, helm a-lee.  Stand off from the leech of the sail.  Hoh! belay, here make fast below; hoh, helm a-lee, lash sure the helm a-lee, and let her drive.  Is it come to that? said Pantagruel; our good Saviour then help us.  Let her lie under the sea, cried James Brahier, our chief mate; let her drive.  To prayers, to prayers; let all think on their souls, and fall to prayers; nor hope to escape but by a miracle.  Let us, said Panurge, make some good pious kind of vow; alas, alas, alas! bou, bou, be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, oho, oho, oho, oho, let us make a pilgrim; come, come, let every man club his penny towards it, come on.  Here, here, on this side, said Friar John, in the devil’s name.  Let her drive, for the Lord’s sake unhang the rudder; hoh, let her drive, let her drive, and let us drink, I say, of the best and most cheering; d’ye hear, steward? produce, exhibit; for, d’ye see this, and all the rest will as well go to the devil out of hand.  A pox on that wind-broker Aeolus, with his fluster-blusters.  Sirrah, page, bring me here my drawer (for so he called his breviary); stay a little here; haul, friend, thus.  Odzoons, here is a deal of hail and thunder to no purpose.  Hold fast above, I pray you.  When have we All-saints day?  I believe it is the unholy holiday of all the devil’s crew.  Alas! said Panurge, Friar John damns himself here as black as buttermilk for the nonce.  Oh, what a good friend I lose in him.  Alas, alas! this is another gats-bout than last year’s.  We are falling out of Scylla into Charybdis.  Oho!  I drown.  Confiteor; one poor word or two by way of testament, Friar John, my ghostly father; good Mr. Abstractor, my crony, my Achates, Xenomanes, my all.  Alas!  I drown; two words of testament here upon this ladder.

Chapter 4.XXI.

A continuation of the storm, with a short discourse on the subject of making testaments at sea.

To make one’s last will, said Epistemon, at this time that we ought to bestir ourselves and help our seamen, on the penalty of being drowned, seems to me as idle and ridiculous a maggot as that of some of Caesar’s men, who, at their coming into the Gauls, were mightily busied in making wills and codicils; bemoaned their fortune and the absence of their spouses and friends at Rome, when it was absolutely necessary for them to run to their arms and use their utmost strength against Ariovistus their enemy.

This also is to be as silly as that jolt-headed loblolly of a carter, who, having laid his waggon fast in a slough, down on his marrow-bones was calling on the strong-backed deity, Hercules, might and main, to help him at a dead lift, but all the while forgot to goad on his oxen and lay his shoulder to the wheels, as it behoved him; as if a Lord have mercy upon us alone would have got his cart out of the mire.