"In yonder meadow. Your Highness will find him very sick."
Pantagruel and his friends crossed over to the meadow, and there found, under the blazing sun, an enormous giant stretched along the ground, breathing heavily through the most awful nostrils human eyes had ever seen; and every time he breathed through his nostrils they flapped with a loud noise, like a sail when the wind shifts. The giant looked, as he lay there, very tough and wooden-like, as though the thousands of windmills he had gulped down in his time had gradually turned his body into wood. When they came near him, Widenostrils opened his eyes for a moment, first lazily, as he saw Panurge and the other little men about him, then wildly rolling them around, in fearful efforts to see the whole of the Giant, whose legs he had first caught sight of. It was only for a moment though; for Widenostrils was dying. He half-rose on his elbows, quivering through all his big body, his nostrils all drooping and shutting close for want of air, yet found strength enough to yell out, "Magic, magic! Protect me, brother Giant! Cocks and hens are fluttering inside of me! Cocks and hens are crowing and cackling within me! I am be——!" He was going to say bewitched, but he fell back with a thump, which shook the two islands to their centre, deep under the sea, and made the people in distant lands swear, ever after, that there had been a terrible earthquake on that day.
GIANT WIDENOSTRILS, THE SWALLOWER OF WINDMILLS.
When Panurge saw Widenostrils fall back dead,—but not until then,—he went to the body, and, scrambling on its stomach, with the aid of Gymnaste, listened carefully for a few moments. Then, jumping down, he said to Pantagruel:—
"My Lord, this Widenostrils; this fine swallower of windmills; this eater of pans, and glutton of pots, is really dead! But I can swear that there are some things much like crowing cocks and cackling hens rummaging inside of his big body. Once I heard something very much like a quick yelp followed by a sharp screech."
Pantagruel seemed not to hear Panurge, for he stood a long time looking down at the body of a giant, who, when living, must have been nearly as tall as himself. On turning away, he said:—
"I wonder where this wicked man, who loved windmills, and died from skillets, ever swallowed those fowls he talked about."
He did not leave the island until he had ordered the dead giant honorable burial in the meadow where he had died. But he did not wait for the funeral. If Widenostrils had been a good giant, he would have acted as chief mourner; but he had a fixed rule which he expressed by saying:—
"Giants should always be brotherly with Giants, but only with good Giants."