THE MAYOR RODE UP.
Out at sea once more, they sailed on for several days without incident. One day, however, when they were at table eating, drinking, and telling stories, Pantagruel went on deck to look at the sea. After looking out a while, he began to turn his great ears towards the sky, and it was then he called out, "Do you hear nothing, gentlemen? It seems to me some people are talking above us, yet I can see no one. Listen!" So the whole company got up from the table, ran on deck, and set to cocking up their eyes and clapping their hands to their ears; but all would not do; they could neither see nor hear anything. Pantagruel, standing with his eyes still looking up, continued to hear the voices. At last some sharp-eared fellow cried, "I think I hear something." Then, all at once, every man on board began to cry out that he could plainly hear voices of men and neighing of horses; but, as nothing could be seen, everybody was mightily frightened, and Panurge worse than all. Nothing would do him but to beg Friar John to stay by him, saying that they were all undone, and that there was no fooling with the devil. "We are undone," he whimpered. "Just listen to those guns. Let's flee! There are our sails and oars; why can't we use them? I never was brave at sea; not that I am afraid! Oh, no! for I fear nothing but danger, that I don't! We are all dead men; Set off! set off!"
ENTERING THE FROZEN SEA.
Pantagruel, hearing all this noise, called out, without turning about, "Who talks of fleeing? Let us see, rather, who these people may be; they may be friends. I can discover nothing, though I can see, with my eyes, a hundred miles around." Just then, James Brayer came up, as if he had something important on his mind, and said, "Have no fear, my lord; I can make all this clear. We are on the confines of the Frozen Sea. At the beginning of last winter, a great and bloody battle was fought not far from here. Then the words and shouts of the men; the hacking and clashing of battle-axes; the jostling of armor: the neighing of horses, and all the noise and din of battle, froze in the air; and now, the winter being over, and the summer having come, all these sounds have melted, and we can hear them."
Pantagruel, who at first had thought it to be witchcraft, which he hated above all things, of a sudden cried out, "Why, sure enough, here are some tumbling down that are not yet thawed!"
A SHOWER OF FROZEN WORDS.
He then threw on deck a handful of what seemed to be rough sugar-plums, but which were, in fact, frozen words. Everybody—even Panurge, who, by this time had plucked up heart, on hearing what James Brayer had said—ran here and there, picking up the sugar-plums. Pantagruel was sure that he had never seen, in all his travels, anything quite so odd as these sugar-plums; for many of them melted almost before he could throw them down, leaving his hand all wet with water; while his ears were stunned from below by the awful shouts and groans of men, the whistling of bullets, the heavy boom of cannon, and the wild, shrill neighing of war-horses, which all came out as those queer sugar-plums melted on deck.