Then the staff was reverently placed in a corner of the room.
FRIAR JOHN ARRIVES.
After supper, there was a long consultation about what ought to be done with Picrochole. As is always the way, one said one thing; another unsaid it; one had a plan; some one else had something better. It was finally resolved not to wait for another day, but to start the very next midnight, which—it being now two o'clock in the afternoon—was only ten hours off. While some young men were sent out as spies to bring word what Picrochole was doing, the rest began to arm themselves with breast-plate and back-plate and all the iron and steel plates they could get hold of. There was a little trouble about what Friar John was to wear. They wanted to put their iron and steel stuff on him; but the brave monk wouldn't agree to it. He rushed to the corner where his staff was, grasped it with both hands, and waved it in the air, saying, "Don't trouble yourselves about me, good friends. This is what I saved my Abbey with! I know it, and it knows me; it is good enough for me! I am heart and soul with you. All I ask for is a stout horse, and you will find me with my staff by your side whenever you want me."
"Very well, Friar," Gargantua said, laughing. "Every conqueror has the right to choose his weapons. You are a conqueror; keep yours."
When all the clocks were striking midnight, Gargantua left the Palace with Ponocrates, Friar John always carrying his staff, Gymnaste, Eudemon the page, and twenty-five of the most adventurous knights, all armed from head to foot, and mounted like great Saint George himself, each with a stout archer behind him.
These were to be followed, the next morning, by the whole army, which had been recruited in a fashion that would look very strange to-day. Let me tell you how it all was!
Before Gargantua had come back from Paris, and while Picrochole was still galloping with his wicked soldiers over rich fields, and trampling down fruits and vines, and cursing and cutting and slashing away, and killing just as the fancy took him, Father Grandgousier had sent messages to his friends and neighbors living a hundred miles around, telling them all about the war; how his son Gargantua, in whom he trusted, was far away in Paris, studying hard at his Latin; and asking them to help him just as much as they could in money and men. It was in this way that it was made as clear as the bright sun shining in heaven at noonday, how many friends the good old Giant really had. Some might say all this was because he was a Giant; but I think it was not so much that as because he had always, through a long life, been kind and gentle to little men.
Taking what one Prince, and another, gave in money, Father Grandgousier raised among his neighbors one hundred and thirty-four million and two and a half crowns of pure gold.
When he read their lists, giving the number of soldiers each one was able to lend him, he found that he would have:—