"Do you hear that?" said Morgante; "I'll have him out, if it's the devil himself. Perhaps it's two devils, Filthy-dog and Foul-mouth, or Itching and Evil-tail."[4]
"Have him out," said Orlando, "whoever he is, even were it as many devils as were rained out of heaven into the centre."
Morgante lifted up the stone, and out leaped, surely enough, a devil in the likeness of a dried-up dead body, black as a coal. Orlando seized him, and the devil grappled with Orlando. Morgante was for joining him, but the Paladin bade him keep back. It was a hard struggle, and the devil grinned and laughed, till the giant, who was a master of wrestling, could bear it no longer: so he doubled him up, and, in spite of all his efforts, thrust him back into the tomb.
"You'll never get out," said the devil, "if you leave me shut up."
"Why not?" inquired the Paladin.
"Because your giant's baptism and my deliverance must go together," answered the devil. "If he is not baptised, you can have no deliverance; and if I am not delivered, I can prevent it still, take my word for it."
Orlando baptised the giant. The two companions then issued forth, and hearing a mighty noise in the house, looked back, and saw it all vanished.
"I could find it in my heart," said Morgante, "to go down to those same regions below, and make all the devils disappear in like manner. Why shouldn't we do it? We'd set free all the poor souls there. Egad, I'd cut off Minos's tail—I'd pull out Charon's beard by the roots—make a sop of Phlegyas, and a sup of Phlegethon—unseat Pluto,—kill Cerberus and the Furies with a punch of the face a-piece—and set Beelzebub scampering like a dromedary."
"You might find more trouble than you wot of," quoth Orlando, "and get worsted besides. Better keep the straight path, than thrust your head into out-of-the-way places."
Morgante took his lord's advice, and went straightforward with him through many great adventures, helping him with loving good-will as often as he was permitted, sometimes as his pioneer, and sometimes as his finisher of troublesome work, such as a slaughter of some thousands of infidels. Now he chucked a spy into a river—now felled a rude ambassador to the earth (for he didn't stand upon ceremony)—now cleared a space round him in battle with the clapper of an old bell which he had found at the monastery—now doubled up a king in his tent, and bore him away, tent and all, and a Paladin with him, because he would not let the Paladin go.