The black face upon the first object is most horrible and frightful to look upon, and above all the sunken, red eyes, set beneath the fearsome and dark brows, able to cloud the weather and make the earth tremble. And believe me that there is no man so fierce that, wherever it turned its burning eyes, would not willingly take wings to flee, for infernal Lucifer would seem an angelic face compared with this. The nose curled up, with wide nostrils from which came many great bristles, beneath which was the curled mouth with thick lips, at whose extremities were hairs after the manner of cats, and yellow teeth. It rose above the heads of the men on horseback, from the instep of their feet upward. And, growing weary of the great stooping and overcome by the importunity of the [crowd], it turned its anger into fury and began, with feet driven by the fury of its mighty legs, to enter among the throng, and with kicks flung men through the air, who fell upon the other men no differently than if it had been a thick hail. And many were those who, in dying, dealt death. And this cruelty lasted until the dust stirred by the great feet, raised into the air, forced this infernal fury to draw back. And we pursued our flight. Oh how many vain assaults were made against this fiend, to whom every hurt was nothing! O wretched people, the impregnable fortresses avail you nothing, not the high walls of the cities, not being in a multitude, not the houses or palaces! There is left to you nothing but the little holes and underground caves; after the manner of crabs or crickets or such animals you find safety and your escape. Oh how many unhappy mothers and fathers were bereft of their children! Oh how many wretched women bereft of their companions! Certainly, certainly, my dear Benedetto, I do not believe that, since the world was created, there was ever seen a lament, a public weeping made with such terror. Certainly in this case the human species has cause to envy every other kind of animal, for, though the eagle prevails by power over the other birds, at least they are not conquered in swiftness of flight, whence the swallows by their quickness escape the rapine of the merlin, and the dolphins by their swift flight escape the rapine of the whales and the great sperm-whales; but we, wretches, no flight avails us, for this creature with its slow step far surpasses the course of any swift steed. I know not what to say or what to do, and it seems to me still to find myself swimming head-down through the great gullet, and to remain, in confused death, buried in the great belly.