CHAPTER 1.XXXV.
How Gymnast very souply and cunningly killed Captain Tripet and others of Picrochole's men.
When they heard these words, some amongst them began to be afraid, and blessed themselves with both hands, thinking indeed that he had been a devil disguised, insomuch that one of them, named Good John, captain of the trained bands of the country bumpkins, took his psalter out of his codpiece, and cried out aloud, Hagios ho theos.

If thou be of God, speak; if thou be of the other spirit, avoid hence, and get thee going.

Yet he went not away.

Which words being heard by all the soldiers that were there, divers of them being a little inwardly terrified, departed from the place.

All this did Gymnast very well remark and consider, and therefore making as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as he was poising himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly, with his short sword by his thigh, shifting his foot in the stirrup, performed the stirrup-leather feat, whereby, after the inclining of his body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft in the air, and placed both his feet together on the saddle, standing upright with his back turned towards the horse's head.
Now, said he, my case goes backward.