Page:History of Sindbad the sailor.pdf/26

26 I had done so, be thurst one of his feet against my stomach, and struck me so rudely on the side with the other, that he forced me to rise up against my will. Being got up he made me walk under the trees, and forced me now and then to stop, to gather and eat such fruit as we found. He never left me all day, and when I lay down to rest me by night. He laid himself down with me, holding always about my neck. Every morning he pushed me, to make me awake, and afterwards obliged me to get up and walk, and pressed me with his feet. You may judge then what trouble I was in, to be charged with such a burden as I could no ways rid myself from.

One day I found in my way several dry calabashes, that had fallen from a tree; I took a large one, and, after cleaning it pressed into it some juice of grapes which abounded in the island; having filled the calabash, I set it in a convenient place, and coming hither again some days after, I took up my calabash, and setting it to my mouth, found the wine to be so good, that it made me presently not only forget my sorrow, but I grew so vigorous, and was so light hearted that I began to sing and dance as I walked along.

The old man perceiving the effect which this drink had upon me, and that I carryed him with more ease than before, made a sign for me to give him some of it. I gave him the calabash, and the liquor pleasing his palate, he drank it all off. There being enough of it for to fuddle him he became drunk immediately, and the fumes getting up into his head, he began to sing after his manner, and to dance with his breech upon my shoulders. His jolting about made me vomit, and he loosened his legs from about me by degrees. I threw him upon the ground, where he lay without motion, and then I took up a great stone with which I crushed his head to pieces.