Page:Sinbad the sailor & other stories from the Arabian nights.djvu/36

 upon the couch and slept, and his snoring was like the roll of thunder.

We crept forth from that house in terror, feeling that it were happier to be killed by apes or drowned in the sea than to be roasted on live coals—a terrible death for a man! We then considered means of hiding, or escaping from the place. But there was no place to hide, and the ship, our only way of escape, was gone. While we were lamenting, a spell seemed to be cast over us, so that our very excess of fear drew us back to the ogre's house, wherein we sat as before, and slept.

Again we were awakened by the thunder of the ogre's approach, and again he came and selected one of our number. When, having eaten, he slept upon the couch, we conversed together, thinking to find some way of escape. One said, "By Allah! by Allah! let us kill him!" and he proposed a plan. "Listen, O my brothers!" I said on hearing this; "if we seek to kill him let us first prepare some rafts on which to escape, for we may fail of our purpose; and on these rafts we can at worst be drowned, which is better than being roasted." They answered me, "Thou art right!" So we set to work and gathered stout pieces of wood and carried them to the seashore, where we constructed rafts and stowed food upon them in readiness for a hasty departure. Then we returned to the giant's house to carry out our plan.

The sound of his snoring told us he still slept, so we took two sharp-pointed iron spits and heated the points red-hot in the fire. Then we approached him cautiously, and, at a given signal, thrust the red-hot points one into each of his eyes, and bore upon the spits with our combined weight. He arose with a mighty roar, and we fled right and left; for,

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