Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 16.djvu/264

 house in the midst of the island. We therefore went towards it, and walked to it; and, behold, it was a pavilion, with lofty angles, with high walls, having an entrance with folding doors, which were open; and the doors were of ebony. We entered this pavilion, and found in it a wide, open space, like a wide, large court, around which were many lofty doors, and at its upper end was a high and great mastabah. There were also in it utensils for cooking, hung over the fire-pots, and around them were many bones. But we saw not there any person; and we wondered at that extremely. We sat in the open space in that pavilion a little while, after which we slept; and we ceased not to sleep from near the mid-time between sunrise and moon until sunset. And, lo, the earth trembled beneath us, and we heard a confused noise from the upper air, and there descended upon us, from the summit of the pavilion, a person of enormous size, in human form, and he was of black complexion, of lofty stature, like a great palm-tree: he had two eyes like two blazes of fire, and tusks like the tusks of swine, and a mouth of prodigious size, like the mouth of a well, and lips like the lips of a camel, hanging down upon his bosom, and he had ears like two mortars, hanging down upon his shoulders, and the nails of his hands were like the claws of the lion. So when we beheld him thus, we became unconscious of our existence, our fear was vehement, and our terror was violent, and through the violence of our fear and dread and terror we became as dead men. And after he had descended upon the ground, he sat a little while upon the mastabah. Then he arose and came to us, and, seizing me by my hands from among my companions the merchants, lifted me up from the ground in his hand, and felt me and turned me over; and I was in his hand like a little mouthful. He continued to feel me as the butcher feeleth the sheep that he is about to slaughter; but he found me infirm from excessive affliction, and lean from excessive fatigue and from the voyage; having no flesh. He therefore let me go from his hand, and took another, from among my companions; and he turned him over, as he had turned me over, and felt him as he had felt me, and let him go. He ceased not to feel us and turn us over, one after another, until he came to the master of our ship, who was a fat, stout, broad-shouldered man; a person of strength and vigour: so he pleased him,