ading into the water hurled them after us with such good aim that
all the rafts except the one I was upon were swamped, and their luckless
crews drowned, without our being able to do anything to help them.
Indeed I and my two companions had all we could do to keep our own raft
beyond the reach of the giants, but by dint of hard rowing we at last
gained the open sea. Here we were at the mercy of the winds and waves,
which tossed us to and fro all that day and night, but the next morning
we found ourselves near an island, upon which we gladly landed.
There we found delicious fruits, and having satisfied our hunger we
presently lay down to rest upon the shore. Suddenly we were aroused by a
loud rustling noise, and starting up, saw that it was caused by an
immense snake which was gliding towards us over the sand. So swiftly it
came that it had seized one of my comrades before he had time to fly,
and in spite of his cries and struggles speedily crushed the life out of
him in its mighty coils and proceeded to swallow him. By this time my
other companion and I were running for our lives to some place where we
might hope to be safe from this new horror, and seeing a tall tree we
climbed up into it, having first provided ourselves with a store of
fruit off the surrounding bushes. When night came I fell asleep, but
only to be awakened once more by the terrible snake, which after hissing
horribly round the tree at last reared itself up against it, and finding
my sleeping comrade who was perched just below me, it swallowed him
also, and crawled away leaving me half dead with terror.
When the sun rose I crept down from the tree with hardly a hope of
escaping the dreadful fate which had overtaken my comrades; but life is
sweet, and I determined to do all I could to save myself. All day long I
toiled with frantic haste and collected quantities of dry brushwood,
reeds and thorns, which I bound with fagots, and making a circle of them
under my tree I piled them firmly one upon another until I had a kind of
tent in which I crouched like a mouse in a hole when she sees the cat
coming. You may imagine what a fearful night I passed, for the snake
returned eager to devour me, and glided round and round my frail shelter
seeking an entrance. Every moment I feared that it would succeed in
pushing aside some of the fagots, but happily for me they held together,
and when it grew light my enemy retired, baffled and hungry, to his den.
As for me
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