Come on, I know every
stone of this brook."
I followed him. His logic was good, but, on Ducconius Furfur's land I felt
hopelessly lost and overwhelmed by despair.
We had not gone far from where I had forced Agathemer to reveal his ruse,
when he turned round and whispered:
"This is the place. Here we leave the water. Follow me."
I was dimly aware of a blacker blackness before us, as of a big, tall
rock. This we skirted and then stepped out of the brook towards the left.
There we stepped into deep drifts of dead leaves.
"Here is bedding," said Agathemer, "such as Ulysses was content with after
his long sea-swim to the island of the Phaeacians. Perhaps we can get
along in such bedding."
Naked as we were we burrowed into the dead leaves, and, after a bit I felt
less chilly, though by no means warm.
Agathemer took from me the cylinder I had been carrying; opened one of the
two, a matter of some difficulty, as the top was so tight; sniffed at it,
and took from it some morsels of food: a bit of cold ham, a bit of cold
fowl and a bit of bread. These I ate, chewing them slowly. At the same
time he ate, as slowly, an equal share.
After eating we tried to sleep. I was too weary and drowsy to keep awake,
and too cold and too much in pain from the scratch on my shoulder and the
gouge on my hip to be able to sleep long.
Pages:
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261