"The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

positively in an awful degree.
"'When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood, it
suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and emitted
from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense cloud of
smoke, and a noise that I can compare to nothing but thunder. As the
smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd man-animals standing near
the head of the large beast with a trumpet in his hand, through
which (putting it to his mouth) he presently addressed us in loud,
harsh, and disagreeable accents, that, perhaps, we should have
mistaken for language, had they not come altogether through the nose.
"'Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply, as I
could in no manner understand what was said; and in this difficulty
I turned to the porter, who was near swooning through affright, and
demanded of him his opinion as to what species of monster it was, what
it wanted, and what kind of creatures those were that so swarmed
upon its back. To this the porter replied, as well as he could for
trepidation, that he had once before heard of this sea-beast; that
it was a cruel demon, with bowels of sulphur and blood of fire,
created by evil genii as the means of inflicting misery upon
mankind; that the things upon its back were vermin, such as
sometimes infest cats and dogs, only a little larger and more
savage; and that these vermin had their uses, however evil- for,
through the torture they caused the beast by their nibbling and
stingings, it was goaded into that degree of wrath which was requisite
to make it roar and commit ill, and so fulfil the vengeful and
malicious designs of the wicked genii.
"This account determined me to take to my heels, and, without once
even looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the hills, while
the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite direction,
so that, by these means, he finally made his escape with my bundles,
of which I have no doubt he took excellent care- although this is a
point I cannot determine, as I do not remember that I ever beheld
him again.
"'For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin
(who had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon overtaken,
bound hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which immediately swam
out again into the middle of the sea.
"'I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home to
peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being useless,
I made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to secure the
goodwill of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared to
exercise authority over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this
endeavor that, in a few days, the creature bestowed upon me various
tokens of his favor, and in the end even went to the trouble of
teaching me the rudiments of what it was vain enough to denominate its
language; so that, at length, I was enabled to converse with it
readily, and came to make it comprehend the ardent desire I had of
seeing the world.
"'Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt
grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,' said he to me, one day after dinner-