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Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift
page 16 of 174 (09%)
When this shower of arrows was over, I fell a-groaning with grief and
pain, and then striving again to get loose, they discharged another
volley larger than the first, and some of them attempted with spears to
stick me in the sides; but by good luck I had on me a buff jerkin,[8]
which they could not pierce. I thought it the most prudent method to lie
still, and my design was to continue so till night, when, my left hand
being already loose, I could easily free myself; and as for the
inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match for the
greatest army they could bring against me, if they were all of the same
size with him that I saw.

[Illustration: "I LAY ALL THIS WHILE IN GREAT UNEASINESS" P. 8.]

But fortune disposed otherwise of me. When the people observed I was
quiet, they discharged no more arrows: but, by the noise I heard, I knew
their numbers increased; and about four yards from me, over against my
right ear, I heard a knocking for above an hour, like that of people at
work; when, turning my head that way, as well as the pegs and strings
would permit me, I saw a stage erected, about a foot and a half from the
ground, capable of holding four of the inhabitants, with two or three
ladders to mount it; from whence one of them, who seemed to be a person
of quality, made me a long speech, whereof I understood not one
syllable.

[Illustration]

But I should have mentioned, that before the principal person began his
oration, he cried out three times, _Langro debul san_ (these words, and
the former, were afterwards repeated, and explained to me). Whereupon
immediately about fifty of the inhabitants came and cut the strings that
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