“They do, O Most Illustrious, they do.”
“And your countrymen believe?”
“Surely—none but the foolish and depraved entertain a doubt.”
“Then I waste my breath in expounding laws and customs already known to you. You have, of course, the same.”
At this I averted my face and blushed so furiously that the walls of the cave were illuminated with a wavering crimson like the light of a great conflagration! Thinking that the capital city was ablaze, Juptka-Getch ran from the cave’s mouth, crying, “Fire, fire!” and I saw him no more.
[An Execution In Batrugia]
My next voyage was not so prosperous. By violent storms lasting seven weeks, during which we saw neither the sun nor the stars, our ship was driven so far out of its course that the captain had no knowledge of where we were. At the end of that period we were blown ashore and wrecked on a coast so wild and desolate that I had never seen anything so terrifying. Through a manifest interposition of Divine Providence I was spared, though all my companions perished miserably in the waves that had crushed the ship among the rocks.