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Ah, if thou couldst feel as I, and be endued with speech, to tell me where he shifts about to shun my wrath; then should he be smitten, and his brains be dashed against the floor here and there about the cave, and my heart be lightened of the sorrows which Noman, nothing worth, hath brought me!"
He asked his name, to which Ulysses replied, "My name is Noman." After his supper the giant lay down to repose, and was soon sound asleep. Then Ulysses with his four select friends thrust the end of the stake into the fire till it was all one burning coal, then poising it exactly above the giant's only eye, they buried it deeply into the socket, twirling it round as a carpenter does his auger.
Precisely at half-past four o'clock the Flying Fish took the water about two miles to the eastward of the "Noman" fort, and her occupants at once began the search for a suitable berth for her a berth, that is to say, in a position where she would not be likely to be discovered by the fishermen, and where the depth of water would be sufficient to permit of the largest man-o'-war passing over her submerged hull without striking upon it.
Now when the wine had got about the wits of the Cyclops, then did I speak to him with soft words: "Cyclops, thou askest me my renowned name, and I will declare it unto thee, and do thou grant me a stranger's gift, as thou didst promise. Noman is my name, and Noman they call me, my father and my mother and all my fellows."
Noman, having addressed his soldiers and made arrangements concerning the command in case of his own death, mounted a milk-white steed, and gave the signal for the fight by thrice shouting the famous tehbir, or battle-cry, "Allah akbar." The Arabs charged with fury, and for a while, amid the clouds of dust which rose beneath their feet, nothing was heard but the clash of steel.
"I then gave him some more; three times did I fill the bowl for him, and three times did he drain it without thought or heed; then, when I saw that the wine had got into his head, I said to him as plausibly as I could: 'Cyclops, you ask my name and I will tell it you; give me, therefore, the present you promised me; my name is Noman; this is what my father and mother and my friends have always called me.
Then fancy this little figure, with arms so long that they reach to its knees, dressed in a dark blue smock frock without sleeves, a red leather belt round its waist, dark red trousers on its legs, and green morocco shoes on its feet; then call it a Noman, and you will see precisely the sort of beings which were left to wait on the young inhabitants of Child Island.
"Why dost thou cry aloud in the night and awake us from our sleep? Surely no one stealeth thy flocks? None slayeth thee by force or by craft." From the other side of the great stone moaned Polyphemus: "Noman is slaying me by craft." Then the Cyclôpes said: "If no man is hurting thee, then indeed it must be a sickness that makes thee cry so loud, and this thou must bear, for we cannot help."
"'What ails you, Polyphemus, said they, 'that you make such a noise, breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able to sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man is trying to kill you either by fraud or by force? "But Polyphemus shouted to them from inside the cave, 'Noman is killing me by fraud; no man is killing me by force.
He made answer from within that Noman had hurt him, Noman had killed him, Noman was with him in the cave. They replied, "If no man has hurt thee, and no man is with thee, then thou art alone, and the evil that afflicts thee is from the hand of heaven, which none can resist or help." So they left him and went their way, thinking that some disease troubled him.
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