It might have pleased fortune to let the Lilliputians
find some nation where the people were as diminutive with respect to
them as they were to me. And who knows but that even this prodigious
race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the
world, whereof we have yet no discovery?
Scared and confounded as I was, I could not forbear going on with these
reflections, when one of the reapers, approaching within ten yards of
the ridge where I lay, made me apprehend that with the next step I
should be squashed to death under his foot, or cut in two with his
reaping-hook. And, therefore, when he was again about to move, I
screamed as loud as fear could make me. Whereupon the huge creature trod
short, and looking round about under him for some time, at last espied
me as I lay on the ground. He considered awhile, with the caution of one
who endeavors to lay hold on a small dangerous animal in such a manner
that it shall not be able either to scratch or to bite him, as I myself
have sometimes done with a weasel in England.
[Illustration: "WHEREUPON THE HUGE CREATURE TROD SHORT." P. 10.]
At length he ventured to take me up between his forefinger and thumb,
and brought me within three yards of his eyes, that he might behold my
shape more perfectly.
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