Уильям Голдман - The Princess Bride

THEN THE SHARKS went mad. All around her, Buttercup could hear them beeping and screaming and thrashing their mighty tails. Nothing can save me, Buttercup realized. I'm a dead cookie.

Fortunately for all concerned save the sharks, it was around this time that the moon came out.

"There she is," shouted the Sicilian, and like lightning the Spaniard turned the boat and as the boat drew close the Turk reached out a giant arm and then she was back in the safety of her murderers while all around them the sharks bumped each other in wild frustration.

"Keep her warm," the Spaniard said from the tiller, tossing his cloak to the Turk.

"Don't catch cold," the Turk said, wrapping Buttercup into the cloak's folds.

"It doesn't seem to matter all that much," she answered, "seeing you're killing me at dawn."

"He'll do the actual work," the Turk said, indicating the Sicilian, who was wrapping cloth around his cuts. "We'll just hold you."

"Hold your stupid tongue," the Sicilian commanded.

The Turk immediately hushed.

"I don't think he's so stupid," Buttercup said. "And I don't think you're so smart either, with all your throwing blood in the water. That's not what I would call grade-A thinking."

"It worked, didn't it? You're back, aren't you?" The Sicilian crossed toward her. "Once women are sufficiently frightened, they scream."

"But I didn't scream; the moon came out," answered Buttercup somewhat triumphantly.

The Sicilian struck her.

"Enough of that," the Turk said then.

The tiny humpback looked dead at the giant. "Do you want to fight me? I don't think you do."

"No, sir," the Turk mumbled. "No. But don't use force. Please. Force is mine. Strike me if you feel the need. I won't care."

The Sicilian returned to the other side of the boat. "She would have screamed," he said. "She was about to cry out. My plan was ideal as all my plans are ideal. It was the moon's ill timing that robbed me of perfection." He scowled unforgivingly at the yellow wedge above them. Then he stared ahead. "There!" The Sicilian pointed. "The Cliffs of Insanity."

And there they were. Rising straight and sheer from the water, a thousand feet into the night. They provided the most direct route between Florin and Guilder, but no one ever used them, sailing instead the long way, many miles around. Not that the Cliffs were impossible to scale; two men were known to have climbed them in the last century alone.

"Sail straight for the steepest part," the Sicilian commanded.

The Spaniard said, "I was."

Buttercup did not understand. Going up the Cliffs could hardly be done, she thought; and no one had ever mentioned secret passages through them. Yet here they were, sailing closer and closer to the mighty rocks, now surely less than a quarter-mile away.

For the first time the Sicilian allowed himself a smile. "All is well. I was afraid your little jaunt in the water was going to cost me too much time. I had allowed an hour of safety. There must still be fifty minutes of it left. We are miles ahead of anybody and safe, safe, safe."

"No one could be following us yet?" the Spaniard asked.

"No one," the Sicilian assured him. "It would be inconceivable."

"Absolutely inconceivable?"

"Absolutely, totally, and, in all other ways, inconceivable," the Sicilian reassured him. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," the Spaniard replied. "It's only that I just happened to look back and something's there."

They all whirled.

Something was indeed there. Less than a mile behind them across the moonlight was another sailing boat, small, painted what looked like black, with a giant sail that billowed black in the night, and a single man at the tiller. A man in black.

The Spaniard looked at the Sicilian. "It must just be some local fisherman out for a pleasure cruise alone at night through shark-infested waters."

"There is probably a more logical explanation," the Sicilian said. "But since no one in Guilder could know yet what we've done, and no one in Florin could have gotten here so quickly, he is definitely not, however much it may look like it, following us. It is coincidence and nothing more."

"He's gaining on us," the Turk said.

"That is also inconceivable," the Sicilian said. "Before I stole this boat we're in, I made many inquiries as to what was the fastest ship on all of Florin Channel and everyone agreed it was this one."

"You're right," the Turk agreed, staring back. "He isn't gaining on us. He's just getting closer, that's all."

"It is the angle we're looking from and nothing more," said the Sicilian.

Buttercup could not take her eyes from the great black sail. Surely the three men she was with frightened her. But somehow, for reasons she could never begin to explain, the man in black frightened her more.

"All right, look sharp," the Sicilian said then, just a drop of edginess in his voice.

The Cliffs of Insanity were very close now.

The Spaniard maneuvered the craft expertly, which was not easy, and the waves were rolling in toward the rocks now and the spray was blinding. Buttercup shielded her eyes and put her head straight back, staring up into the darkness toward the top, which seemed shrouded and out of reach.

Then the humpback bounded forward, and as the ship reached the cliff face, he jumped up and suddenly there was a rope in his hand.

Buttercup stared in silent astonishment. The rope, thick and strong, seemed to travel all the way up the Cliffs. As she watched, the Sicilian pulled at the rope again and again and it held firm. It was attached to something at the top—a giant rock, a towering tree, something.

"Fast now," the Sicilian ordered. "If he is following us, which of course is not within the realm of human experience, but if he is, we've got to reach the top and cut the rope off before he can climb up after us."

"Climb?" Buttercup said. "I would never be able to—"

"Hush!" the Sicilian ordered her. "Get ready!" he ordered the Spaniard. "Sink it," he ordered the Turk.

And then everyone got busy. The Spaniard took a rope, tied Buttercup's hands and feet. The Turk raised a great leg and stomped down at the center of the boat, which gave way immediately and began to sink. Then the Turk went to the rope and took it in his hands.

"Load me," the Turk said.

The Spaniard lifted Buttercup and draped her body around the Turk's shoulders. Then he tied himself to the Turk's waist. Then the Sicilian hopped, clung to the Turk's neck.

"All aboard," the Sicilian said. (This was before trains, but the expression comes originally from carpenters loading lumber, and this was well after carpenters.)

With that the Turk began to climb. It was at least a thousand feet and he was carrying the three, but he was not worried. When it came to power, nothing worried him. When it came to reading, he got knots in the middle of his stomach, and when it came to writing, he broke out in a cold sweat, and when addition was mentioned or, worse, long division, he always changed the subject right away.

But strength had never been his enemy. He could take the kick of a horse on his chest and not fall backward. He could take a hundred-pound flour sack between his legs and scissor it open without thinking. He had once held an elephant aloft using only the muscles in his back.

But his real might lay in his arms. There had never, not in a thousand years, been arms to match Fezzik's. (For that was his name.) The arms were not only Gargantuan and totally obedient and surprisingly quick, but they were also, and this is why he never worried, tireless. If you gave him an ax and told him to chop down a forest, his legs might give out from having to support so much weight for so long, or the ax might shatter from the punishment of killing so many trees, but Fezzik's arms would be as fresh tomorrow as today.