Уильям Голдман - The Princess Bride

"That means he's only got fifteen minutes to escape with," Fezzik said. "I think we should wait until at least five-thirty. Half before, half after."

"No," Inigo said. "We're going to stop the wedding before it happens—that's the best way, at least to my mind. Before they're all set. In the hustle and bustle beforehand, that's when we should strike."

Fezzik had no further rebuttal.

"Anyway," Inigo said, "we don't know how long it takes to swallow something like this."

"I could never get it down myself. I know that."

"We'll have to force-feed him," Inigo said, unwrapping the chocolate-colored lump. "Like a stuffed goose. Put our hands around his neck and kind of push it down into whatever comes next."

"I'm with you, Inigo," Fezzik said. "Just tell me what to do."

"Let's get him in a sitting position, I think, don't you? I always find it's easier swallowing sitting up than lying down."

"We'll have to really work at it," Fezzik said. "He's completely stiff by now. I don't think he'll bend easy at all."

"You can make him," Inigo said. "I always have confidence in you, Fezzik."

"Thank you," Fezzik said. "Just don't ever leave me alone." He pulled the corpse between them and tried to make him bend in half, but the man in black was so stiff Fezzik really had to perspire to get him at right angles. "How long do you think we'll have to wait before we know if the miracle's on or not?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Inigo said. "Get his mouth as wide open as you can and tilt his head back a little and we'll just drop it in and see."

Fezzik worked at the dead man's mouth a while, got it the way Inigo said, tilted the neck perfect the first time, and Inigo knelt directly above the cavity, dropped the pill down, and as it hit the throat he heard, "Couldn't beat me alone, you dastards; well, I beat you each apart, I'll beat you both together."

"You're alive!" Fezzik cried.

The man in black sat immobile, like a ventriloquist's dummy, just his mouth moving. "That is perhaps the most childishly obvious remark I have ever come across, but what can you expect from a strangler. Why won't my arms move?"

"You've been dead," Inigo explained.

"And we're not strangling you," Fezzik explained, "we were just getting the pill down."

"The resurrection pill," Inigo explained. "I bought it from Miracle Max and it works for sixty minutes."

"What happens after sixty minutes? Do I die again?" (It wasn't sixty minutes; he just thought it was. Actually it was forty; only they had used up one already in conversation, so it was down to thirty-nine.)

"We don't know. Probably you just collapse and need tending for a year or however long it takes to get your strength back."

"I wish I could remember what it was like when I was dead," the man in black said. "I'd write it all down. I could make a fortune on a book like that. I can't move my legs either."

"That will come. It's supposed to. Max said the tongue and the brain were shoo-ins and probably you'll be able to move, but slowly."

"The last thing I remember was dying, so why am I on this wall? Are we enemies? Have you got names? I'm the Dread Pirate Roberts, but you can call me 'Westley.'"

"Fezzik."

"Inigo Montoya of Spain. Let me tell you what's been going on—" He stopped and shook his head. "No," he said. "There's too much, it would take too long, let me distill it for you: the wedding is at six, which leaves us probably now something over half an hour to get in, steal the girl, and get out; but not before I kill Count Rugen."

"What are our liabilities?"

"There is but one working castle gate and it is guarded by perhaps a hundred men."

"Hmmm," Westley said, not as unhappy as he might have been ordinarily, because just then he began to be able to wiggle his toes.

"And our assets?"

"Your brains, Fezzik's strength, my steel."

Westley stopped wiggling his toes. "That's all ? That's it? Everything? The grand total?"

Inigo tried to explain. "We've been operating under a terrible time pressure from the very beginning. Just yesterday morning, for example, I was a hopeless drunk and Fezzik toiled for the Brute Squad."

"It's impossible," Westley cried.

" I am Inigo Montoya and I do not accept defeat —you will think of something; I have complete confidence in you."

"She's going to marry Humperdinck and I'm helpless " West-ley said in blind despair. "Lay me down again. Leave me alone."

"You're giving in too easily, we fought monsters to reach you, we risked everything because you have the brains to conquer problems. I have complete and absolute total confidence that you—"

"I want to die," Westley whispered, and he closed his eyes. "If I had a month to plan, maybe I might come up with something, but this..." His head rocked from side to side. "I'm sorry. Leave me."

"You just moved your own head," Fezzik said, doing his best to be cheery. "Doesn't that up your spirits?"

"My brains, your strength and his steel against a hundred troops? And you think a little head-jiggle is supposed to make me happy? Why didn't you leave me to death? This is worse. Lying here helpless while my true love marries my murderer."

"I just know once you're over your emotional outbursts, you'll come up with—"

"I mean if we even had a wheelbarrow, that would be something," Westley said.

"Where did we put that wheelbarrow the albino had?" Inigo asked.

"Over by the albino, I think," Fezzik replied.

"Maybe we can get a wheelbarrow," Inigo said.

"Well why didn't you list that among our assets in the first place?" Westley said, sitting up, staring out at the massed troops in the distance.

"You just sat up," Fezzik said, still trying to be cheery.

Westley continued to stare at the troops and the incline leading down toward them. He shook his head. "What I'd give for a holocaust cloak," he said then.

"There we can't help you," Inigo said.

"Will this do?" Fezzik wondered, pulling out his holocaust cloak.

"Where...?" Inigo began.

"While you were after frog dust—" Fezzik answered. "It fit so nicely I just tucked it away and kept it."

Westley got to his feet then. "All right. I'll need a sword eventually."

"Why?" Inigo asked. "You can barely lift one."

"True," Westley agreed. "But that is hardly common knowledge. Hear me now; there may be problems once we're inside—"

"I'll say there may be problems," Inigo cut in. "How do we stop the wedding? Once we do, how do I find the Count? Once I do, where will I find you again? Once we're together, how do we escape? Once we escape—"

"Don't pester him with so many questions," Fezzik said. "Take it easy; he's been dead."

"Right, right, sorry," Inigo said.

The man in black was moving verrrrrry slowly now along the top of the wall. By himself. Fezzik and Inigo followed him through the darkness in the direction of the wheelbarrow. There was no denying the fact that there was a certain excitement in the air.

BUTTERCUP, for her part, felt no excitement whatsoever. She had, in fact, never remembered such a wonderful feeling of calm. Her Westley was coming; that was her world. Ever since the Prince had dragged her to her room she had spent the intervening hours thinking of ways to make Westley happy. There was no way he could miss stopping her wedding. That was the only thought that could survive the trip across her conscious mind.

So when she heard the wedding was to be moved up, she wasn't the least upset. Westley was always prepared for contingencies, and if he could rescue her at six, he could just as happily rescue her at half past five.

Actually, Prince Humperdinck got things going even faster than he had hoped. It was 5:23 when he and his bride-to-be were kneeling before the aged Archdean of Florin. It was 5:24 when the Archdean started to speak.