??™ ???I do,??™ says Peachey. ???Fully and
freely do I forgive you, Dan.??™ ???Shake
hands, Peachey,??™ says he. ???I??™m going now.??™
Out he goes, looking neither right nor left,
and when he was plumb in the middle of those
dizzy dancing ropes, ???Cut, you beggars,??™ he
shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell,
turning round and round and round, twenty
thousand miles, for he took half an hour to
fall till he struck the water, and I could see
his body caught on a rock with the gold
crown close beside.
???But do you know what they did to
Peachey between two pine-trees? They
crucified him, sir, as Peachey??™s hands will
show. They used wooden pegs for his hands
and his feet; and he didn??™t die. He hung
there and screamed, and they took him
down next day, and said it was a miracle
that he wasn??™t dead. They took him down
??”poor old Peachey that hadn??™t done them
any harm??”that hadn??™t done them any??¦???
He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly,
wiping his eyes with the back of his scarred
hands and moaning like a child for some
ten minutes.
???They was cruel enough to feed him up
in the temple, because they said he was more
of a god than old Daniel that was a man.
Then they turned him out on the snow, and
told him to go home, and Peachey came
home in about a year, begging along the
roads quite safe; for Daniel Dravot he walked
before and said:??”???Come along, Peachey.
It??™s a big thing we??™re doing.
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