Jim was on his knees with his hands clasped, gazing up at the thing in a
begging way, and working his lips, but not getting anything out. I took
only just a glimpse, and was fading out again, but Tom says:
"He ain't alive, you fools; it's the Sphinx!"
I never see Tom look so little and like a fly; but that was because the
giant's head was so big and awful. Awful, yes, so it was, but not
dreadful any more, because you could see it was a noble face, and kind of
sad, and not thinking about you, but about other things and larger. It
was stone, reddish stone, and its nose and ears battered, and that give
it an abused look, and you felt sorrier for it for that.
We stood off a piece, and sailed around it and over it, and it was just
grand. It was a man's head, or maybe a woman's, on a tiger's body a
hundred and twenty-five foot long, and there was a dear little temple
between its front paws. All but the head used to be under the sand, for
hundreds of years, maybe thousands, but they had just lately dug the sand
away and found that little temple. It took a power of sand to bury that
cretur; most as much as it would to bury a steamboat, I reckon.
We landed Jim on top of the head, with an American flag to protect him,
it being a foreign land; then we sailed off to this and that and t'other
distance, to git what Tom called effects and perspectives and
proportions, and Jim he done the best he could, striking all the
different kinds of attitudes and positions he could study up, but
standing on his head and working his legs the way a frog does was the
best.
Pages:
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112