The Princess Bride by William Goldman Page A

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