Traduction Masquer
The Life of Malchus, the Captive Monk

8.

When I returned to my chamber, my wife met me. My looks betrayed the sadness of my heart. She asked why I was so dispirited. I told her the reasons, and exhorted her to escape. She did not reject the idea. I begged her to be silent on the matter. She pledged her word. We constantly spoke to one another in whispers; and we floated in suspense betwixt hope and fear. I had in the flock two very fine he-goats: these I killed, made their skins into bottles, and from their flesh prepared food for the way. Then in the early evening when our masters thought we had retired to rest we began our journey, taking with us the bottles and part of the flesh. When we reached the river which was about ten miles off, having inflated the skins and got astride upon them, we intrusted ourselves to the water, slowly propelling ourselves with our feet, that we might be carried down by the stream to a point on the opposite bank much below that at which we embarked, and that thus the pursuers might lose the track. But meanwhile the flesh became sodden and partly lost, and we could not depend on it for more than three days’ sustenance. We drank till we could drink no more by way of preparing for the thirst we expected to endure, then hastened away, constantly looking behind us, and advanced more by night than day, on account both of the ambushes of the roaming Saracens, and of the excessive heat of the sun. I grow terrified even as I relate what happened; and, although my mind is perfectly at rest, yet my frame shudders from head to foot.

Edition Masquer
Vita Malchi monachi captivi

VIII

[Fugit.]

Regresso ad cubile occurrit mulier. Tristitiam animi vultu dissimulare non potui. Rogat, cur exanimatus sim. Audit causas. Hortor ad fugam; non aspernatur. Peto silentium; fidem tribuit, et iugi susurro inter spem et metum medii fluctuamus. Erant mihi in grege duo hirci mirae magnitudinis. Quibus occisis utres facio eorumque carnes viatico praeparo. Et primo vespere putantibus dominis nos secreto cubitare invadimus iter, utres et partem carnium portantes. Cumque pervenissemus ad fluvium (nam decem milibus aberat), inflatis ascensisque utribus aquis nos credimus paulatim pedibus subremigantes, ut deorsum nos flumine deferente et multo longius, quam conscenderamus, in alteram nos exponente ripam vestigium sequentes perderent. Sed inter haec madefactae carnes et ex parte lapsae vix tridui cibum pollicebantur. Bibimus usque ad satietatem futurae nos siti praeparantes. Currimus, post tergum semper aspicimus et magis noctibus promovemus quam diebus: vel propter insidias late vagantium Saracenorum vel propter ardorem solis nimium. Pavesco miser etiam referens, et si tota mente securus, toto tamen corpore perhorresco.