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Chapter 4 Giants For six days and six nights, Odysseus's twelve ships were battered by stormy seas.
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The winds from the bottle blew with all their strength, and the men had to take down the sails and use the ores.
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Odysseus was angry with himself.
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Why was I such a fool?
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Why did I go to sleep?
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Now we will all die and it's my fault.
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But on the seventh day, the water was calm.
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One of the men called, I can see land.
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Look Odysseus.
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We're not going to die after all.
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They found a harbor.
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Odysseus sent eleven of the ships into it so that some of the men could go and look round the island.
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Odysseus stayed on his own ship, out on the open sea.
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He was exhausted.
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Three men sat off to explore.
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After several hours, one of them returned to Odysseus' ship with terrible news.
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We saw a girl.
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She was filling a water bottle from a little stream.
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She seemed friendly, Odysseus.
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We had no reason to fear her.
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But there was one strange thing about the girl.
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She was so tall.
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She showed us the way to a royal palace.
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We thought the girl was tall, but the king and queen were tall as trees.
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They were like giants.
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The king picked up my two friends and opened his mouth.
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That's when I ran away.
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I ran as fast as my feet would carry me out of that terrible place, past the stream and all the way back to the harbor.
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I knew that I had to tell you what happened.
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So I jumped into the sea and swam to your ship.
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There was no time to put up sails or to...
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Suddenly they heard a terrible crashing, splashing sound.
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It's coming from the harbor, said Odysseus.
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They looked back at the eleven ships, but by now there was little left of them.
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On the hillside above the harbor, giants were hurling rocks as big as houses onto the ships below.
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Eleven ships and many, many men were lost.
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Odysseus told the men on his ship that they must leave right away.
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As the wind filled the sails, Odysseus' ship set off once more, alone now.
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Odysseus wept.
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He wept for his lost men and his lost ships.
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He wept for his wife, Penelope, who was waiting for him at home.
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Would he ever see her again?
