Having thus fixed fifty hooks to as many cables, I went back to the northeast coast, and putting off my coat, shoes, and stockings, walked into the sea in my leathern jerkin, about half an hour before high-water.  I waded with what haste I could, and swam in the middle about thirty yards, till I felt ground; I arrived at the fleet in less than half an hour.  The enemy were so frightened, when they saw me, that they leaped out of their ships, and swam to shore, where there could not be fewer than thirty thousand souls:  I then took my tackling, and fastening a hook to the hole at the prow of each, I tied all the cords together at the end.

While I was thus employed, the enemy discharged several thousand arrows, many of which stuck in my hands and face; and, besides the excessive smart, gave me much disturbance in my work.  My greatest apprehension was for mine eyes, which I should have infallibly lost, if I had not suddenly thought of an expedient.  I kept, among other little necessaries, a pair of spectacles, in a private pocket, which, as I observed before, had escaped the emperor’s searchers.  These I took out, and fastened as strongly as I could upon my nose, and thus armed, went on boldly with my work, in spite of the enemy’s arrows, many of which struck against the glasses of my spectacles, but without any other effect, farther than a little to discompose them.[26] I had now fastened all the hooks, and, taking the knot in my hand, began to pull:  but not a ship would stir, for they were all too fast held by their anchors; so that the boldest part of my enterprise remained.  I therefore let go the cord, and, leaving the hooks fixed to the ships, I resolutely cut with my knife the cables that fastened the anchors, receiving above two hundred shots in my face and hands; then I took up the knotted end of the cables, to which my hooks were tied, and, with great ease, drew fifty of the enemy’s largest men-of-war after me.

The Blefuscudians, who had not the least imagination of what I intended, were at first confounded with astonishment.  They had seen me cut the cables, and thought my design was only to let the ships run adrift, or fall foul on each other:  but when they perceived the whole fleet moving in order, and saw me pulling at the end, they set up such a scream of grief and despair as it is almost impossible to describe or conceive.  When I had got out of danger, I stopped awhile to pick out the arrows that stuck in my hands and face:  and rubbed on some of the same ointment that was given me at my first arrival, as I have formerly mentioned.  I then took off my spectacles, and waiting about an hour, till the tide was a little fallen, I waded through the middle with my cargo, and arrived safe at the royal port of Lilliput.