IV. Choose the correct answer. 1. Sir Gardnor's hunting experience wasn't rich, was it?
a) No, it wasn't.
b) He was not a hunter at all.
c) No, it was.
d) Yes, it was.
2. What was Sir Gardnor annoyed about?
a) Harold's triumphant air annoyed him intensely.
b) He was annoyed with Harold because he hadn't thought to congratulate him.
c) The native hunters made him angry.
d) Nothing irritated him.
3. What was the native hunters' attitude towards Sir Gardnor?
a) They were desperately afraid o f him.
b) They absolutely adored him.
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c) The felt a twinge o f envy for Sir Gardnor.
d) They hated him for the dead leopard.
4. For what reason did they stand in such a great awe o f him?
a) Sir Gardnor was a white man.
b) He was a perfect hunter.
c) Because o f Sir Gardnor's friendly attitude towards them.
d) Because o f his greater magic: the leopard-curse apparently meant nothing to him.
5. What proved that the two natives feared the curse o f the leopard?
a) They were speaking to its spirit trying to assure it they had, indeed, been absent at the
time o f the unfortunate accident.
b) They didn't even come up to the dead leopard.
c) They were holding their rifles in front o f them, ready to fire again if necessary.
d) They were not superstitious at all.
6. Why did Sir Gardnor look sad when he stood over the dead leopard?
a) He was afraid o f the curse o f the leopard.
b) He knew the native hunters would take it.
c) He regretted killing such a superbly beautiful creature.
d) He understood that he would be punished for hunting o f rare animals.
Text 8 The person I liked best was the old shepherd Yani, a tall, slouching man with a great hooked
nose like an eagle, and incredible moustaches. I first met him one hot afternoon when Roger and I
had spent an exhausting hour trying to dig a large green lizard out o f its hole in a stone wall. At
length, unsuccessful, sweaty, and tired, we had flung ourselves down beneath five little cypress-
trees that cast a neat square o f shadow on the sun-bleached grass. Lying there, I heard the gentle,
drowsy tinkling o f a goat-bell, and presently the herds wandered past us, pausing to stare with
vacant yellow eyes, bleat sneeringly, and then move on. The soft sound o f the bells, and o f their
mouths ripping and tearing at the undergrowth, had a soothing effect on me, and by the time they
had drifted slowly past and the shepherd appeared I was nearly asleep. He stopped and looked at
me, leaning heavily on his brown olive-wood stick, his little black eyes fierce under his shaggy
brows, his big boots planted firmly in the heather. «Good afternoon», he greeted me gruffly; «you
are the foreigner... the little English lord?»
By then I was used to the curious peasant idea that all English people were lords, and I
admitted that that's who I was. He turned and roared at a goat which had reared on to its hind legs
and was tearing at a young olive, and then turned back. «I will tell you something, little lord,» he
said, «it is dangerous for you to lie here, beneath these trees.»
I glanced up at the cypresses, but they seemed safe enough to me and so I asked why he
thought they were dangerous.
«АҺ, you may sit under them, yes. They cast a good shadow, cold as well-water; but that's
the trouble, they tempt you to sleep. And you must never, for any reason, sleep beneath a cypress.»
He paused, stroked his moustache, waited for me to ask why, and then went on:
«Why? Why? Because if you did, you would be changed when you woke. Yes, the black
cypresses, they are dangerous. While you sleep, their roots grow into your brains and steal them,
and when you wake up you are mad, head as empty as a whistle.»