But be careful not to do it too hard, or I shall make a magic on you as I did to Pau Amma.' Then they all went up the Perak River and went to bed, Best Beloved. 'See now that you pull the Sea twice a day and twice a night for ever, so that the Malazy fishermen may be saved paddling. Read the excerpt from 'The Crab That Played with the Sea.' And the Rat of the Moon stopped biting the line and the Fisherman let his line down till it touched the Sea, and he pulled the whole deep Sea along, past the Island of Bintang, past Singapore, past Malacca, past Selangor, till the canoe whirled into the mouth of the Perak River again. Based on the details in the excerpt, what is the primary purpose of this passage? to amuse to inform to thrill to warn And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise-then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who reveled. And then the music ceased, as I have told and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life.

Read the excerpt from 'The Masque of the Red Death' by Edgar Allan Poe.

That Turtle Story by C.S. Poe