THE STORY OF SINDBAD THE SAILOR
ON THE TWENTY-FIRST NIGHT
Sheherazade said:
The next day Sindbad the Porter had his morning prayer and returned to the palace of Sindbad the Sailor.
When all the guests were complete and had eaten and drunk and talked among themselves and laughed and heard the songs and the playing of the instruments, they ranged themselves in a circle, grave and silent. And Sindbad the Sailor thus spake:
THE SEVENTH AND LAST JOURNEY OF SINDBAD THE SAILOR
Know, my friends, that on my return from the sixth trip, I resolutely put aside any idea of making others henceforth; because not only my age did not allow me any more distant expeditions, but really I had little desire to attempt new adventures after all the dangers encountered and the evils experienced. Besides, I had become the richest man in Baghdad, and the caliph often called me to him to hear from my own mouth the story of the extraordinary things I had seen during my travels.
One day when the caliph had summoned me, as usual, I was preparing to tell him one or two or three of my adventures, when he said to me: "Sindbad, you must go to the king of Serendib to bring him my answer. and the gifts that I intend for him. No one knows like you the road that leads to this kingdom whose king will certainly be very happy to see you again! So get ready to leave this very day; for it would not be becoming for us to be indebted to the king of this island, nor worthy of us to further delay our reply and our dispatch!"
At these words of the caliph, the world blackened before my face, and I was on the verge of perplexity and surprise. However, I managed to control my feelings, so as not to displease the caliph; and though I had vowed never to leave Baghdad again, I embraced the land in the hands of the caliph and responded with hearing and obedience. Then he gave me ten thousand gold dinars for my travel expenses, and gave me a letter written by his own hand and the gifts intended for the king of Serendib.
And here is what these gifts consisted of. First there was a magnificent bed full of crimson velvet, which might well be worth an enormous sum of gold dinars; there was another bed of another color, and another of another color. There were a hundred robes of fine, embroidered material from Kufa and Alexandria, and fifty from Baghdad. There was a vase, in white carnelian, which dated from ancient times, and on the bottom of which was figured a warrior armed with his bow stretched against a lion. There were still many other things which it would be interminable to enumerate, and, moreover, a pair of horses of the finest breed in Arabia.
So I was forced to leave, against my will this time, and I embarked at Basra on a ship leaving.
Fate favored us so much that after two months, to the day, we arrived in Serendib safely. And I hastened to take the presents and the letter from the Emir of the Faithful to the king.
The king, on seeing me again, expanded and blossomed; and he was very pleased with the courtesy of the caliph. He then wanted to keep me with him for a long stay; but I only wanted to stay long enough to rest. After which, I took leave of him, and, overwhelmed with consideration and gifts, I hastened to re-embark to take the road to Basra, as I had come.
The wind was favorable to us at first, and the first place we touched was an island called the Isle of Sin. And truly up to that time we had been in a perfect state of contentment; and, during the whole crossing, we talked among ourselves and we chatted and discussed things and others, very pleasantly.
But one day, as we had left the island in question for a week, where the merchants had made various exchanges and purchases, and as we were lying very quiet, as usual, suddenly a terrible storm broke over our heads and a torrential rain flooded us. So we hastened to stretch hemp cloth over our bundles and our goods to prevent the water from damaging them, and we began to beg Allah to remove all danger from our path.
While we were in this state, the captain of the ship got up, tightened his waist with his belt, rolled up his sleeves and lifted his robe, then climbed to the top of the mast, from where he began to look a long time to the right and to the left. Then he came downstairs, very yellow in complexion, looked at us with an air of utter despair, began to strike his face in silence and tore his beard. So we, very frightened, we ran to him and asked him: “What is it?" He replied: "Ask Allah to rescue us from the abyss into which we have fallen! Or rather weep over yourselves and bid farewell to each other! Know, indeed, that the current made us deviate from our course and threw us to the confines of the seas of the world!"
Then, having spoken thus, the captain opened his crate and took out a cotton bag, which he untied and from which he removed some dust which looked like ashes. He moistened this earth with a little water, waited a few moments, and then began to sniff the mixture. After which, he took a little book from the box, read a few pages in it, mumbling, and ended by saying to us: “Know, O passengers, that this prodigious book has just confirmed me in my suppositions. The land you see looming before you, in the distance, is the land known as the Climate of the Kings. This is where the tomb of our lord Suleiman ben-Daoud is located. (Prayer and peace be upon them both!) There we see monsters and snakes with terrible faces. Moreover, this sea where we are is inhabited by sea monsters that can swallow, in a single bite, the largest ships with their cargo and their passengers! So you have been warned! And farewell!"
When we heard these words from the captain, we were astounded to the extreme; and we were wondering what dreadful thing was going to happen, when we felt ourselves lifted with the ship, then suddenly lowered, while a cry, as terrible as thunder, rose from the sea. We were so terrified that we said our last prayer and we stood motionless, as dead. And behold, in front of us, on the boiling water, we saw advancing towards the ship a monster as large and as high as a mountain, then a second monster even larger and a third which followed them, as large as the two together. The latter suddenly jumped on the sea which parted in a chasm, opened a mouth more enormous than an abyss, and swallowed our ship three-quarters, with all that it contained. I just had time to back up the ship and jump into the sea, while the monster finished swallowing the ship in its belly and disappeared into the depths, with its two other companions.
As for me, I managed to cling to one of the planks which had burst from the ship under the teeth of the sea monster, and I was able, after a thousand difficulties, to land at an island which fortunately was covered with fruit trees and watered by a river. But I noticed that this river was of a great rapidity of current, and so that it was heard by a noise which extended afar. So I conceived the idea, remembering how I had escaped death on the island of jewels, to build myself a raft, like the previous one, and let myself be carried away by the current. I wanted, in fact, despite the clemency of this new island, to try to return to my country. And I thought, "If I manage to save myself, everything will be for the best, and I will vow never to put the word travel on my tongue, and never to think about it again for the rest of my life." If, on the contrary, I perish in my attempt, everything will also be for the best; for in this way I shall have finished with tribulations and dangers, definitively!"
So I got up on the hour and, after eating some fruit, I picked up a large quantity of large branches, the species of which I did not know then, but which later I knew to be sandalwood, of the highest quality. valued more by merchants because of its rarity. This done, I went in search of cords and strings, and I found none at first; but I noticed, on the trees, climbing and flexible plants, very solid, which could suit me. I cut off as many as I needed, and used them to tie the big sandalwood branches together. I made a huge raft in this way, on which I placed a lot of fruit, and I embarked on it myself, formulating: “If I am saved, it is from Allah!"
Scarcely had I been on the raft and had time to untie it from the shore, when it was swept away with frightful rapidity by the current, and I felt dizzy and fell unconscious on the pile of fruit. that I had placed there, just like a drunken chicken.
When I regained consciousness, I looked around me, and I was more than ever immobilized with terror and deafened by the sound of thunder. The river was no more than a torrent of boiling foam which, faster than the wind and crashing against the rocks, rushed towards a gaping precipice which I felt more than I saw. I was undoubtedly going to smash myself by falling there who knows from which height!
At this terrifying idea, I clung with all my strength to the branches of the raft, and I instinctively closed my eyes so as not to see myself crushed and reduced to mush, and I invoked the name of Allah, before dying. And suddenly, instead of rolling into the abyss, I felt the raft come to a sudden stop in the water, and I opened my eyes for a minute to judge where I was in my death, and it was to see me not smashed against the rocks, but seized, with my raft, in an immense net that people had thrown at me from the shore. I was thus taken and dragged ashore, and there I was pulled up, half dead and half alive, from between the meshes of the net, while my raft was brought back to shore.
As I was lying there, inert and shivering, a venerable sheik with a white beard came towards me, who began by welcoming me and covering me with warm clothes which did me the greatest good…
At this point in her narration, Sheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.
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