NIGHT 540
THE TALE OF SINDBAD THE SAILOR, VOYAGE 3
indbad the Porter returned to the home of Sindbad the Sailor. After eating, everyone belched appreciatively, and the sailor told of the third voyage.
THAT URGE FOR NEW MARVELS SNUCK BACK INTO MY HEART, DESPITE my aging body. I hopped on another ship.
One day a wild wind made the sea roar and slap us around till we came to an island. The captain shrieked. “This is the Mountain of the Apes! No one has ever escaped it.”
Small, black, hairy apes swarmed the ship. Yellow eyes gleamed as they chewed through ropes, making the sails flap crazily. They threw us off and sailed away.
In the center of the island was a castle with a courtyard, where we slept the rest of that day. At sunset, the earth rumbled. A giant the size of a palm tree lumbered in. His teeth were boar tusks, his blubbery lips flopped against his chest, his eyes burned like torches, his nails curled into lion claws. He picked me up and felt me like a butcher feels a lamb. He dropped me and felt the next man. He went through us all until he reached the fat captain. He snapped his neck, roasted him, and ate him. Then he slept.
We didn’t dare move. Morning came and the giant left. We wept and searched for a hiding spot. No caves, no thick forests, nothing! When night fell, we panicked. Who knew what worse monsters lurked here? We returned to the courtyard. Again the earth rumbled and the giant selected a man, ate him, and slept. In the morning he left.
We tore planks of wood from the castle and built a raft. Then we realized that if another ship should stop, the giant would eat more good souls. We had to kill him before leaving.
We returned to the castle. The giant ate another man and fell asleep. We grabbed the iron roasting spits and jammed them into his eyes. He screamed and searched for us. We dodged each grab. He crashed out of the courtyard, and returned with an enormous giantess. We raced for the raft and floated away, but the giantess hurled boulders, killing all but three of us.
A hideous jinni lived in a castle on the island. He selected the fat captain for doom. He killed him, roasted him, and ate him. The next night he selected the next fattest sailor.
The raft carried us to an island. We jumped off and slept. When we woke, a serpent was curled around us. It swallowed one of us. We heard his bones crack inside the serpent’s belly. When it left, we looked for a means of escape. Nothing! That night, the two of us climbed a tree. The serpent slithered up, ate the other man, then left.
I tied pieces of wood around me, as though I was in a coffin. When night came, the serpent tried to swallow me, but the wood made it impossible.
In the morning, praise be to the Almighty, a ship passed. I swung branches over my head and called out. The ship took me aboard. The captain gave me the goods of one of their passengers who had been lost at sea. That passenger’s name was Sindbad the Sailor. When I told him that was me, he doubted me. But I told him everything that had happened and described the marks on my bales, and he was convinced.
We sailed to the Indus Valley and I sold my goods at a profit. Along the way I saw a cow that was really a fish! I saw a bird emerge from a seashell floating in the waves and lay its eggs on the cushion of the water!
I returned to Basra and from there to Baghdad. I gave alms to the poor and gifts to friends.
Everyone ate again. Sindbad the Sailor gave Sindbad the Porter a hundred gold coins. He begged him to return.
Among the marvelous animals described in these tales are birds who lay eggs in the water. Perhaps no birds do that. But several kinds of birds, including grebes, jacanas, and terns, make nests of plants that float on the water, often anchored to other plants below. In the mangrove marshes near the Persian Gulf live many terns. When they sit on their nests, the nests can sink underwater, only to rise again when the bird flies off. This is no problem for the waterproof eggs.
Scheherazade’s son’s downy hair turned dawn-gold.
“A third rescue,” said Dinarzad.
“Each situation more terrible than the last,” said Shah Rayar. “But these are stories. Not real lands.” “They feel real to me,” said Dinarzad. “Jinn and serpents…such evil exists.”
“It’s the evil that men do that interests me most,” said Shah Rayar. Scheherazade sighed and twisted the bed cover in her hands. 