The Thousand-and-Second Night

king eagerly accepts—(he had intended to take
it at all events, and had put off the matter from day to day,
only through fear of the vizier),—but, in accepting it now, he
gives all parties very distinctly to understand, that, grand
vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest design of
giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When,
therefore, the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king,
and did actually marry him despite her father’s excellent advice
not to do any thing of the kind—when she would and did marry him,
I say, will I, nill I, it was with her beautiful black eyes as
thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.

It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been reading
Machiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious little plot in
her mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I
forget what specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch
sufficiently near that of the royal pair to admit of easy
conversation from bed to bed; and, a little before cock-crowing,
she took care to awaken the good monarch, her husband (who bore
her none the worse will because he intended to wring her neck on
the morrow),—she managed to awaken him, I say, (although on
account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion, he slept
well) by the profound interest of a story (about a rat and a
black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all in an undertone,
of course) to her sister. When the day broke, it so happened that
this history was not altogether finished, and that Scheherazade,
in the nature of things could not finish it just then, since it
was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung—a thing very
little more pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more genteel!

The king’s curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say,
even over his sound religious principles, induced him for this
once to postpone the fulfilment of his vow until next morning,
for the purpose and with the hope of hearing that night how it
fared in the end with the black cat (a black cat, I think it was)
and the rat.

The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only
put the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat (the rat
was blue) but before she well knew what she was about, found
herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference
(if I am not altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green
wings) that went, in a violent manner, by clockwork, and was
wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was even
more profoundly interested than with the other—and, as the day
broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all the queen’s
endeavors to get through with it in time for the bowstringing),
there was again no resource but to postpone that ceremony as
before, for twenty-four hours. The next night there happened a
similar accident with a similar result; and then the next—and
then again the next; so that, in the end, the good monarch,
having been unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to keep his
vow during a period of no less than one thousand and one nights,
either forgets it altogether by the expiration of this time, or
gets himself absolved of it in the regular way, or (what is more
probable) breaks it outright, as well as the head of his father
confessor. At all events, Scheherazade, who, being lineally
descended from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the whole seven
baskets of talk, which the latter lady, we all know, picked up
from under the trees in the garden of Eden; Scheherazade, I say,
finally triumphed, and the tariff upon beauty was repealed.

Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as we have it
upon record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant—but
alas! like a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than
true, and I am indebted altogether to the “Isitsöornot” for the
means of correcting the error. “Le mieux,” says a French proverb,
“est l’ennemi du bien,” and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had
inherited the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she
put them out at compound interest until they amounted to
seventy-seven.

“My dear sister,” said she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I
quote the language of the “Isitsöornot” at this point, verbatim)
“my dear sister,” said she, “now that all this little difficulty
about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is
so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great
indiscretion in withholding from you and the king (who I am
sorry to say, snores—a thing no gentleman would do) the full
conclusion of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through
numerous other and more interesting adventures than those which
I related; but the truth is, I felt sleepy on the particular
night of their narration, and so was seduced into cutting them
short—a grievous piece of misconduct, for which I only trust
that Allah will forgive me. But even yet it is not too late to
remedy my great neglect—and as soon as I have given the king a
pinch or two in order to wake him up so far that he may stop
making that horrible noise, I will forthwith entertain you (and
him if he pleases) with the sequel of this very remarkable
story.”

Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the
“Isitsöornot,” expressed no very particular intensity of
gratification; but the king, having been sufficiently pinched, at
length ceased snoring, and finally said, “Hum!” and then “Hoo!”
when the queen, understanding these words (which are no doubt
Arabic) to signify that he was all attention, and would do his
best not to snore any more—the queen, I say, having arranged
these matters to her satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once, into
the history of Sinbad the sailor:

“‘At length, in my old age,’ [these are the words of Sinbad
himself, as retailed by Scheherazade]—‘at length, in my old
age, and after enjoying many years of tranquillity at home, I
became once more possessed of a desire of visiting foreign
countries; and one day, without acquainting any of my family with
my design, I packed up some bundles of such merchandise as was
most precious and least bulky, and, engaging a porter to carry
them, went with him down to the sea-shore, to await the arrival
of any chance vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom
into some region which I had not as yet explored.

“‘Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down
beneath some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of
perceiving a ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever.
At length I fancied that I could hear a singular buzzing or
humming sound; and the porter, after listening awhile, declared
that he also could distinguish it. Presently it grew louder, and
then still louder, so that we could have no doubt that the object
which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the edge of the
horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly increased in
size until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming with a
great part of its body above the surface of the sea. It came
toward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of
foam around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea
through which it passed, with a long line of fire that extended
far off into the distance.

“‘As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length
was equal to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and
it was as wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, O
most sublime and munificent of the Caliphs. Its body, which was
unlike that of ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a
jetty blackness throughout all that portion of it which floated
above the water, with the exception of a narrow blood-red streak
that completely begirdled it. The belly, which floated beneath
the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now and
then as the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely
covered with metallic scales, of a color like that of the moon in
misty weather. The back was flat and nearly white, and from it
there extended upwards of six spines, about half the length of
the whole body.

“‘This horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive;
but, as if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with
at least four score of eyes, that protruded from their sockets
like those of the green dragon-fly, and were arranged all around
the body in two rows, one above the other, and parallel to the
blood-red streak, which seemed to answer the purpose of an
eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes were much larger
than the others, and had the appearance of solid gold.

“‘Although this beast approached us, as I have before said, with
the greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by
necromancy—for it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like
a duck, nor wings like the seashell which is blown along in the
manner of a vessel; nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do
the eels. Its head and its tail were shaped precisely alike,
only, not far from the latter, were two small holes that served
for nostrils, and through which the monster puffed out its thick
breath with prodigious violence, and with a shrieking,
disagreeable noise.

“‘Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but
it was even surpassed by our astonishment, when upon getting a
nearer look, we perceived upon the creature’s back a vast number
of animals about the size and shape of men, and altogether much
resembling them, except that they wore no garments (as men do),
being supplied (by nature, no doubt) with an ugly uncomfortable
covering, a good deal like cloth, but fitting so tight to the
skin, as to render the poor wretches laughably awkward, and put
them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their heads
were certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I
thought might have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon
discovered that they were excessively heavy and solid, and I
therefore concluded they were contrivances designed, by their
great weight, to keep the heads of the animals steady and safe
upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were
fastened black collars, (badges of servitude, no doubt,) such as
we keep on our dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer, so
that it was quite impossible for these poor victims to move their
heads in any direction without moving the body at the same time;
and thus they were doomed to perpetual contemplation of their
noses—a view puggish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positively
in an awful degree.

“‘When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood,
it suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and
emitted from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense
cloud of smoke, and a noise that I can compar