ous 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
"Isitsoornot," 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, engaged 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 nea