to my heels, and, without once even
looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the hills, while the
porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite direction, so
that, by these means, he finally made his escape with my bundles, of
which I have no doubt he took excellent care--although this is a point I
cannot determine, as I do not remember that I ever beheld him again.

"'For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin (who
had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon overtaken, bound
hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which immediately swam out
again into the middle of the sea.

"'I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home to
peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being useless, I
made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to secure the goodwill
of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared to exercise
authority over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this endeavor that,
in a few days, the creature bestowed upon me various tokens of his
favor, and in the end even went to the trouble of teaching me the
rudiments of what it was vain enough to denominate its language; so
that, at length, I was enabled to converse with it readily, and came to
make it comprehend the ardent desire I had of seeing the world.

"'Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt
grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,' said he to me, one day after dinner--but
I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is not
conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so the man-animals were
called; I presume because their language formed the connecting
link between that of the horse and that of the rooster). With your
permission, I will translate. 'Washish squashish,' and so forth:--that
is to say, 'I am happy to find, my dear Sinbad, that you are really a
very excellent fellow; we are now about doing a thing which is called
circumnavigating the globe; and since you are so desirous of seeing the
world, I will strain a point and give you a free passage upon back of
the beast.'"

When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the
"Isitsoornot," the king turned over from his left side to his right, and
said:

"It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you omitted,
hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know I think them
exceedingly entertaining and strange?"

The king having thus expressed himself, w