again embarked
and sailed many days and nights, and we passed from isle to isle and sea
to sea and shore to shore, buying and selling and bartering everywhere
the ship touched, and continued our course till we came to an island as
it were a garth of the garden of Paradise. Here the captain cast anchor,
and making fast to the shore, put out the landing planks. So all on
board landed and made furnaces, and lighting fires therein, busied
themselves in various ways, some cooking and some washing, whilst other
some walked about the island for solace, and the crew fell to eating and
drinking and playing and sporting. I was one of the walkers; but as we
were thus engaged, behold the master, who was standing on the gunwale,
cried out to us at the top of his voice, saying, "Ho there! passengers,
run for your lives and hasten back to the ship and leave your gear and
save yourselves from destruction, Allah preserve you! For this island
whereon ye stand is no true island, but a great fish stationary
a-middlemost of the sea, whereon the sand hath settled and trees have
sprung up of old time, so that it is become like unto an island; but
when ye lighted fires on it, it felt the heat and moved; and in a moment
it will sink with you into the sea and ye will all be drowned. So leave
your gear and seek your safety ere ye die."--

And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted
say.

NOW WHEN IT WAS THE FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINTH NIGHT,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
ship-master cried to the passengers, "Leave your gear and seek safety
ere ye die," all who heard him left gear and goods, clothes washed and
unwashed, fire-pots and brass cooking-pots, and fled back to the ship
for their lives, and some reached it while others (among whom was I) did
not, for suddenly the island shook and sank into the abysses of the
deep, with all that were thereon, and the dashing sea surged over it
with clashing waves. I sank with the others down, down into the deep,
but Almighty Allah preserved me from drowning and threw in my way a
great wooden tub of those that had served the ship's company for
tubbing. I gripped it for the sweetness of life, and bestriding it like
one riding, paddled with my feet like oars, whilst the waves tossed me
as in sport right and left. Meanwhile, the captain made sail and
departed with those who had reached the ship, regardless of the drowning
and the drowned; and