Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/217

191 to a staff, ran along the sea-shore, making signals therewith to the people in the ship, till they espied me and hearing my shouts, sent a boat to fetch me off. When it drew near, the crew called out to me, saying, “Who art thou and how camest thou in this place, where never saw we any in our lives?” I answered that I was a merchant, who had been wrecked and saved myself on one of the planks of the ship, with some of my goods, and that, by the blessing of God and my own strength and skill, I had succeeded after severe toil in landing with my gear in that place, where I waited for some one to pass and take me off. So they took me and the bales I had made of the jewels and valuables from the cavern, tied up in clothes and shrouds, and rowed back with me to the ship, where the captain said to me, “How camest thou to yonder place?”place? [sic] All my life I have sailed these seas and passed to and fro by this mountain; yet never saw I here any living thing save wild beasts and birds.” I repeated to him the story I had told the sailors, but acquainted him with nothing of that which had befallen me in the city and the cavern, lest there should be any of the islanders in the ship. Then I took out some of the best of the jewels and ornaments and offered them to the captain, saying, “O my lord, thou hast been the means of my delivery; so take this from me in requital of thy good offices.” But he refused to accept it, saying, “When we find a shipwrecked man on the sea-shore or on an island, we take him up and feed him, and if he be naked, we clothe him; nor take we aught from him, nay, when we reach a port of safety, we set him ashore with a present of our own money and entreat him kindly and charitably, for the love of God the Most High.” So I prayed that his life might be long and rejoiced in my escape, trusting to be delivered from my stress.

Then we pursued our voyage and sailed from island to island and sea to sea, till, by God’s grace, we arrived