Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/252

220 none the like of that which He vouchsafed unto our lord Solomon and that he attained unto that whereto never attained other than he, in that he was wont to imprison Jinn and Marids and Satans in vessels of copper and stop them with molten lead and seal them with his signet.’

Then said Talib ben Sehl, (who was a seeker after treasures and had books that discovered to him hoards and treasures hidden under the earth,) ‘O Commander of the Faithful, (God make thy dominion to endure and exalt thy dignity in the lands!) my father told me of my grandfather, that the latter once took ship with a company, intending for the island of Sicily, and sailed till there arose against them a contrary wind, which drove them from their course and brought them to a great mountain in one of the lands of God the Most High. Quoth my grandfather, “This was in the darkness of the night and as soon as it was day, there came forth to us, from the caves of the mountain, folk black of colour and naked of body, as they were wild beasts, understanding not what was said to them; nor was there any one of them who knew Arabic, except their King, who was of their own kind. When the latter saw the ship, he came down to it with a company of his followers and saluting us, bade us welcome and questioned us of our case. So we told him how we had been driven from our course by a contrary wind, and he said, ‘No son of Adam hath ever come to our land before you: but fear not, no harm shall befall you, and rejoice in the assurance of safety and return to your own country.’ Then he entertained us three days, feeding on the flesh of birds and wild beasts and fish, than which they had no other meat, and on the fourth day he carried us down to the beach, that we might divert ourselves by looking upon the fishermen. There we saw a fisherman, casting his nets to catch fish, and presently he pulled them up, and behold, in them was a casting-bottle of copper, stopped with lead and sealed with the signet of