“Sire,” I said, “I am more astonished than I can express to you at the strange custom which exists in your dominions of burying the living with the dead.  In all my travels I have never before met with so cruel and horrible a law.”

“What would you have, Sindbad?” he replied.  “It is the law for everybody.  I myself should be buried with the Queen if she were the first to die.”

“But, your Majesty,” said I, “dare I ask if this law applies to foreigners also?”

“Why, yes,” replied the king smiling, in what I could but consider a very heartless manner:  “they are no exception to the rule if they have married in the country.”

When I heard this I went home much cast down, and from that time forward my mind was never easy.  If only my wife’s little finger ached I fancied she was going to die, and sure enough before very long she fell really ill and in a few days breathed her last.  My dismay was great, for it seemed to me that to be buried alive was even a worse fate than to be devoured by cannibals, nevertheless there was no escape.  The body of my wife, arrayed in her richest robes and decked with all her jewels, was laid upon the bier.  I followed it, and after me came a great procession, headed by the king and all his nobles, and in this order we reached the fatal mountain, which was one of a lofty chain bordering the sea.

Here I made one more frantic effort to excite the pity of the King and those who stood by, hoping to save myself even at this last moment, but it was of no avail.  No one spoke to me, they even appeared to hasten over their dreadful task, and I speedily found myself descending into the gloomy pit, with my seven loaves and pitcher of water beside me.  Almost before I reached the bottom the stone was rolled into its place above my head, and I was left to my fate.  A feeble ray of light shone into the cavern through some chink, and when I had the courage to look about me I could see that I was in a vast vault, bestrewn with bones and bodies of the dead.  I even fancied that I heard the expiring sighs of those who, like myself, had come into this dismal place alive.  All in vain did I shriek aloud with rage and despair, reproaching myself for the love of gain and adventure which had brought me to such a pass, but at length, growing calmer, I took up my bread and water, and wrapping my face in my mantle I groped my way towards the end of the cavern, where the air was fresher.

Here I lived in darkness and misery until my provisions were exhausted, but just as I was nearly dead from starvation the rock was rolled away overhead and I saw that a bier was being lowered into the cavern, and that the corpse upon it was a man.  In a moment my mind was made up, the woman who followed had nothing to expect but a lingering death; I should be doing her a service if I shortened her misery.  Therefore when she descended, already insensible from terror, I was ready armed with a huge bone, one blow from