When the fish moved, the captain did not wait for his passengers, but sailed away, and Sindbad, seizing a tub, floated helpless in the great waters.  But by the mercy of Allah he was thrown upon a true island, where a beautiful mare lay upon the ground, who cried at his approach.  Then a man started up at the mare’s cry, and seeing Sindbad, bore him to an underground chamber, where he regaled the waif with plenteous food.  To him did this man explain how he was a groom of King Mirjan, and that he brought the king’s mares to pasture on the island, hiding underground while the stallions of the sea came up out of the waves unto the mares.  Presently Sindbad saw this strange sight, and witnessed how the groom drove the stallions back to the waves when they would have dragged the mares with them.  After that he was carried before King Mirjan, who entreated him kindly, and when he had amassed wealth, returned by ship to Bussorah, and so to Baghdad.

But becoming possessed with the thought of travelling about the ways of men, he set out on a second voyage.  And it came to pass that he landed with others on a lovely island, and lay down to sleep, after he had eaten many delicious fruits.  Awaking, he found the ship gone.  Then, praying to Almighty Allah, like a man distracted, he roamed about the island, presently climbing a tree to see what he could see.  And he saw a great dome afar, and journeyed to it.

There was no entrance to this white dome, and as he went round about it, the sun became suddenly darkened, so that he looked towards it in fear, and lo! a bird in the heavens whose wings blackened all light.  Then did Sindbad know that the dome was an egg, and that the bird was the bird roc, which feeds its young upon elephants.  Sore afraid, he hid himself, and the bird settled upon the egg, and brooded upon it.  Then Sindbad unwound his turban, and, tying one end to the leg of the great bird and the other about his own middle, waited for the dawn.

When the dawn was come, the bird flew into the heavens, unaware of the weight at its foot, and Sindbad was borne across great seas and far countries.  When at last the bird settled on land, Sindbad unfastened his turban, and was free.

But the place was filled with frightful serpents, and strewn with diamonds.  Sindbad saw a dead sheep on the ground, with diamonds sticking to its carcase, and he knew that this was a device of merchants, for eagles come and carry away these carcases to places beyond the reach of the serpents, and merchants take the diamonds sticking to the flesh.  So he hid himself under the carcase, and an eagle bore him with it to inhabited lands, and he was delivered.