The ten young men were not present when I first entered, but came in soon after, accompanied by the old man.  They greeted me kindly, and bewailed my misfortune, though, indeed, they had expected nothing less.  “All that has happened to you,” they said, “we also have undergone, and we should be enjoying the same happiness still, had we not opened the Golden Door while the princesses were absent.  You have been no wiser than we, and have suffered the same punishment.  We would gladly receive you among us, to perform such penance as we do, but we have already told you that this is impossible.  Depart, therefore, from hence and go to the Court of Bagdad, where you shall meet with him that can decide your destiny.”  They told me the way I was to travel, and I left them.

On the road I caused my beard and eyebrows to be shaved, and put on a Calender’s habit.  I have had a long journey, but arrived this evening in the city, where I met my brother Calenders at the gate, being strangers like myself.  We wondered much at one another, to see we were all blind of the same eye, but we had no leisure to discourse at length of our common calamities.  We had only so much time as to come hither to implore those favours which you have been generously pleased to grant us.

He finished, and it was Zobeida’s turn to speak:  “Go wherever you please,” she said, addressing all three.  “I pardon you all, but you must depart immediately out of this house.”

The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor

In the times of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid there lived in Bagdad a poor porter named Hindbad, who on a very hot day was sent to carry a heavy load from one end of the city to the other.  Before he had accomplished half the distance he was so tired that, finding himself in a quiet street where the pavement was sprinkled with rose water, and a cool breeze was blowing, he set his burden upon the ground, and sat down to rest in the shade of a grand house.  Very soon he decided that he could not have chosen a pleasanter place; a delicious perfume of aloes wood and pastilles came from the open windows and mingled with the scent of the rose water which steamed up from the hot pavement.  Within the palace he heard some music, as of many instruments cunningly played, and the melodious warble of nightingales and other birds, and by this, and the appetising smell of many dainty dishes of which he presently became aware, he judged that feasting and merry making were going on.  He wondered who lived in this magnificent house which he had never seen before, the street in which it stood being one which he seldom had occasion to pass.  To satisfy his curiosity he went up to some splendidly dressed servants who stood at the door, and asked one of them the name of the master of the mansion.

“What,” replied he, “do you live in Bagdad, and not know that here lives the noble Sindbad the Sailor, that famous traveller who sailed over every sea upon which the sun shines?”