they leave faring for a month, till another island rose before them and thereon they landed.  Here they found fruits of various kinds and busied themselves with eating of them, when behold, they saw from afar, somewhat lying in the road, a hideous creature as it were a column of silver.  So they went up to it and one of the men gave it a kick, when lo! it was a thing of human semblance, long of eyes and cloven of head and hidden under one of his ears, for he was wont, whenas he lay down to sleep, to spread on ear under his head, and cover his face with the other ear.[FN#402] He snatched up the Mameluke who had kicked him and carried him off into the middle of the island, and behold, it was all full of Ghuls who eat the sons of Adam.  The man cried out to his fellows, “Save yourselves, for this is the island of the man-eating Ghuls, and they mean to tear me to bits and devour me.”  When they heard these words they fled back to the boat, without gathering any store of the fruits and putting out to sea, fared on some days till it so happened that they came to another island, where they found a high mountain.  So they climbed to the top and there saw a thick copse.  Now they were sore anhungered; so they took to eating of the fruits; but, before they were aware, there came upon them from among the trees black men of terrible aspect, each fifty cubits high with eye-teeth[FN#403] protruding from their mouths like elephants’ tusks; and, laying hands on Sayf al-Muluk and his company, carried them to their King, whom they found seated on a piece of black felt laid on a rock, and about him a great company of Zanzibar-blacks, standing in his service.  The blackamoors who had captured the Prince and his Mamelukes set them before the King and said to him, “We found these birds amoung the trees”; and the King was sharp-set; so he took two of the servants and cut their throats and ate them;—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

     When it was the Seven Hundred and Sixty-sixth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Zanzibar-blacks took Sayf al-Muluk and his Mamelukes and set them before the King, saying, “O King, we came upon these birds among the trees.”  Thereupon the King seized two of the Mamelukes and cut their throats and ate them; which, when Sayf al-Muluk saw, he feared for himself and wept and repeated these verses,

“Familiar with my heart are woes and with them I * Who shunned
     them; for familiar are great hearts and high. 
The woes I suffer are not all of single kind. * I have, thank
     Allah, varied thousands to aby!”

Then he signed and repeated these also,

“The World hath shot me with its sorrows till * My heart is
     covered with shafts galore;
And now, when strike me other shafts, must break * Against th’
     old points the points that latest pour.”