prosperity to Baghdad.

But once again did he travel, and this time his vessel encountered in
the middle seas three vast fish-like islands, which lashed out and
destroyed the ship, eating most, but Sindbad escaped. When he reached
land he found himself well cared for among kind people, and he grew rich
in an old man's house, who married him to his only daughter. One day
after the old man's death, and when he was as rich as any in that land,
lo! all the men grew into the likeness of birds, and Sindbad begged one
of them to take him on his back on the mysterious flight to which they
were now bent. After persuasion the man-bird agreed, and Sindbad was
carried up into the firmament till he could hear the angels glorifying
God in the heavenly dome. Carried away by ecstasy, he shouted praise of
Allah into the holy place, and instantly the bird fell to the ground,
for they were evil and incapable of praising God. But Sindbad returned
to his wife, and she told him how evil were those people, and that her
father was not of them, and induced him to carry her to his own land. So
he sold all his possessions, took ship, and came to Baghdad, where he
lived in great splendour and honour, and this was the seventh and last
voyage of Sindbad the Sailor.


_II.--The Tale of the Three Apples_


The Caliph Haroun al-Raschid, walking by night in the city, found a
fisherman lamenting that he had caught nothing for his wife and
children. "Cast again," said the caliph, "and I will give thee a hundred
gold pieces for whatsoever cometh up." So the man cast his net, and
there came up a box, wherein was found a young damsel foully murdered.