And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her
permitted say.

When it was the Five Hundred and Thirty-ninth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
ship-master cried to the passengers, "Leave your gear and seek
safety, ere ye die;" all who heard him left gear and goods,
clothes washed and unwashed, fire pots and brass cooking-pots,
and fled back to the ship for their lives, and some reached it
while others (amongst whom was I) did not, for suddenly the
island shook and sank into the abysses of the deep, with all that
were thereon, and the dashing sea surged over it with clashing
waves. I sank with the others down, down into the deep, but
Almighty Allah preserved me from drowning and threw in my way a
great wooden tub of those that had served the ship's company for
tubbing. I gripped it for the sweetness of life and, bestriding
it like one riding, paddled with my feet like oars, whilst the
waves tossed me as in sport right and left. Meanwhile the captain
made sail and departed with those who had reached the ship,
regardless of the drowning and the drowned; and I ceased not
following the vessel with my eyes, till she was hid from sight
and I made sure of death. Darkness closed in upon me while in
this plight and the winds and waves bore me on all that night and
the next day, till the tub brought to with me under the lee of a
lofty island, with trees overhanging the tide. I caught hold of a
branch and by its aid clambered up on to the land, after coming
nigh upon death; but when I reached the shore, I found my legs
cramped and numbed and my feet bore traces of the nibbling of
fish upon their soles; withal I had felt nothing for excess of