‘ “One day he took me to the island of whose wonders he had told me. When we got there I saw that this was a verdant and well-wooded place with beautiful plants and strange birds with uncommon songs. When we got to the centre of it we could see something like a black mountain, the size of an elephant or bigger, with hair covering its face and eyes like blazing fire. It was coming towards us, and when my companion saw it he turned to me and said: ‘Take this ring and put it on your finger.’ Before he had finished speaking the marid came running towards me but when he saw me gesturing with the ring he turned from me to my companion, who closed with him, giving a great shout and muttering like the marid.
‘ “They began to exchange blows and kept on shouting, biting and tearing at each other with blood flowing from them both as the island shook thanks to the violence of their struggle. I had climbed a high tree, from which I watched them, and I had almost despaired of my companion and of my own life thanks to what I could see of the terrible marid. But then the jinni managed to take him by surprise and threw him down, not leaving him until he was dead.
‘ “I hurried down from the tree to see what had happened to the jinni and when I got near him, being unable to speak, he pointed to a nearby tree. I realized that he wanted something from it that he could eat and, as it had no fruit, I picked some of its leaves, which looked like those of a nettle. When I took them to him he started to eat, and then got up and stretched himself. I congratulated him on his safety, and he said: ‘By God, had he not fallen because his foot slipped he would have killed me.’
‘ “I then asked him whether there was anything else there of which he was afraid. He told me that the only thing he feared and which could injure him was a rat-like creature known as a daran, which lived on one of the islands in a cave a mile away from the foot of a mountain. This was the bane of jinn and had killed others before him, including his own father.
‘ “I asked how he had done this and he told me: ‘My father was an ‘ifrit who lived alone on this island. He had been in the habit of sinking passing ships until, when he had gone too far in his insolence, God used the daran to destroy him. They were miserably small things that people would think contemptible but they could destroy jinn. When they smelled a jinni they would jump on to him and attach themselves to his skin and they would go on nibbling at his flesh and sucking at the skin until they finished him off, even if he were the strongest and most nobly formed of his kind, leaving him no escape. There were hordes of them, outnumbering ants.
‘ “ ‘A ship with many merchants on board had come to the island, and they had landed to look for water or fruit. The daran hurried on board, looking for something to eat, and, although the sailors gathered to fight them with sticks and stones, the daran eventually got the better of them all and ate all that they had, including their provisions and even their clothes. They gnawed through the ropes, and with no ropes and no sails, all of which had been eaten, the ship was at the mercy of the sea, with those on board weeping and lamenting what had befallen them.
‘ “ ‘The ship happened to pass the island where I lived in my youth with my father. I was not with him at the time or else I would have been killed, for when he saw the ship pitching to and fro, he wanted to eat those on board. He went out to it and after pulling it towards him he attacked it in order to seize someone, but when the daran caught his scent, they swarmed over him, body, head and shoulders. He threw himself down and started rolling in the sand. It was just then that I arrived but when I saw him writhing there looking like a hedgehog thanks to the daran that were sticking to him I stayed at a distance watching. All the daran left the ship to come to him, and those on board were then free of them, but as all their ropes and their sails had been eaten they were tossed hither and thither by the waves. My father, who had been left lying on the sand, was so completely devoured that nothing was left of him at all.
‘ “ ‘The sight of this terrified me and as the daran spread over the island after finishing with my father I made off and came here. I realized that God had punished my father for his excesses, but since I met you I have begun to act as wickedly as he did by killing people and I’m afraid that God may punish me, since you made me destroy a city filled with people and animals.’ I told him that, when his father had been attacked by the daran, had he thrown himself into the sea, no harm would have come to him, and they would have been drowned.
‘ “This was a mistake on my part, as I had never given good advice to anyone and had never told the jinni anything like this. ‘By God, that is right,’ he said, ‘and had my father realized that, he would not have come to any harm but would still be alive and well.’ I then left him for a time until he had forgotten what I had told him. I made a great collection of leaves and plants, which I have with me in bundles, and I cannot properly describe all that I saw on the island.
‘ “After that we both went back to our own island, where we stayed contentedly for some time. One day, when the jinni had gone off as usual, leaving me alone, I was walking there dejectedly under the trees, picking the best fruits, when suddenly I caught sight of ten armed men with water-skins and ropes coming through the trees. When I saw them I realized that their ship must have anchored off the island and that they had come ashore to look for water.
‘ “The sight of me alarmed them, but I was not frightened of them, as I realized that they were humans like me, whereas they thought that I was one of the jinn. They turned to run away, but I called out to them that nothing would harm them as I too was a human. I added that I had a strange tale to tell and explained that I had been on the island with a jinni for a number of years but that he had gone away the day before. I was unhappy with my lot and I asked them to take me with them wherever they were going.
‘ “When they heard this they came back to me and said: ‘We have about three hundred merchants and a large number of other passengers on board and we have anchored off the coast here. Guide us to water so that we can fill our skins, and we will then take you with us and treat you well until we can bring you to your own country.’ ‘Come on, then, and I’ll lead you to water,’ I told them, saying to myself: ‘How long am I going to stay with the jinni? He won’t know what has happened to me, as there are so many lands in this sea, and it is time to go back to civilization.’
‘ “After looking at my beauty, they went off to talk to each other. ‘Tell me what you’re doing,’ I said, at which they asked me my name. I told them, and they said: ‘By God, ‘Arus, you are beautiful, and each one of us is filled with desire for you. We are going to take you to a ship crowded with people where none of us will be able to get to you. We shall be full of regret and so we would like you to satisfy us now.’ ‘You could ask for nothing easier than that,’ I told them when I heard this; ‘Here I am, so do what you want with me.’
‘ “In their delight they began to kiss me, and I went off with them one after another, but while they were sitting with me my jinni appeared, towering over their heads. He took the man who was with me and tore him in half and although the others fled away he seized the leg of the dead man and used it to kill them all. Then he came back to me, frothing like a lion or a great angry camel, and he struck me on the thigh with a blow that removed some of my flesh. At this I despaired of my life, but I pretended to cry and said: ‘It wasn’t my fault. I’m a woman, and they were men. They forced me, and I could not resist.’
‘ “When the jinni heard this he believed me and took pity on me. He fetched me some dry leaves, telling me to put them on my wound, and when I did the blood stopped and the pain left me. He rushed towards the ship and when he was opposite it he shouted so loudly that both it and the island shook. He then struck it with his hand, plunging it into the sea and drowning everyone on board.
‘ “I stayed with him but I felt angry, while he excused himself and tried to conciliate me. I wanted to be shown the wonders of the sea and what God, Great and Glorious, had created in it, and so one day he took me by the hand and led me up the
black mountain with the arch through which the water pours. When we had climbed the summit ridge I could see the world with its islands stretched out beneath me.
‘ “There was something there that baffled me, and I turned to the jinni and asked him what it was that I was looking at in the island. He told me that it was a river of sand beside the fire mountain, whose rocks would burn at night. We went to where we could see it pouring into the sea, huge, high and frightening, and we then went on for three parasangs until we came to a vast peninsula that lay beneath the mountain. In it were houses, huts and dwellings where I could see innumerable people coming and going. They had hairy ears like those of horses and they were making a great noise. The mountain on one side of it was so smooth that not even an ant could climb on it, while on the other side was the sea.
‘ “I was frightened at the sight of so many people. I had never seen anything like it before and although I had been with the jinni for about ten years he had never shown the place to me. I asked him whether the people there were humans or jinn. He told me that a jinn king had taken a mortal girl from the zanj and had brought her up until she reached maturity. It then became clear that she was pregnant, although he had never slept with her. This distressed him, as he realized that she must have betrayed him, and he exiled her to this spot, from which there is no way of out, and whoever sails past it drowns. The girl gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, and she then lived like an animal, eating the fruits of these trees. When the boy grew up he lay with his sister and his mother. This was a long time ago, but it is from that girl that all these people are descended.
‘ “I asked him how they managed to live and what they ate. He said: ‘God, the Great and Glorious, shows kindness to His servants and has created for them an immense and terrifying fish which He throws up for them every year and on which they live until the next year.
‘ “ ‘When a ship is wrecked the waves throw up to them the drowned corpses from the arch through which you came. It was God Almighty Who brought you to this island, and had you gone on to them they would have eaten you. I have praised Him for having saved you and I remain full of wonder.’
‘ “I said to her: ‘What happened to you after that?’ She said: ‘We went back to our island and I stayed thinking about how I could escape. I remembered the daran that the jinni had told me about and I said to myself that there was nothing else I could use and that he would have forgotten what I had said to him. So I went up to him flirtatiously one day and said: ‘My friend, you have shown me every marvel, but there is one thing that I dearly want to see with my own eyes and that is the daran.’ ‘I can’t go to that island,’ he told me, ‘for the daran are the only things I fear.’ I went on flattering and pressing him and I asked if he could show them to me from a distance. At first he said he could not, but I went on urging him, saying that I wanted to see them flying at him, until he reluctantly agreed.
‘ “He put me in the chest and threw it into the sea, after which he took me round island after island until we reached one of enormous size, on to which we climbed. He had released me from the chest and he told me: ‘Go on straight ahead by yourself and you will see the daran asleep. Take a look and then come back.’ ‘I daren’t go on my own,’ I said, and I started inciting and encouraging him and leading him on bit by bit until I could see a daran. It was a terrifying sight as it lay there asleep, looking like a rat with a long snout and saw-like teeth. When we were getting close, I kept talking to distract him, but at a distance of twenty paces the creature smelled him and darted at him faster than the blink of an eye.
‘ “It was only the jinni whom it attacked, and it didn’t approach me. More and more of them kept coming and getting on to him, until he was almost completely covered. He threw himself on the ground and began rolling round in the sand, shrieking. When I saw this I thought that he was bound to die and so I went up to watch. When I had got close I shed tears in a pretence of grief, and the sight of me seemed to remind him of what I had told him, so he threw himself into the sea. By the time I came running up behind him he had disappeared underwater, and the daran came up to the surface and every last one of them dead.
‘ “I stayed alone on the island for three nights and days, going around, eating the fruits and drinking from the springs. I had given up hope for the jinni, but then on the fourth day I heard him calling to me. I went up and wept over him, saying: ‘What happened to you, and where have you been these days? Tell me.’ ‘Damn you,’ he said, ‘didn’t I tell you that these things were fatal to me? But for your advice to throw myself into the sea I would have been killed, but when I dived down they left me. I then went to my family and stayed with them for these last days until I came hurrying back to you lest you be distressed about me and say: “He has left me on my own.” ’
‘ “One day I asked whether there was anything he had to guard against, and he told me that the only thing he had to fear was something engraved with one of the Names of God, especially if this were applied to the parting of his hair, as it would kill him.
‘ “When I heard this I stored it away in my heart and when he was asleep or absent I used to cry out: ‘My Lord, how am I to find one of your Names so that I can win free from this island and this jinni?’ This went on until God brought you to me and you gave me your ring. I put it on the parting of his hair before cutting his throat while he slept, as you saw for yourself.
‘ “This is the whole of my story from beginning to end. I have told it to you so that if you take me it will be in full knowledge of my evil wiles and what I have done to others. Otherwise, you can go off alone and in safety, for there is a way for you to escape back to your own country, while these pearls will enrich both you and your children’s children till the end of time. You can leave me here alone until God’s judgement is fulfilled, for He is the best of judges.”
‘When I had heard her story I stayed looking at her in amazement, thinking about what she had told me, but love and desire got the better of me, and I longed to take her with me. “How can I leave behind such unparalleled loveliness?” I asked myself. “I could never do this even if it means my death. She may have repented of her evil deeds, and if I am good to her it will put right what is wrong.” But then I told myself: “Damn you! This is a woman formed by nature to do harm, with an inborn disposition for treachery, guile, evil-doing and wickedness. You heard what she told you and you know what the astrologers said about her to her father. It was all true; she admitted everything that she did; she showed no pity for her mother; she did not help her father, but she brought down great men and had virgins raped. After all this destructiveness, how can she suit you, who are neither the most manly nor the handsomest of men?” I told myself that she would not be right for me, nor I for her, and she would not look after me as a decent man should be looked after.
‘I stayed silent for a time, looking down at the ground in perplexity, plunged in thought, but no one can escape his destiny, and love got the better of me. She stayed silent, looking at me, and I said: “Lady, I cannot bring myself to abandon you. God has given you to me, and it is through you that I shall win free and escape.” I told her to take heart, repeating that I would never abandon her and telling her that if Almighty God brought me safely home, I would prefer her to all my family and treat her as well as she could wish, adding that she should put her trust in me.
‘When she heard this ‘Arus got up and collected all the useful things she had got ready for herself on the island. They filled more than ten bundles, each given a mark of its own, although I did not know what use they served, and she brought out pearls and jewels that I had never seen before. She then told me to walk behind her, and we went on until we had reached the coast. “Jump in after me,” she said, “for there are places where you can wade and places where you can’t. Take care not to stray.”
‘She took off her clothes and rolled them up in one of her bundles, which she held above the water, and she then started to wade, with me behind her, until we r
eached a huge island. When we got out of the water she put her clothes back on and sat waiting for me. We then started to walk along the coast, which we did every day from morning until evening, when we would stop for the night. We found plenty of trees and fruits on the way but we only came across water once every five days, more or less. When we reached a spring we would drink, bathe and relax for the rest of the day, and this went on for twenty days.
‘On the twenty-first day we came on an old black man, who had moored a light boat while he wandered around the shore gathering oysters and pearls to store in the boat. When she was near, ‘Arus jumped in and took her seat in it, telling me to be quick and join her. When I got in, she raised the anchor and put out to sea. The old man had been at a distance but when he saw us he came running up, shouting to us to take him with us, or else he would die of hunger and thirst.
‘ ‘Arus did not look round as he was crying out for help, although I was asking her to take him with us, but she neither did this nor answered me. I went on insisting, as I was sorry for the man, but she said: “Keep quiet and don’t interfere with me. This boat can only take one or two.” We were quickly out of sight of him, but when we got to an inhabited coast I asked her to wait while I went back to pick him up, as we didn’t want to kill him. “Damn you – meddle!” she told me.”If he was the only man I had killed, I would be the happiest person on earth. Come with me and leave him, God damn him, for if you abandon me you shall never see me again.”
Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange (Hardcover Classics) Page 24
