Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange (Hardcover Classics) (27 page)

‘ “ ‘The man said: “She is telling you to make twenty glass chests, each containing the likeness of an owl. Put them in the sea, and when the creatures see them they will flee from them and not return.” The king was surprised by this but he released the mermaid and when he had done what she said he never saw the creatures coming back again. He finished building his city, which is still there to this day and is known as Alexandria.’ In the course of his wanderings amongst the seas and the islands my
jinni
found one of these boxes and removed the owl from it. This is it and he used to put me in it and take me round with him wherever he went.

‘ “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.” ’