In that island are ships without nails of iron or brass, on account
of the rocks of adamant (loadstones). For they are all abundant
thereabout in that sea, that it is marvellous to speak of; and if a
ship passed there that had either iron bands or iron nails, it would
perish; for the adamant, by its nature, draws iron to it, and so it
would draw it to the ship, because of the iron, that it should never
depart from it.
“That,” cried Bob Edmerton, “was what happened to Sindbad.”
“Oh, no; not to Sindbad!” said all the others.
Uncle Fritz confessed that he thought it was to Sindbad. This was a
great triumph for the little troop. “To think,” said Tom Rising, “that
we should bowl out Uncle Fritz on the ‘Arabian Nights’! I thought he
knew the ‘Arabian Nights’ by heart.” So the “Arabian Nights” (in Lane’s
version) was sent for, and Tom Rising read aloud from the story of “The
Third Royal Mendicant.”
“A royal mendicant,” said Uncle Fritz, “is what was called a
‘calendar,’ when I was a boy.”