You may judge at my sorrow, continued Sindbad; to be interred alive,
seemed to me as deplorable an end as to be devoured by cannibals.
But I must submit; the king and all his court would honour the
funeral with their presence, and the most considerable people of the
city did the like. When all was ready for the ceremony, the corpse
was put into a coffin, with all her jewels and magnificent apparel.
The cavalcade began, and as second actor in this doleful tragedy, I
went next the corpse, with my eyes full of tears, bewailing my
deplorable fate. Before I came to the mountain, I made an essay on
the minds of the spectators: I addressed myself to the king in the
first place, and then to all those who were round me and bowing
before them to the earth, to kiss the border of their garments, I
prayed them to have compassion upon me. Consider, said I, that I am
a stranger, and ought not to be subject to this rigorous law, and
that I have another wife and children in my own country. [30] It was
to no purpose for me to speak thus, no soul was moved at it; on the
contrary, they made haste to let down my wife’s corpse into the
pit, and put me down the next moment in an open coffin, with a
vessel full of water, and seven loaves. In short, the fatal ceremony
being performed, they covered up the mouth of the pit,
notwithstanding the excess of my grief, and my lamentable cries.
As I came near the bottom, I discovered, by help of the little light
that came from above, the nature of this subterraneous place; it was
a vast long cave, and might be about fifty fathom deep. I
immediately smelt an insufferable stench, proceeding from the
multitude of dead corpses which I saw on the right and left; nay, I
fancied that I heard some of them sigh out their last. However, when
I got down, I immediately left my coffin, and getting at a distance
from the corpses, held my nose, and lay upon the ground, where I
staid a long time, bathed in tears. Then, reflecting on my sad lot,
It is true, said I, that God disposes all things according to the
decrees of his providence; but, poor Sindbad, art not thou thyself
the cause of thy being brought to die so strange a death? Would to
God thou hadst perished in some of those tempests which thou hast
escaped! Then thy death had not been so lingering and terrible in
all its circumstances. But thou hast drawn all this upon thyself by
thy cursed avarice. Ah! unfortunate wretch, shouldst thou not rather
have staid at home, and quietly enjoyed the fruits of thy labour?
Such were the vain complaints with which I made the cave to echo,
beating my head and stomach out of rage and despair, and abandoning
myself to the most afflicting thoughts. Nevertheless, I must tell
you, that instead of calling death to my assistance in that
miserable condition, I felt still an inclination to live, and to do
all I could to prolong my days. I went groping about, with my nose
stopped, for the bread and water that was in my coffin, and I took
some of it. Though the darkness of the cave was so great that I
could not distinguish day and night, yet I always found my coffin
again, and the cave seemed to be more spacious and fuller of corpses
than it appeared to me at first. I lived for some days upon my bread
and water, which being all spent at last, I prepared for death. --At
these words Scheherazade left off, but resumed the story next night
thus: