Sinbad bought a magnificent house and grounds, and thought of settling down and forgetting all the disagreeable things that had happened to him; but this state of idleness did not please his active turn of mind, and he soon gave it up and took to his travels again. He made no less than seven voyages before he retired and settled down with his family. On one of these voyages he was again wrecked, and after a narrow escape from drowning, was cast up on another island. He wandered along the shore for some time, and presently came upon a little stream. On the banks of this brook he saw an old man seated, who seemed to be very broken down and weary. 'I approached and saluted him,' said Sinbad to Hindbad, 'but instead of replying he made signs to me to take him on my shoulders and cross the brook, making me understand that he wanted to gather some fruit.' This Sinbad did, and when he had reached the other side of the stream with his heavy load, he stopped and asked the old man to get down.
But then a strange thing happened. 'This old man,' said Sinbad, 'who appeared so decrepit, nimbly threw his legs, which I now saw were covered with a hard skin, over my neck, and seated himself on my shoulders, at the same time squeezing my throat so tightly that I expected to be strangled. I was so alarmed that I fainted away.' The old man, however, would not loose his hold, but made his prisoner carry him and gather fruit for him, and work for him generally, without paying him any money or allowing him any liberty, merely raining down blows on him for all that he did.
But at last, one day, Sinbad's opportunity came. The old man having taken a drink which Sinbad had prepared for him out of some grapes he found, became drowsy, and began to sway about on the shoulders of his carrier, who, understanding how things were, threw his burden to the ground, and thus got rid of him. Overjoyed at being once again free, he walked towards the sea-shore, and here, to his great joy, he met some people who belonged to a vessel which had anchored there to get fresh water. He told them of his adventures, and they assured him that he had fallen into the hands of the Old Man of the Sea, adding, 'You are the first whom he has not strangled; he never left those whom he had once mastered till he had put an end to their lives. The sailors and merchants who land here never dare approach him except in a strong body.'
No doubt Chatterbox readers have often heard the phrase, 'The old man of the sea,' which is only another term for a weight that we have taken upon ourselves and cannot shake off. Thus, if a man is in debt, and cannot get clear, the debt is said to be a veritable 'old man of the sea' to him who carries the burden.
All Sinbad's fatigue at last ended, and he arrived happily at Bagdad, where he lived a quiet and worthy life till the hour of his death. Hindbad, when he heard the tale, was obliged to admit that the man whose riches he had so envied had not won them without fearful perils, and that his own miseries, as compared with those undergone by the owner of the mansion, were as nothing; and Sinbad, remembering what he had once suffered himself, behaved kindly and generously to the porter, making him his friend, and promising him that all his life he should have reason to remember Sinbad the Sailor.
AFLOAT ON THE DOGGER BANK.
A Story of Adventure on the North Sea and in China.