So we covered the bales with our cloaks and garments
and drugget and canvas, lest they be spoiled by the rain, and betook
ourselves to prayer and supplication to Almighty Allah, and humbled
ourselves before Him for deliverance from the peril that was upon
us. But the captain arose and, tightening his girdle, tucked up his
skirts, and after taking refuge with Allah from Satan the Stoned,
clomb to the masthead, whence he looked out right and left, and gazing
at the passengers and crew, fell to buffeting his face and plucking
out his beard. So we cried to him, "O Rais, what is the matter?" and
he replied, saying: "Seek ye deliverance of the Most High from the
strait into which we have fallen, and bemoan yourselves and take leave
of one another. For know that the wind hath gotten the mastery of
us, and hath driven us into the uttermost of the seas world." Then
he came down from the masthead and opening his sea chest, pulled but a
bag of blue cotton, from which he took a powder like ashes. This he
set in a saucer wetted with a little water, and after waiting a
short time, smelt and tasted it. And then he took out of the chest a
booklet, wherein he read awhile, and said, weeping:
"Know, O ye passengers, that in this book is a marvelous matter,
denoting that whoso cometh hither shall surely die, without hope of
escape.
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