Thus it was I became blind of one eye. I then recollected the predictions of the ten young gentlemen. The horse again took wing, and soon disappeared. I got up, sorrowing at the misfortune I had brought upon myself. For a while I walked upon the terrace, covering my eye with one of my hands, for it pained me exceedingly, and then descended, and entered into a hall. I soon discovered by the ten seats in a circle and the eleventh in the middle, lower than the rest, that I was in the castle whence I had been carried by the roc.
The ten young men seemed not at all surprised to see me, nor at the loss of my eye; but said, “We are sorry that we cannot congratulate you on your return, as we could wish; but we are not the cause of your misfortune.” “I should do you wrong,” I replied, “to lay it to your charge; I have only myself to accuse.” “If,” said they, “it be a subject of consolation to know that others share your sufferings, you have in us this alleviation of your misfortune. All that has happened to you we have endured; we each of us tasted the same pleasures during a year; and we would enjoy them yet, had we not opened the golden door, when the princesses were absent. You have been no wiser than we, and have incurred the same punishment. We would gladly receive you into our company, to join us in the penance to which we are bound, and the duration of which we know not. But we have already told you the reasons that render this impossible; depart, therefore, and proceed to the court of Bagdad,
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