The Seven Voyages of Sinbad - The Third Voyage

THE THIRD VOYAGE

After living a stress-free life for a while, Sinbad soon forgot of the truly horrific nature of the adventures he had endured in his first two voyages and began to crave another similar adventure.

He set sail once more with other fellow merchants out to sea, in search of a new adventure he could occupy himself with.

Sinbad and his merchants made a great amount of wealth through trade with a variety of peoples in a variety of islands.

However; in accordance to the typical nature of Sinbad’s voyages, Sinbad’s ship was caught in a terrible storm. It lasted for several days, eventually taking them to the shore of an island they have never seen before.

As they slowly got off the ship and onto the island, the captain remarked that he had heard of this island before.

“This island and all those surrounding it is filled with angry dwarves, we must be careful if we are to explore it!” he explained.

The captain was telling the truth; because swarms of dwarves were surrounding their ship, yelling angrily at them all. They then managed to cut off the cable of the anchor that kept the ship at the shore, then stole the ship!

The dwarves took it with them to another island, far away from Sinbad and his fellow merchants and captain.

Seeing no other option, Sinbad and the others decided to venture deeper into the island to see what they could find.

The crew could make out a palace in the distance, which at first seemed quite fancy and lofty. However; once they got closer to it, they noticed a pile of human bones to the left of the castle… and on its right, a section full of roasting spits!

Suddenly, one of the doors that led into the palace burst open, and out came one of the most horrific monsters Sinbad had ever seen – it was a massively tall cyclops with the claws of an eagle. His teeth were long and sharp, expressed by a wide and evil smile.

The monster examined each of the guests and decided that it would come back tomorrow morning to pick and choose which ones he would like to roast for breakfast.

Sinbad and his crew spent much of the night sobbing at what seemed to be an unavoidable fate. However, Sinbad came up with a plan of escape.

“We know that wood can help us swim away from this island,” Sinbad began, “we should make rafts out of these bundles of wood that surround this castle, and then sail out to sea in hopes of finding a ship of men that can rescue us from this doom,” Sinbad explained. They all agreed on this plan.

After building these rafts, they quickly rowed their way out to sea on them.

After much persistent rowing, Sinbad and his crew soon made it out onto the vast expanse of the sea. They eventually found themselves landing upon another island.

Upon landing on this island and feasting on its bountiful fruits, a strange hissing noise came from a distance and quickly became louder and louder. That was when Sinbad noticed a massive snake approach him and his crew, so big that it could grab any one of them and strangle them with ease.

In a state of absolute terror, Sinbad and his crew hurriedly climbed a nearby tree to the top, and waited all night in a state of sleepless terror as they watched it circle the trunk of the tree, waiting eagerly for one of them to lose their balance and fall into the depths of its agape mouth.

In the morning, Sinbad and the others noticed that the snake was gone. After crawling down the tree, the group of men approached the seashore once more in hope of finding a way out.

They were lucky enough to notice a ship sailing by, so they began to wave the colorful fabric of their turbans high in the air in hopes of catching the captain’s attention.

Luckily enough, the ship landed upon the shores of the desolate island and picked up Sinbad and his crew.

Sinbad explained to the sailors how they got to the isolated island in the first place, as well as the horrors they were confronted with, and they all listened in with keen fascination.

The captain of this boat approached Sinbad, and then offered him a box full of goods to trade upon hearing that he was a merchant.

“Once I travelled with many merchants, and one of them was accidentally abandoned on an island while he fell asleep. Assuming he is dead, I provide you with his goods,” said the captain.

Sinbad quickly realized that the captain was talking about him!

“Hey, I am the merchant that was abandoned on that island!” responded Sinbad.

“I’m glad to hear that; I felt so bad for abandoning you,” said the captain, “take your goods and prosper with them.”

And so, he did. Sinbad traded enough so that once he returned to Baghdad, he had so much money that he could not even count it. He gave even more to the poor this time and bought even more land.