"Sister, sister, if you are yet awake, I pray you finish
the history of the Young King of the Black Islands." Scheherazade
replies, "If my lord the Sultan will suffer me to live another day,
sister, I will not only finish that, but tell you a more wonderful
story yet." Then, the gracious Sultan goes out, giving no orders
for the execution, and we all three breathe again.
At this height of my tree I begin to see, cowering among the leaves--
it may be born of turkey, or of pudding, or mince pie, or of these
many fancies, jumbled with Robinson Crusoe on his desert island,
Philip Quarll among the monkeys, Sandford and Merton with Mr.
Barlow, Mother Bunch, and the Mask--or it may be the result of
indigestion, assisted by imagination and over-doctoring--a
prodigious nightmare. It is so exceedingly indistinct, that I don't
know why it's frightful--but I know it is. I can only make out that
it is an immense array of shapeless things, which appear to be
planted on a vast exaggeration of the lazy-tongs that used to bear
the toy soldiers, and to be slowly coming close to my eyes, and
receding to an immeasurable distance. When it comes closest, it is
worse. In connection with it I descry remembrances of winter nights
incredibly long; of being sent early to bed, as a punishment for
some small offence, and waking in two hours, with a sensation of
having been asleep two nights; of the laden hopelessness of morning
ever dawning; and the oppression of a weight of remorse.
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