Among a great many objects that engaged my attention, I perceived a black horse, of the handsomest and best shape that ever was seen. I went nearer, the better to observe him, and found he had a saddle and bridle of massy gold, curiously wrought. One side of his trough was filled with clean barley and sesame, and the other with rose-water: I took him by the bridle, and led him forth to view him by the light; I got on his back, and would have had him move; but he not stirring, I whipped him with a switch I had taken up in his magnificent stable; and he had no sooner felt the stroke, than he began to neigh with a horrible noise, and extending his wings which I had not seen before, he flew up with me into the air, quite out of sight. I thought on nothing then but to sit fast; and considering the fear that had seized upon me, I sat very well. He afterwards flew down again towards the earth, and lighting upon the terrace of a castle, without giving me any time to dismount, he shook me out of the saddle with such force, that he threw me behind him, and with the end of his tail struck out mine eye. Thus I became blind of one eye; and then I began to remember the predictions of the ten young gentlemen. The horse flew again out of sight. I got up very much troubled at the misfortune I had brought upon myself; I walked upon the terrace, covering my eye with one of my hands, for it pained me exceedingly, and then came down, and entered into a hall, which I knew presently by the ten sofas in a circle, and the eleventh in the middle, lower than the rest, to be the same castle from whence I was taken away by the roc. The ten half-blind gentlemen were not in the hall when I came in, but came soon after, with the old man. They were not at all surprised to see me again, nor at the loss of my eye; but said, We are sorry that we cannot congratulate you upon your return, as we could have desired; but we are not the cause of your misfortune. --I should be in the wrong to accuse you, said I; for I have drawn it upon myself, and I can charge the fault upon no other person. --If it be a consolation to the unfortunate, said they, to have companions, this example may afford us a subject of rejoicing. All that has happened to you, we have also undergone; we tasted all sorts of pleasure, during a year successively; and we had continued to enjoy the same happiness still, had we not opened the golden door, when the princesses were absent. You have been no wiser than us, and have had likewise the same punishment. We would gladly receive you among us, to perform such penance as we do, though we know not how long it may continue; but we have already declared the reasons that hinder us; therefore depart from hence, and go to the court of Bagdad, where you shall meet with him that can decide your destiny. They told me the way I was to travel, and I left them.