26 ALI BABA; OR, THE

when she discovered the red mark; and getting some red
chalk, she marked seven doors on each side, precisely in the
same place and in the same manner. The robber, valuing
himself highly upon the precautions he had taken, triumphantly
conducted his captain to the spot; but great indeed was his
confusion and dismay, when he found it impossible to say
which, ‘among fifteen houses marked exactly alike, was the
right one. The captain, furious with his disappointment,
returned again with the troop to the forest; and the second
robber was also condemned to death.

The captain having lost two of his troop, judged that their
hands were more active than their heads in such services; and
he resolved to employ no other of them, but to go himself
upon the business. Accordingly he repaired to the city, and
addressed himself to the cobbler Mustapha, who, for six pieces
of gold, readily performed the services for him he had done for
the two other strangers; and the captain, much wiser than his
men, did not amuse himself with setting a mark upon the door,
but attentively considered the house, counted the number of
windows, and passed by it very often, to be certain that he
should know it again. He then returned to the forest, and
ordered his troop to go into the town, and buy nineteen mules
and thirty-eight large jars, one full of oil and the rest empty.
In two or three days the jars were bought, and all things in
readiness ; and the captain having put a man into each jar,
properly armed, the jars being rubbed on the outside with oil,
and the covers having holes bored in them for the men to
breathe through, loaded his mules, and, in the habit of an oil-
merchant, entered the town in the dusk of the evening. He
proceeded to the street where Ali Baba dwelt, and found him
sitting in the porch of his house. “ Sir,” said he to Ali Baba,
“I have brought this oil a great way to sell, and am too late