ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES. 39

nineteen mules and thirty-eight large
leather jars to carry oil, one of which
must be full, and all the others
empty. :

In the course of two or three days
the thieves returned, and the Captain
made one of his men enter each jar,
armed as he thought necessary, and
closed them so as to appear full of
oil, leaving, however, a small slit open
to admit air for them to breathe;
and the better to carry out the trick,
he rubbed the outside of the jars
with oil, which he took from the full
one.

Things being thus disposed, the mules
were laden with the thirty-seven thieves
each concealed in a jar, and the jar that
was filled with oil; when the Captain
took the road to the city at the hour
that had been agreed, and arrived about
an hour after sunset. He went straight
to the house of Ali Baba, where he found
Ali Baba at the door, enjoying the fresh
air after supper. He stopped his mules,
“Sir,” said he, ‘I have brought the oil
which you see from a great distance to
sell it to-morrow at the market, and at
this late hour I do not know where to
go to pass the night; if it would not