ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES. 45

showing any emotion, assumed the voice
of the Captain, and answered, “‘ Not yet,
but presently.” She approached the next
jar, and the same question was asked her ;
she went on to them all in turn, making
the same answer to the same question,
till she came to the last, which was full
of oil. :

Morgiana, by this means, discovered
that her master, who supposed he was
giving a night’s lodging to an oil-merchant
only, had afforded shelter to thirty-eight
robbers, including the pretended mer-
chant their Captain. She quickly filled
her oil-can from the last jar, and returned
into the kitchen; and after having put
some oil in her lamp and lighted it, she
took a large kettle, and went again into
the court to fill it with oil: from the jar.
This done, she brought it back again, put
it over the fire, and made a great blaze
under it with a quantity of wood ; for the
sooner. the oil boiled, the sooner her plan
would be carried out. At length the
oil boiled. She then took the kettle and
poured into each jar, from the first to
the last, enough boiling oil to scald the
robbers to death.

This being done without any noise,
she returned to thekitchen with the empty