244 _ ALI BABA AND

mankind immediately, and with all the secrecy
imaginable, that nobody may suspect what is be-
come of them. But that labour Abdoollah and I
will undertake.”

Ali Baba’s garden was very long, and shaded at
the farther end by a great number of large trees.
Under these he and the slave dug a trench, long
and wide enough to hold all the’ robbers, and, as
the earth was light, they were not long in doing
it. Afterwards they lifted the bodies out of the
jars, took away their weapons, carried them to the
end of the garden, laid them in the trench, and
levelled the ground again. When this was done,
Ali Baba hid the jars and weapons; and, as he
had no occasion for the mules, he sent them at
different times to be sold in the market by his
slave.

While Ali Baba took these measures to prevent
the public from knowing how he came by his
riches in so short a time, the captain of the forty
robbers returned to the forest with inconceivable
mortification ; and in his agitation, or rather con-
fusion, at his ill success, so contrary to what he
had promised himself, entered the cave, not being
able, all the way from the town, to come to any
resolution how to revenge himself of Ali Baba.

The loneliness of the gloomy cavern became