14
ALI BABA
The captain, furious with his disappointment, returned again with the troop to the forest; and condemned the second robber also to death.
The captain having thus 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 go himself on the business.
Accordingly, he repaired to the city, and addressed himself to the cobler Mustapha, who for six pieces of gold readily performed the same services for him he had done for the two other strangers. The captain, much wiser than his men, did not amuse himself with setting a mark upon the door, but attentively considered the house, considered the number of windows that were in it, 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 purchase nineteen mules and thirty-eight large jars, one full of oil, and the rest empty.
In two or three days jars were bought, and all things in readiness. The captain put a man into each jar, properly armed, and rubbed oil on the outside of each, the covers having holes bored in them for the men to breathe through. With these he loaded his mules, and, in the habit of an oil-merchant, entered the city in the dusk of the evening.
He proceeded to the street where Ali Baba
