ALI BABA
15
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 for this day’s market.
‘As I am quite a stranger in this town, will you do me the favour to let me put my mules into your court-yard, and direct me where I may lodge to-night?’
Ali Baba, who was a good-natured man, welcomed the pretended oil-merchant very kindly, and offered him a bed in his own house: and having ordered the mules to be unloaded in the yard, and properly fed he invited his guest in to supper.
The captain haying seen the jars properly placed in the yard, followed Ali Baba into the house, and, after supper, was shewn the chamber where he was to sleep.
It happened that Morgiana was obliged to sit up later that night than usual to get ready her master’s bathing linen for the following morning, and while she was busy about the fire, her lamp went out, and there was no more oil in the house.
After considering how she could obtain a light, she recollected the thirty-eight oil jars in the yard, and determined to take a little oil out of one of them for her lamp.
She took her oil vessel in her hand, and approaching the first jar, the robber within said ‘Is it time, captain?’
Any other slave, perhaps, on heating many
