alighted at a caravanserai, thinking to himself, “Doubtless the murther of so many men hath reached the Wali’s ears, and Ali Baba hath been seized and brought to justice, and his house is levelled and his good is confiscated. The townsfolk must surely have heard tidings of these matters.” So he straightway asked of the keeper of the khán, “What strange things have happened in the city during the last few days?” and the other told him all that he had seen and heard, but the Captain could not learn a whit of that which most concerned him. Hereby he understood that Ali Baba was ware and wise, and that he had not only carried away such store of treasure but he had also destroyed so many lives and withal had come off scatheless; furthermore, that he himself must needs have all his wits alert not to fall into the hands of his foe and perish. With this resolve the Captain hired a shop in the Bazar, whither he bore whole bales of the finest stuffs and goodly merchandise from his forest treasure-house; and presently he took his seat within the store and fell to doing merchant’s business. By chance his place fronted the booth of the defunct Kasim where his son, Ali Baba’s nephew, now traded; and the Captain, who called himself Khwajah Hasan, soon formed acquaintance and friendship with the shopkeepers around about him and treated all with profuse civilities, but he was especially gracious and cordial to the son of Kasim, a handsome youth and a well-dressed, and ofttimes he would sit and chat with him for a long while. A few days after it chanced that Ali Baba, as he was sometime wont to do, came to see his nephew, whom he found sitting in his shop. The Captain saw and recognised him at sight and one morning he asked the young man, saying, “Prithee tell me, who is he that ever and anon cometh to thee at thy place of sale?” whereto the youth made answer, “He is my uncle, the brother of my father.” Whereupon the Captain showed him yet greater favour and affection the better to deceive him for his own devices, and gave him presents and made him sit at meat with him and fed him with the daintiest of dishes. Presently Ali Baba’s nephew bethought him it was only right and proper that he also should invite the merchant to supper, but whereas his own house was small, and he was straitened for room and could not make a show of splendour, as did Khwajah Hasan, he took counsel with his uncle on the matter.——And as the morn began to dawn Shahrazad held her peace till The end of the Six Hundred and Thirty-sixth Night.