Arabs -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Fairy tales -- Arab countries; Folklore -- Arab countries; Tales -- Arab countries
"Baba Mustapha," said Morgiana, "you must take with you your sewing
tackle, and go with me; but I must tell you, I shall blindfold you when
you come to such a place." Baba Mustapha seemed to hesitate a little at
these words. "Oh! oh!" replied he, "you would have me do something
against my conscience or against my honour?" "God forbid!" said
Morgiana, putting another piece of gold into his hand, "that I should
ask anything that is contrary to your honour; only come along with me,
and fear nothing."
Baba Mustapha went with Morgiana, who, after she had bound his eyes with
a handkerchief, conveyed him to her deceased master's house, and never
unloosed his eyes till he had entered the room where she had put the
corpse together. "Baba Mustapha," said she, "you must make haste and sew
these quarters together; and when you have done, I will give you another
piece of gold." After Baba Mustapha had finished his task, she
blindfolded him again, gave him the third piece of gold as she had
promised, and recommending secrecy to him, carried him back to the place
where she first bound his eyes, pulled off the bandage, and let him go
home, but watched him that he returned toward his stall, till he was
quite out of sight, for fear he should have the curiosity to return and
track her.
By the time Morgiana had warmed some water to wash the body, Ali Baba
came with incense to embalm it, after which it was sewn up in a
winding-sheet. Not long after, the joiner, according to Ali Baba's
orders, brought the bier, which Morgiana received at the door, and
helped Ali Baba to put the body into it; when she went to the mosque to
inform the imaum that they were ready. The people of the mosque, whose
business it was to wash the dead, offered to perform their duty, but she
told them that it was done already. Morgiana had scarcely got home
before the imaum and the other ministers of the mosque arrived. Four
neighbours carried the corpse on their shoulders to the burying-ground,
following the imaum, who recited some prayers. Morgiana, as a slave to
the deceased, followed the corpse, weeping, beating her breast, and
tearing her hair; and Ali Baba came after with some neighbours, who
often relieved the others in carrying the corpse to the burying-ground.
Cassim's wife stayed at home mourning, uttering lamentable cries with
the women of the neighbourhood, who came according to custom during the
funeral, and joining their lamentations with hers, filled the quarter
far and near with sorrow. In this manner Cassim's melancholy death was
concealed and hushed up between Ali Baba, his wife, Cassim's widow, and
Morgiana, with so much contrivance, that nobody in the city had the
least knowledge or suspicion of the cause of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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