The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old FavoritesTappan, Eva March
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The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites
Tappan, Eva March
Children's stories; Literature -- Adaptations
After Baba Mustapha had finished his task, she blindfolded him again,
gave him the third piece of gold she had promised, and, charging him
with secrecy, took him back to the place where she had first bound his
eyes. Taking off the bandage, she watched him till he was out of
sight, lest he should return and dog her; then she went home.
At Cassim's house she made all things ready for the funeral, which was
duly performed by the imaun and other ministers of the mosque.
Morgiana, as a slave of the dead man, walked in the procession,
weeping, beating her breast, and tearing her hair. Cassim's wife
stayed at home, uttering doleful cries with the women of the
neighborhood, who, according to custom, came to mourn with her. The
whole quarter was filled with sounds of sorrow.
Thus the manner of Cassim's death was hushed up, and, besides his
widow, Ali Baba, and Morgiana, the slave, nobody in the city suspected
the cause of it. Three or four days after the funeral, Ali Baba
removed his few goods openly to his sister-in-law's house, in which he
was to live in the future; but the money he had taken from the robbers
was carried thither by night. As for Cassim's warehouse, Ali Baba put
it entirely under the charge of his eldest son.
III
While all this was going on, the forty robbers again visited their
cave in the forest. Great was their surprise to find Cassim's body
taken away, with some of their bags of gold.
"We are certainly found out," said the captain; "the body and the
money have been taken by some one else who knows our secret. For our
own lives' sake, we must try and find him. What say you, my lads?"
The robbers all agreed that this must be done.
"Well," said the captain, "one of you, the boldest and most skillful,
must go to the town, disguised as a stranger, and try if he can hear
any talk of the man we killed, and find out where he lived. This
matter is so important that the man who undertakes it and fails should
suffer death. What say you?"
One of the robbers, without waiting to know what the rest might think,
started up, and said, "I submit to this condition, and think it an
honor to expose my life to serve the troop."
This won great praise from the robber's comrades, and he disguised
himself at once so that nobody could take him for what he was. Just at
daybreak he entered the town, and walked up and down till he came by
chance to Baba Mustapha's stall, which was always open before any of
the shops.
The old cobbler was just going to work when the robber bade him
good-morrow, and said,--
"Honest man, you begin to work very early; how can one of your age see
so well? Even if it were lighter, I question whether you could see to
stitch."
"You do not know me," replied Baba Mustapha; "for old as I am I have
excellent eyes. You will not doubt me when I tell you that I sewed the
body of a dead man together in a place where I had not so much light
as I have now."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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