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 towards his stall, till he was quite out of sight, for fear he should have the curiosity to return and dodge her; she then went home.

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.

Three or four days after the funeral, Ali Baba removed his few goods openly to the widow’s house; but the money he had taken from the robbers he conveyed thither by night; soon after the marriage with his sister-in-law was published, and as these marriages are common, nobody was surprised.

As for Cassim’s warehouse, Ali Baba gave it to his own eldest son, promising that if he managed it well, he would soon give him a fortune to marry very advantageously according to his situation.

Let us now leave Ali Baba to enjoy the beginning of his good fortune, and return to the forty robbers.

They came again at the appointed time to visit their retreat in the forest; but great was their surprise to find Cassim’s body taken away, with some of their bags of gold.  “We are certainly discovered,” said the captain, “and if we do not speedily apply some remedy, shall gradually lose all the riches which our ancestors and ourselves have, with so much pains and danger, been so many years amassing together.  All that we can think of the loss which we have sustained is, that the thief whom we surprised had the secret of opening the door, and we came luckily as he was coming out:  but his body being removed, and with it some of our money, plainly shews that he had an accomplice; and as it is likely that there were but two who had discovered our secret, and one has been caught, we must look narrowly after the other.  What say you, my lads?”