Ali Baba’s garden was very long, and shaded at the farther end by a great number of large trees.  Under these he and the slave dug a trench, long and wide enough to hold all the robbers, and as the earth was light, they were not long in doing it.  Afterwards they lifted the bodies out of the jars, took away their weapons, carried them to the end of the garden, laid them in the trench, and levelled the ground again.  When this was done, Ali Baba hid the jars and weapons; and as he had no occasion for the mules, he sent them at different times to be sold in the market by his slave.

While Ali Baba took these measures to prevent the public from knowing how he came by his riches in so short a time, the captain of the forty robbers returned to the forest with inconceivable mortification; and in his agitation, or rather confusion, at his ill success, so contrary to what he had promised himself, entered the cave, not being able, all the way from the town, to come to any resolution how to revenge himself of Ali Baba.

The loneliness of the gloomy cavern became frightful to him.  “Where are you, my brave lads,” cried he, “old companions of my watchings, inroads, and labour?  What can I do without you?  Did I collect you only to lose you by so base a fate, and so unworthy of your courage!  Had you died with your sabres in your hands, like brave men, my regret had been less!  When shall I enlist so gallant a troop again?  And if I could, can I undertake it without exposing so much gold and treasure to him who hath already enriched himself out of it?  I cannot, I ought not to think of it, before I have taken away his life.  I will undertake that alone which I could not accomplish with your powerful assistance; and when I have taken measures to secure this treasure from being pillaged, I will provide for it new masters and successors after me, who shall preserve and augment it to all posterity.”  This resolution being taken, he was not at a loss how to execute his purpose; but easy in his mind, and full of hopes, slept all that night very quietly.

When he awoke early next morning, he dressed himself, agreeably to the project he had formed, went to the town, and took a lodging in a khan.  As he expected what had happened at Ali Baba’s might make a great noise, he asked his host what news there was in the city?  Upon which the inn-keeper told him a great many circumstances, which did not concern him in the least.  He judged by this, that the reason why Ali Baba kept his affairs so secret, was for fear people should know where the treasure lay; and because he knew his life would be sought on account of it.  This urged him the more to neglect nothing to rid himself of so cautious an enemy.

The captain now assumed the character of a merchant, and conveyed gradually a great many sorts of rich stuffs and fine linen to his lodging from the cavern, but with all the necessary precautions imaginable to conceal the place whence he brought them.  In order to dispose of the merchandizes, when he had amassed them together, he took a warehouse, which happened to be opposite to Cassim’s, which Ali Baba’s son had occupied since the death of his uncle.