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If this proposal is agreeable to you, we mast think of acting so as that my brother should appear to have died a natural death. I think you may leave the management of the business to Morgiana, and I will contribute all that lies in my power to your consolation." What could Cassim's widow do better than accept of this proposal?
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.
As soon as Ali Baba's wife was gone, Cassim's looked at the bottom of the measure, and was in inexpressible surprise to find a piece of gold sticking to it. Envy immediately possessed her breast. "What!" said she, "has Ali Baba gold so plentiful as to measure it? Whence has he all this wealth?" Cassim, her husband, was at his counting house.
He resolved at the same time to avenge the fate of his comrades and to bring about the death of Ali Baba. For this purpose he returned to the town, disguised as a merchant of silks. By degrees he brought from his cavern many sorts of fine stuffs, and to dispose of these he took a warehouse that happened to be opposite Cassim's, which Ali Baba's son had occupied since the death of his uncle.
He threw down the bags he had loaded himself with, and walked distractedly up and down the cave, without having the least regard to the riches that were around him. About noon the robbers visited their cave. At some distance they saw Cassim's mules straggling about the rock, with great chests on their backs. Alarmed at this, they galloped full speed to the cave.
In this manner Cassim's melancholy death was concealed and hushed up between Ali Baba, his widow, and Morgiana his slave, with so much contrivance that nobody in the city had the least knowledge or suspicion of the cause of it.
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 we have, with so much pains and danger, been so many years amassing together.
"Alas!" said she, "this preamble lets me know that my husband is not to be found; but at the same time I know the necessity of the secrecy you require, and I must constrain myself: say on, I will hear you." Ali Baba then detailed the incidents of his journey, till he came to the finding of Cassim's body.
While these things were being done, the forty robbers again visited their retreat in the forest. Great, then, was their surprise to find Cassim's body taken away, with some of their bags of gold. "We are certainly discovered," said the captain.
Besides, I'd often told him I wanted to die, so that was an incentive to keep me alive. I didn't go to Mecca. I left the farm-house with Cassim, and he took me to South Oran, where he is now. I had to stay in the care of a marabouta, a terrible old woman, a bigot and a tyrant, a cousin of Cassim's, on his mother's side, and a sister of the man who invented the whole plot.
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