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When he returned from the baths, the sun was risen; he was very much surprised to see the oil-jars, and that the merchant was not gone with the mules. He asked Morgiana, who opened the door, and had let all things stand as they were, that he might see them, the reason of it?
"I will go see." And he flitted off through the smoke. Smuggled among the oil-jars, Rudolph lay panting. Shapes of men ran past, another empty jar rolled down beside him, and a stray bullet sang overhead like a vibrating wire. Soon afterward, Wutzler came crawling through the huddled pottery. "Lie still," he whispered. "Your friends are hemmed in. You cannot get through."
Ali Baba rose before day, and, followed by his slave, went to the baths, entirely ignorant of the important event which had happened at home. When he returned from the baths, he was very much surprised to see the oil-jars, and that the merchant was not gone with the mules. He asked Morgiana, who opened the door, the reason of it.
Fanatics in sheepskins glowering from the guarded thresholds of the mosques, fierce tribesmen with inlaid arms in their belts and the fighters' tufts of wiry hair escaping from camel's-hair turbans, mad negroes standing stark naked in niches of the walls and pouring down Soudanese incantations upon the fascinated crowd, consumptive Jews with pathos and cunning in their large eyes and smiling lips, lusty slave-girls with earthen oil-jars resting against swaying hips, almond-eyed boys leading fat merchants by the hand, and bare-legged Berber women, tattooed and insolently gay, trading their striped blankets, or bags of dried roses and irises, for sugar, tea or Manchester cottons from all these hundreds of unknown and unknowable people, bound together by secret affinities, or intriguing against each other with secret hate, there emanates an atmosphere of mystery and menace more stifling than the smell of camels and spices and black bodies and smoking fry which hangs like a fog under the close roofing of the souks.
The sides of the L'Orient had been recently painted, and the paint-buckets and oil-jars which stood on the poop soon caught, and added brilliancy to the great conflagration which speedily followed the first outbreak of fire. It was about nine o'clock when the fire was first observed. Before this the gallant French Admiral had perished. Although three times wounded, Brueys refused to quit his post.
When he returned from the baths, the sun was risen; he was very much surprised to see the oil-jars, and that the merchant was not gone with the mules. He asked Morgiana, who opened the door, and had let all things stand as they were, that he might see them, the reason of it?
About four P.M. the Q.M.G. came in triumphantly with about sixteen tall baskets covered with leather, which he called "khiltas;" and having ranged them about the room like the oil-jars of "Ali Baba," he proceeded to cram them with potatoes, tea, clothes, brandy, and the whole stock of our earthly goods, in a marvellous and miscellaneous manner, very trying to contemplate, and suggestive of their entire separation from us and our heirs for ever.
To carry out Ali Baba's orders, Morgiana got his bathing linen ready, and bade Abdalla to set on the pot for the broth; but soon the lamp went out, and there was no more oil in the house, nor any candles. She knew not what to do, till the slave reminded her of the oil-jars in the yard. She thanked him for the thought, took the oil-pot, and went out.
A wooden counter supported by the wall of the house-which was used by customers to lay their money on and which generally held a few oil-jars- projected a little way into the street like a window-board, and on this singular couch sat a distinguished looking youth in a light blue, sleeveless chiton, turning his back on the stall itself, which was not much bigger than a good sized travelling-chariot.
In silhouette, a man's head, his hand grasping a staff or the muzzle of a gun, remained there as still as though, crawling to the verge, he lay petrified in the act of spying. The white men peered from among the oil-jars, like two of the Forty Thieves. They could detect no movement, friendly or hostile: the black head lodged there without stirring.
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