Ali_Baba_and_the_Forty_Thieves

Ali Baba and the 40 thieves.

In a town in Persia, there lived two brothers.

One named Qasim, the other Ali Baba.

Qasim was rich and lived in plenty,

but Ali Baba was poor and had to cut wood in the forest

and sell it in the town to buy bread for his wife and children.

One day, when Ali Baba was in the forest,

he saw a group of men on horseback,

coming towards him in a cloud of dust.

He was afraid they were robbers,

and he climbed into a tree for safety.

When they came up to him, he counted 40 of them.

They got off their horses and tied them to trees.

The finest man among them went a little way among some bushes

and said,

opened sesame.

So clearly that Ali Baba heard him.

A door opened in the rocks,

and the men went in.

They stayed some time inside.

Ali Baba preferred to sit silently in the tree.

At last, the door opened again,

and the 40 thieves came out.

As the captain went in,

last he came out first,

and made them all pass by him.

He then closed the door, saying,

shut sesame.

The captain put himself at their head,

and they returned as they came.

Then Ali Baba climbed down,

and went to the door hidden among the bushes,

and said,

opened sesame.

Ali Baba was greatly surprised to find a large and well -lided place.

He saw gold and silver in heaps,

and money in leather purses.

He went in,

and the door shut behind him.

He brought out as many bags of gold as he could carry.

He loaded them with the bags,

and hit it all with bundles of sticks.

When he said,

shut sesame.

The door closed, and he went home.

Then he drove into the yard,

shut the gates,

carried the money bags to his wife,

and emptied them out before her.

He told his wife to keep the secret,

and he would go and bury the gold.

Let me first measure it, said his wife.

So she ran to her sister,

the wife of Kasim,

and borrowed a measure.

Kasim's wife was very curious,

so she secretly put some sweat at the bottom of the measure.

Ali Baba's wife went home

and set the measure on the heap of gold,

and filled it and emptied it often,

to her great content.

She then carried it back to her sister.

She did not notice that a piece of gold was sticking to it,

and of course Kasim's wife saw it.

Kasim, your brother is richer than you.

He does not count his money,

he measures it.

She said to her husband,

showing him the pieces of gold.

Kasim could not sleep that night,

and went to his brother in the morning before sunrise.

Ali Baba, he said,

showing him the gold pieces.

You pretend to be poor,

and yet you measure gold.

By this, Ali Baba understood

that Kasim and his wife knew their secret.

He got afraid and told him of the cave,

and the secret words to use to open the door of the cave.

Kasim got up early next morning

and set out with ten mules loaded with great boxes and sacks.

He soon found the place and the door in the rock.

He said,

open sesame,

and the door opened and shut behind him.

He looked at the treasure all day,

and later he started to gather together

as much of it as possible.

But when he was ready to go,

he was so excited that he could not remember the secret words.

Instead of,

open sesame,

he said,

open barley,

and the door remained firmly shut.

He named several different sorts of grain,

but the door didn't open.

About noon,

the robbers returned to their cave

and saw Kasim's mules

wandering about with great boxes and sacks on their back.

They drew their swords

and went to the door.

The captain shouted,

open sesame.

Kasim tried to run away,

but the robbers caught him easily and killed him.

On entering the cave,

they saw all the bags laid ready

and could not imagine how anyone

had got in without knowing their secret words.

When Kasim's wife told Alibaba that her husband is missing,

Alibaba set out to the forest

in search of Kasim.

The first thing he saw on entering the cave

was his dead brother.

Full of horror,

he put the body on one of his asses

and bags of gold on the other two

and covered all with some sticks and bushes,

returned home.

He drove the two asses

laden with gold into his own yard

and led the other to Kasim's house.

The forty thieves on their return

to the cave were much surprised

to find Kasim's body and some

of their money bags have gone.

We are certainly discovered,

said the captain.

Two men must have known it.

We have killed one.

We must now find the other.

Now, one of you must go into the city

and discover whom we have killed.

One of the thieves offered to do this.

He went to the town

and a few hours later,

he learned about Kasim's strange death.

The robber marked the door of Kasim's house

with a piece of chalk.

Just after that,

Alibaba's wife went out

and saw the mark the robber had made

on the door.

She quickly guessed that something bad

was going on.

She got a piece of chalk

and marked most of the doors in the town.

The thief, meantime,

told his friends of his discovery.

The captain thanked him

and told him to show him the house

he had marked.

But when they came to it,

they saw that most of the houses

were chalked in the same manner.

The captain was angry.

He made a plan and decided

to go to the town alone.

He found the house,

but didn't mark it.

He looked at it so closely

that he could not fail to remember it.

He returned and ordered his men

to go into the neighboring villages

and buy 20 mules and 40 leather jars,

all empty except one,

which was full of oil.

The captain put one of his men

fully armed into each.

He rubbed the outside of the jars

with oil from the full vessel.

Then the 20 mules

were loaded with 39 robbers in jars

and the jar of oil

and reached the town by dusk.

The captain stopped his mules

in front of Alibaba's house

and said to Alibaba,

I have brought some oil from a distance

to sell it tomorrow's market.

But it's now so late that I don't know

where to pass the night.

Unless you will do me the favor

to take me in.

Alibaba didn't realize

the captain of the robbers.

He said welcome to him.

Opened his gates for the mules to enter

and went to his wife to tell her

to prepare a bed and supper

for his guest.

He brought the stranger

into his hall,

and he went again to speak

to his wife in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, the captain went into the yard

to tell his men what to do.

Beginning at the first jar

and ending at the last,

he said to each man,

as soon as I throw some stones

from the window of the room

where I lie,

cut the jars open with your knives

and come out,

and I will be with you in a moment.

He returned to the house,

and Alibaba's wife led him

into his room.

A few hours later,

the lamp in the house went out,

and they had no more oil in the house.

Do not be uneasy,

said Alibaba.

Go into the yard

and take some out

of one of those jars.

Alibaba's wife took the oil pot

and went into the yard.

When she came to the first jar,

the robber inside said softly.

Is it time?

She immediately knew that they were in danger

when she found a man in the jar

instead of the oil she wanted.

She did not scream or make any noise.

She thought of a plan

and answered quietly,

not yet but presently.

She went to all the jars,

giving the same answer,

till she came to the jar of oil.

She filled her pot,

went back to the kitchen,

lit her lamp,

went again to the oil jar,

and filled a large kettle full of oil.

When it boiled,

she went and poured enough oil

into every jar to kill the robber inside.

In an hour,

the captain of the robbers awoke,

got up and opened the window.

He threw down some little pebbles

which hit the jars.

He listened,

but none of his men seemed to move.

So he went down into the yard.

Then he went to the first jar and said,

are you asleep?

There was no answer.

He checked all the jars,

and he found all the gang was dead.

When he saw that there was little oil left

in the last jar,

he understood how his men were killed.

He then forced the lock of a door,

leading into a garden,

and climbing over several walls

made his escape.

At daybreak,

Alibaba woke up

and, seeing the oil jars still there,

asked why the merchant had not gone

with his mules.

His wife told him the whole story,

and they then buried the bodies

in Alibaba's garden.

Years passed,

and Alibaba heard nothing of the captain.

Judging he was dead,

he set out to the cave.

The door opened on his saying,

open sesame.

He went in,

and saw that nobody had been there

since the captain left it.

He brought away as much gold

as he could carry,

and returned to town.

He told his son the secret of the cave,

which his son handed down

in turn.

So the children and grandchildren

of Alibaba were rich

to the end of their lives.