Urdu Poetry Forum

**ahsan akbar** · #1 12-30-2007, 04:17 PM

Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers[Thieves]

The Original Story as quoted in the Classic
"The Arabian Nights"

Episode IITHE MANNER OF CASSIM'S DEATH CONCEALED

When night came, and Cassim did not return, his wife became very uneasy.
She ran to Ali Baba for comfort, and he told her that Cassim would
certainly think it unwise to enter the town till night was well
advanced. By midnight Cassim's wife was still more alarmed, and wept
till morning, cursing her desire to pry into the affairs of her brother
and sister-in-law. In the early day she went again, in tears, to Ali
Baba.

He did not wait for her to ask him to go and see what had happened to
Cassim, but set out at once for the forest with his three asses. Finding
some blood at the door of the cave, he took it for an ill omen; but when
he had spoken the words, and the door had opened, he was struck with
horror at the dismal sight of his brother's body. He could not leave it
there, and hastened within to find something to wrap around it. Laying
the body on one of his asses, he covered it with wood. The other two
asses he loaded with bags of gold, covering them also with wood as
before. Then bidding the door shut, he came away, but stopped some time
at the edge of the forest, that he might not go into the town before
night. When he reached home he left the two asses, laden with gold, in
his little yard for his wife to unload, and led the other to his
sister-in-law's house.

Ali Baba knocked at the door, which was opened by Morgiana, a clever
slave, full of devices to conquer difficulties. When he came into the
court and unloaded the ass, he took Morgiana aside, and said to her:--

"You must observe a strict secrecy. Your master's body is contained in
these two panniers. We must bury him as if he had died a natural death.
Go now and tell your mistress. I leave the matter to your wit and
skillful devices."

They placed the body in Cassim's house, and, charging Morgiana to act
well her part, Ali Baba returned home with his ass.

Early the next morning, Morgiana went to a druggist, and asked for a
sort of lozenge used in the most dangerous illness. When he asked her
for whom she wanted it, she answered with a sigh: "My good master
Cassim. He can neither eat nor speak." In the evening she went to the
same druggist, and with tears in her eyes asked for an essence given to
sick persons for whose life there is little hope. "Alas!" said she, "I
am afraid even this will not save my good master."

All that day Ali Baba and his wife were seen going sadly between their
house and Cassim's, and in the evening nobody was surprised to hear the
shrieks and cries of Cassim's wife and Morgiana, who told everybody that
her master was dead.

The next morning at daybreak she went to an old cobbler, who was always
early at work, and, putting a piece of gold in his hand, said:--

"Baba Mustapha, you must bring your sewing-tackle and come with me; but
I must tell you, I shall blindfold you when we reach a certain place."

"Oh! oh!" replied he, "you would have me do something against my
conscience or my honor."

"God forbid!" said Morgiana, putting another piece of gold in his hand;
"only come along with me, and fear nothing."

Baba Mustapha went with Morgiana, and at a certain place she bound his
eyes with a handkerchief, which she never unloosed till they had entered
the room of her master's house, where she had put the corpse together.

"Baba Mustapha," said she, "you must make haste, and sew the parts of
this body together, and when you have done, I will give you another
piece of gold."

After Baba Mustapha had finished his task, she blindfolded him again,
gave him the third piece of gold she had promised, and, charging him
with secrecy, took him back to the place where she had first bound his
eyes. Taking off the bandage, she watched him till he was out of sight,
lest he should return and dog her; then she went home.

At Cassim's house she made all things ready for the funeral, which was
duly performed by the imaum[*] and other ministers of the mosque.
Morgiana, as a slave of the dead man, walked in the procession, weeping,
beating her breast, and tearing her hair. Cassim's wife stayed at home,
uttering doleful cries with the women of the neighborhood, who,
according to custom, came to mourn with her. The whole quarter was
filled with sounds of sorrow.

[* Imaum, a Mohammedan priest.]

Thus the manner of Cassim's death was hushed up, and, besides his widow,
Ali Baba, and Morgiana, the slave, nobody in the city suspected the
cause of it. Three or four days after the funeral, Ali Baba removed his
few goods openly to his sister-in-law's house, in which he was to live
in the future; but the money he had taken from the robbers was carried
thither by night. As for Cassim's warehouse, Ali Baba put it entirely
under the charge of his eldest son.

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