Baba Mustapha seemed to hesitate a little at these words.  “Oh! oh!” replied he, “you would have me do something against my conscience, or against my honour?” “God forbid,” said Morgiana, putting another piece of gold into his hand, “that I should ask anything that is contrary to your honour! only come along with me and fear nothing.”

Baba Mustapha went with Morgiana, who, after she had bound his eyes with a handkerchief at the place she had mentioned, conveyed him to her deceased master’s house, and never unloosed his eyes till he had entered the room 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 as she had promised, and recommending secrecy to him carried him back to the place where she first bound his eyes, pulled off the bandage, and let him go home, but watched him that he returned toward his stall, till he was quite out of sight, for fear he should have the curiosity to return and dodge her; she then went home.  Morgiana, on her return, warmed some water to wash the body, and at the same time Ali Baba perfumed it with incense, and wrapped it in the burying clothes with the accustomed ceremonies.  Not long after the proper officer brought the bier, and when the attendants of the mosque, whose business it was to wash the dead, offered to perform their duty, she told them that it was done already.  Shortly after this the imaun and the other ministers of the mosque arrived.  Four neighbours carried the corpse to the burying-ground, following the imaun, who recited some prayers.  Ali Baba came after with some neighbours, who often relieved the others in carrying the bier to the burying-ground.  Morgiana, a slave to the deceased, followed in the procession, weeping, beating her breast, and tearing her hair.  Cassim’s wife stayed at home mourning, uttering lamentable cries with the women of the neighbourhood, who came, according to custom, during the funeral, and joining their lamentations with hers filled the quarter far and near with sounds of sorrow.

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.  Three or four days after the funeral, Ali Baba removed his few goods openly to his sister-in-law’s house, in which it was agreed that he should in future live; but the money he had taken from the robbers he conveyed thither by night.  As for Cassim’s warehouse, he entrusted it entirely to the management of his eldest son.

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.  “The removal of the body, and the loss of some of our money, plainly shows that the man whom we killed had an accomplice:  and for our own lives’ sake we must try and find him.  What say you, my lads?”