llness. 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