manner; you see, therefore, the impossibility of my doing what you desire.”
“Well,” replied the robber, “you may remember a little of the way that you were led blindfolded. Come, let me bind your eyes at the same place. We will walk together; and as everybody ought to be paid for their trouble, there is another piece of gold for you; gratify me in what I ask you.” So saying, he put another piece of gold into the old man’s hand.
The two pieces of gold were a great temptation to Baba Mustapha. He looked at them a long time without saying a word, but at last he pulled out his purse and put them in. “I cannot promise,” said he to the robber, “that I can remember the way; but since you desire, I will try what I can do.” At these words Baba Mustapha rose up, to the great joy of the robber, and led him to the place where Morgiana had bound his eyes. “It was here,” said Baba Mustapha, “I was blindfolded; and I turned this way.” The robber tied his handkerchief over his eyes, and walked by him till he stopped directly at Cassim’s house, where Ali Baba then lived. The thief before he pulled off the band, marked the door with a piece of chalk, which he had ready in his hand, and then asked him if he knew whose house that was; to which Baba Mustapha replied, that as he did not live in that neighborhood, he could not tell.
The robber, finding he could discover no more from Baba Mustapha, thanked him for the trouble he had taken, and
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