down. When the brigands came he did not count them as usual. After they had left the cave he took the basket and then went into the cave. When he entered the brigand ran and caught him. He said to him: ‘Do you come to steal our money?’ and he cut him into pieces. When the brigands were returned they said to him: ‘Have you caught the fellow who knows our place.’ He replied: ‘Here are the pieces in the basket!’ His brother in the evening went and asked after him at the house; they replied: ‘He is not come back!’ At supper-time he went to ask after him (again); they replied: ‘He is not come back!’ His brother then knew that the brigands had killed him. He rose in the morning early, and proceeded to walk to the desert. When he got as far as the tree he sat down. When he saw them from afar he climbed up the tree. When they had entered the cave he counted forty of them, when they came out he counted forty of them. When they had gone to a distance he came down from the tree and went to examine the cave. He entered inside it; he found his brother with the basket. He carried it away and closed the cave as before, and took his brother and proceeded to walk to the house. When he entered the house he said to his wife and the wife of his brother: ‘Let no one utter cries of grief.’ He went and got a clever barber, the shêkh of the barbers; he gave him ten mahbubs and told him to sew together each of the pieces of the body. When he had sewed it they rose in the morning and said: ‘This fellow is dead.’ After they had buried him he (the elder brother) sat in the shop and acted as merchant in the place of his brother, and married his brother’s wife and the two lived in the usual way with one another. Our story returns to the brigands.
“When they had come and entered the cave they found neither the basket nor the man; they said: ‘There must be people who are acquainted with our place; we must
