Chapter 4 4

When Malkina went out, she noticed another red mark on the doorpost, and she drew the same mark on the doorposts of the neighboring houses. The second gangster sent by the bandit leader quickly completed the task, but the situation was the same as the first one.When the gangsters went into the city to take revenge, they found that there were red marks on the doorposts of every nearby house. They felt that they had been tricked again, and they had to return to the cave one by one dejected.The bandit leader was so furious that he tied up the second bandit again and sighed: "My subordinates are full of wine and food. It seems that I have to deal with this matter myself to solve the problem."

The bandit leader made up his mind, came to the city alone, and found the tailor Babamusta as usual.With his help, he came to Alibaba's house smoothly.He learned the lesson of the first two robbers, and no longer made any marks, but only remembered the location of the house and the surrounding scenery in his heart. Then he hurried back to the cave and said to the robbers: "I have engraved that location in my heart, and it will be easy to find it next time. Now you immediately buy me nineteen mules, a large leather bag of vegetables, and thirty-eight earthen jars of the same shape and size. These urns were tied to pack packs and carried by nineteen mules and horses, two urns per mule. I disguised myself as an oil seller, and went to the door of the wretch's house in the dark, and begged him to let me stay at his house for a while. Stay overnight. Then, at night, we will fight together to end his life and recover the stolen property."

The plan he put forward won the support of the gangsters, and each of them went separately to buy mules, leather bags, earthen jars and other things with joy.After three days of running around, all the necessary things were prepared, and some oil was applied on the surface of the urn.Under the command of the bandit leader, they filled a large urn with vegetable oil, and the armed bandits lurk in 37 urns respectively, which were carried by 19 mules.The bandit leader disguised himself as a businessman, drove his mules, and transported oil into the city in a big way, and rushed to Ali Baba's house in the dark.

Ali Baba had just had dinner and was still taking a walk in front of the house.The bandit leader took the opportunity to approach him, greeted him, and said: "I came to the city from other places to sell oil, and I often come here to do business. It's too late today, and I can't find a suitable place to live. I beg you to show mercy." , let me stay overnight in your yard temporarily, so as to reduce the burden on the animals, and of course I will trouble you to add some feed for them to satisfy their hunger." Although Ali Baba had seen the face of the bandit leader, but because of his clever disguise and it was dark, he couldn't tell him apart for a while, so he agreed to the bandit leader's request and arranged for him an empty woodshed for storing goods and For the use of livestock, and told the maid Markina:

"There is a guest at home, please prepare some feed and water for him, and make some dinner for the guest, and make a bed for him to stay overnight." The bandit leader unloaded his burden and moved to the woodshed to carry water and feed for the animals. He himself was warmly received by his master.Ali Baba called Markina and told him: "You must treat guests well, don't be careless, and meet their needs. I will take a bath in the bathhouse tomorrow morning, and you prepare a set of clean white clothes for wearing after bathing. In addition, Prepare a pot of broth for me before I return."

"Understood, I must do as the master said." After Alibaba said that, he went to the dormitory to rest. After dinner, the bandit leader went to the woodshed to take care of the animals.Taking advantage of the dead of night and when Ali Baba's family was resting, he lowered his voice and told the gangsters hiding in the urn: "At midnight tonight, when you hear my signal, come out quickly." Led by Markina, he came to the dormitory prepared for him. Malkina put down the oil lamp in her hand and said, "If you need anything else, please tell me." "Thank you, I don't need anything." The bandit leader replied that he turned off the lights and went to bed after Malkina left.

According to her master's instructions, Malkina took out a set of clean clothes and handed them to Abdullah, another servant, so that the master could wear them after bathing.Then she cooked broth for the master.After a while, she wanted to take a look at the broth in the pot, but the oil lamp was out, and there was no more oil to fill. Seeing Malkina's perplexed look, Abdullah came to rescue her and reminded: "Don't be embarrassed, there is vegetable oil in the firewood room! Why don't you take some and use it?" Margina took the oil can to the firewood shed, and saw rows of oil urns.She came to the first urn, when the bandit hiding in the urn heard footsteps, thought it was the bandit leader calling them, and asked softly, "Is it time to act?"

Malkina suddenly heard the voice in the urn, and took a step back in fright, but she was a resourceful and brave person, and immediately responded: "It's not yet time." She thought to herself: "So these urns contain It is not vegetable oil, but human beings. It seems that this oil dealer has evil intentions, and maybe he has some bad ideas and tricks. O merciful Allah! Please protect us, don’t let us fall into his trap." She suffered Before the second urn, still lowering his voice, he repeated the sentence "It's not the time yet". She spoke one by one from the beginning to the end.She said to herself: "Praise be to Allah! My master is still in the dark, not knowing that danger may come at any time. This guy who claims to be an oil seller must be the leader of this gang, and the gangsters are waiting for him to give a signal at this time." At this time, she had come to the last urn, and found that it contained vegetable oil, so she filled a pot, took it to the kitchen, added oil to the lamp, and then went back to the woodshed to scoop out the oil from the urn. He bought a large pot of oil, set up firewood, boiled the oil, and then took it to the firewood room, and poured a ladle of boiling oil into each urn one by one.The gangsters lurking in the urn were scalded to death one by one before they knew what was going on.

Malkina did all this quietly with extraordinary wisdom, and everyone in the room was still sleeping soundly, and no one knew it.She happily went back to the kitchen herself, closed the door, and warmed Ali Baba's soup. About an hour later, the bandit leader woke up suddenly from his dream. He opened the window and saw that the outside was dark and silent, so he clapped his hands and gave a signal, telling the bandits to act immediately.But there was no movement around.After a while, he clapped his hands again and called out, but there was still no response.After clapping and calling for the third time, but still got no answer, he panicked, hurried out of the bedroom, ran to the firewood room, thinking: "Probably they are all asleep, I must wake them up immediately, Act now, before it's too late."

When he walked to the first oil urn, he immediately smelled a smoky oily smell. He was very surprised and felt hot when he touched it.He touched them one by one and found that all the oil urns were in the same condition.At this moment, he knew that death had fallen on the group of them, and at the same time he was worried about his own safety.He didn't dare to go back to the bedroom, so he had to jump over the wall to the back garden, and escaped with terror and despair. Markina stayed in the kitchen, spying on the bandit leader, but she didn't see him come out of the woodshed, presumably he escaped over the wall, because the door was locked with double locks.But thinking of the rest of the gangsters lying quietly in the urn one by one, Malkina went to sleep peacefully.

Two hours before dawn, Ali Baba got up and went to the bathhouse to take a bath.He knew nothing about the dangerous things that happened at home that night, and the witty Malkina didn't alarm him, nor did he expect things to be so easy to deal with.It turned out that she thought that if she reported her plan to the master first, and then took action, she might lose the opportunity to act first and suffer from the robbers. It was already high in the sun when Ali Baba came back from the bathhouse. He was surprised to see the oil urn still intact in the woodshed, and muttered, "What's wrong with this oil seller! He hasn't brought the oil here at this time." Sell ​​it in the market." Malkina said: "My lord, Allah, the Almighty God, blessed you and saved you from harm last night. The businessman tried to commit a crime and fled after being found. I will tell you slowly." She led Ali Baba into the firewood room, closed the door, and pointed to an oil urn and said, "Please look at it, sir. Is it oil? Or something else?" ?” Ali Baba opened the lid of the urn and saw a man lying inside. He was so frightened that he turned around and ran away.Malkina immediately comforted him: "Don't be afraid! This man can no longer harm you, he is dead." Ali Baba calmed down after hearing this, and said, "Markina, we have just settled down in a catastrophe, so why is this despicable fellow coming to trouble us?" "Thanks to the great Allah! I will report the matter to the master in detail. But speak in a low voice, so as not to be known by the neighbors and cause us trouble. Now ask the master to check the contents of these urns, from beginning to end, every Let's take a look." Sure enough, Ali Baba looked through them one by one, and found that in each urn there was a man in full armor. Fortunately, they were all scalded to death by boiling oil.The shock made him speechless.After a while, he gradually returned to normal before asking: "Where's the oil dealer?" "Master, you don't know yet, that guy is not a businessman, but a bandit leader who commits crimes. He is full of sweet words, but in his bones he wants your life. I will report in detail what he did, but the master Come back from the bathhouse, let’s drink some broth first.” She waited on Ali Baba and returned to the house, and immediately brought food and drink. Ali Baba began to eat and drink, and said to Malkina: "I'm eager to know the whole story of this strange case, please tell me, don't keep me in the dark, so that I can calm down." Markina recounted everything that happened last night in detail, from boiling broth, lighting a lamp to find oil, finding the bandit, scalding the bandit to death with oil, and the escape of the bandit leader, etc., in detail.Finally she said: "That's the whole story of what happened last night. Besides, I had a feeling about it a few days ago. I refrained from reporting it to my lord, lest it should be known to the neighbors." , Now I have to let the master know. The situation is like this: One day when I came home, I saw a mark drawn with white chalk on the gate of our house. It may be done by the enemy, intending to harm the master, so I drew the exact same mark on the gates of every house around, so that the bad guys would not be easy to distinguish. Now it seems that the marks painted and what happened last night must be related. This group must have used this as a sign of revenge to avoid going the wrong way. According to the number of forty robbers, two of them are missing. I don't know the actual situation, so I have to be wary of them. As for the rest of the gangsters, their leader has escaped and they are still alive. The master must pay special attention and be extra vigilant, otherwise he will be murdered by them. He will definitely not let you go easily. For this reason, I will do my best to protect the life of the master The property is not damaged, which is also the duty of our slaves." Alibaba was very pleased when he heard this, and said: "I am very satisfied with your suggestion. I will never forget your bravery and determination in my life. Tell me: how should I reward you?" "This is my duty. I think the most urgent thing at present is to bury those dead people as soon as possible, and don't let the secret out." Following Malkina's instructions, Ali Baba personally took his servant Abdullah to the back garden, dug a big hole by the side of a tree, unloaded the weapons from the corpses, and buried thirty-seven corpses. The floor was made exactly as it had been before, and all the oil jars and other things were put away.Then Ali Baba sent Abdullah to take two mules each time to the market to sell.This major event was settled, but Ali Baba didn't feel at ease because he knew that the bandit leader and the two bandits were still alive and would definitely come back for revenge, so he was extra cautious. He was tight-lipped about his belongings and never revealed them. But he said that the bandit leader quietly returned to the cave after fleeing from Ali Baba's house, thinking about the lost property and troops, as well as the treasure that would eventually be stolen from the cave, he was filled with anger and extremely distressed.He believed that only by killing Ali Baba could he get rid of the hatred in his heart. He decided to go to the city alone and live in the city under the guise of business, in order to find opportunities to clean up Ali Baba, and then start a new stove, recruit soldiers, and continue. Live a life of plundering, and only in this way can the business of killing and stealing money passed down from one's ancestors be passed down from generation to generation.