Once there was a man named Ali Baba who was very poor and made a living by collecting firewood.
One day, while chopping wood in the mountains, he encountered a band of thieves and quickly hid.
He saw forty thieves arrive in front of a large rock and heard them say, “Open Sesame,” at which point a door in the rock miraculously opened.
After the thieves left, Ali Baba imitated them and said, “Open Sesame.”
The door opened, and Alibaba walked into the cave, astonished to discover that it was actually a treasure trove, piled high with all kinds of gold, silver, and jewels.
Ali Baba filled a sack with gold coins and took it home.
However, his brother found out. Despite being wealthy, having married a rich widow, his brother was greedy and threatened Ali Baba to reveal the location of the treasure and the magic words to open the door.
The brother went to the treasure, his eyes gleaming with greed. “Ali Baba is a fool,” he thought. “With so much treasure, he only took one sack of gold coins.”
He began filling chest after chest, unable to stop. Just then, the thieves returned and found someone trying to steal their treasure. Enraged, they killed him.
When Ali Baba saw that his brother had not returned, he grew worried and went to look for him, only to find him dead. Ali Baba had to carry his brother’s body home.
The thieves discovered that the person they had killed was missing, and concluded that someone else knew the location of the treasure and the magic words to open the door. To ensure their safety, they decided that this person must be killed, and so they sent out one of the thieves to find out where this person was.
The first thief who was sent out did some investigation and found the place where Alibaba lived. He marked a sign at the door.
The clever maid Morgiana noticed the mark and thought: This mark might be accidental, but it could also be intentional. To be safe, she wiped it off.
A second thief came and marked the door again, but Morgiana grew even more suspicious and marked the same sign on the doors of every house on the street.
Unable to identify the house, the thief leader decided to handle it himself. Instead of making a mark, he memorized the features of the house and its surroundings.
Then he disguised himself as an oil merchant and brought 39 barrels of oil to request lodging.
Ali Baba welcomed him warmly.
Morgiana, however, discovered that the barrels did not contain oil but hid 39 thieves.
She lit a special smoke that rendered the thieves unconscious.
She then alerted Ali Baba, who informed the authorities, and they captured the forty thieves.
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