Thus was he known throughout the city as a
substantial man. But the woman whom Ali Baba had married was poor
and needy. They lived, therefore, in a mean hovel, and Ali Baba eked
out a scanty livelihood by the sale of fuel which he daily collected
in the jungle and carried about the town to the bazaar upon his
three asses.
Now it chanced one day that Ali Baba had cut dead branches and dry
fuel sufficient for his need, and had placed the load upon his beasts,
when suddenly he espied a dust cloud spiring high in air to his
right and moving rapidly toward him, and when he closely considered
it, he descried a troop of horsemen riding on amain and about to reach
him. At this sight he was sore alarmed, and fearing lest perchance
they were a band of bandits who would slay him and drive off his
donkeys, in his affright he began to run. But forasmuch as they were
near-hand and he could not escape from out the forest, he drove his
animals laden with the fuel into a byway of the bushes and swarmed
up a thick trunk of a huge tree to hide himself therein. And he sat
upon a branch whence he could descry everything beneath him whilst
none below could catch a glimpse of him above, and that tree grew
close beside a rock which towered high abovehead.
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