, pulling his beard
fretfully. "I will consider your several descriptions, and send for
you again in a few days, Ashimullah."

So Ashimullah went home and told Lallakalla all that had passed between
the Sultan and himself, and how the Sultan proposed to take one of his
wives, but could not make up his mind which lady he should prefer.

"But, alas! it is all one to me, whichever he chooses," cried
Ashimullah, in despair.

"It is all one to me also," cried Lallakalla. "But, be sure, dear
Ashimullah, that the Sultan has some purpose in this delay. Let us wait
and see what he does. It may be that we need not yet despair."

But Ashimullah would not be comforted, and cried out that he had done
better never to forswear his religion, but to have died at once, as a
holy martyr.

"It is too late to think of that," said Lallakalla.

Now, had not the Sultan been most lamentably bewildered and most
amazingly dazzled by the conflicting charms of the wives of Ashimullah,
beyond doubt he would not have entertained nor carried out a project so
impious and irreligious as that which his curiosity and passion now led
him into. But being unable to eat or drink or rest until he was at
ease on the matter, he determined, all piety and law and decorum to the
contrary notwithstanding, to look upon the faces of Ashimullah's wives
with his own eyes, and determine for himself to whom the crown of
beauty belonged, and whether the brown or the black, or the golden or
the ruddy, might most properly and truthfully lay claim to it. But
this resolution he ventured to communicate to nobody, save to the
faithful and dutiful wife whom he had sent before to visit the house of
Ashimullah. She, amazed, tried earnestly to dissuade him, but seeing
he was not to be turned, at last agreed to second his designs, and
enable him to fulfill his purpose. "Though I fear no good will come of
it," she sighed.

"I wonder which is in truth the fairest!" murmured the Sultan. And he
sent word to Ashimullah that the Sultana would visit his wives on the
evening of that day.

"All will be ready for her," said Lallakalla, when she received the
message from her husband.

But in the afternoon the Sultan sent men into the bazaar, and these men
caught Hassan, Ashimullah's servant, as he came to make his daily
purchases, and carried him to the Sultan, with whom he was closeted for
hard on an hour. When he came out Hassan returned home, shaking his
head sorrowfully,