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Therefore he sent for Ashimullah, and spoke to him with unbounded graciousness.

“Ashimullah, my faithful servant,” said he, “I am mindful to confer upon you a great and signal favor; desiring to recognize not only your services to my throne, but also and more especially your ready and willing obedience in the matter of your wives. Therefore I have decided to exalt you and your household in the eyes of all the Faithful, and of the whole world, by taking from your house a wife for myself.”

When Ashimullah heard this he went very pale, although, in truth, what the Sultan proposed to do was always held the highest of honors.

“And since so good and loyal a servant,” pursued the Sultan, “would desire to offer to his Sovereign nothing but the best of all that he has, tell me, O Ashimullah, which of your wives is fairest, that I may take her and exalt her as I have proposed.”

Ashimullah was now in great agitation, and he stammered in his confusion:

“My wives are indeed fair; but, O Most Potent and Fearful Majesty, they have, one and all, most diabolical tempers.”

“Surely by now I have learned how to deal with the tempers of women,” said the Sultan, raising his brows. “Come, Ashimullah; tell me which is fairest.”

Then Ashimullah, being at his wits’ end, and catching at any straw in order to secure a little delay, declared that it was utterly impossible to say that any one of his wives was fairer than any other, for they were all perfectly beautiful.

“But describe them to me, one by one,” commanded the Sultan.

So Ashimullah described his wives one by one to the Sultan, using most exalted eloquence, and employing every simile, metaphor, image, figure, and trope that language contains, in the vain attempt to express adequately the surpassing beauty of those ladies; yet he was most careful to set no one above any other and to distribute the said similes, metaphors, images, figures, and tropes, with absolute impartiality and equality among them.

“By Allah, it is difficult!” said the Sultan, 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.