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.
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