me the wife
with the brown hair, and all shall be well. By Allah! I am a man that
hears reason, and does not exact more than Fate will allow! A man can
give only what he has. I shall be well pleased with her of the brown
hair, Ashimullah."

Then Ashimullah crawled to the feet of the Sultan, and said:

"Ruler of the World, great is the honor that you purpose for the
meanest of your servants. Yet behold, if I send my wife with the brown
hair, I shall have no wife at all; for the others are gone, and my
house will be altogether desolate."

The Sultan smiled down at Ashimullah. Then he bent and took him by the
hands and raised him up. And he spoke to him in a tone of most tender
and friendly reproach:

"Indeed, Ashimullah," said he, "you wrong me in your thoughts,
supposing that I would leave your house desolate, or that I would
receive without bestowing. Such is not the custom of great princes,
nor is it my custom. But where we take we give fourfold of what is
given to us. Be of good cheer, and grieve no more either for the wives
who are dead or for the brown-haired wife whom it is my gracious
pleasure to accept from you. For I will send you four wives; and thus
you shall be as you were before your misfortunes, and before you gave
me your brown-haired wife. And if the color of their hair does not
please you (for it seems that you are curious in these matters, O
Ashimullah), I think that you have means to set right what is wrong,
and to array the head of each in the color that you love best." And,
as he said this, the Sultan looked very full and significantly in the
face of Ashimullah.

But Ashimullah turned and went out, full of fear; for he perceived that
the Sultan had discovered his secret and that he had been betrayed by
Hassan his servant, and he feared for his life, because of the trick
that he had played upon the Sultan, besides being greatly afflicted to
think that now indeed there was no escape, but he must have four wives.
Moreover, although this could not stand beside the question of his
salvation, he regretted greatly the losing of Lallakalla, whom the
Sultan took from him. And as he told Lallakalla all that had passed,
he wept; but she bade him be of good cheer, and, having comforted him,
withdrew to her apartments, and was very busy there all the afternoon.

In the evening came a litter from the palace, and with it a letter from
the Sultan, commanding that Lallakalla should come, and bidd