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About two hours before sunset the beautiful Babe-bi-bobu, “the cream-tart of delight,” more splendidly dressed than before, again entered the hall of audience, and found to her surprise, that there remained out of the many thousands of young rayahs, not fifty who could pretend to the honour of her hand and throne.  Among them, no longer dressed as a musician, but robed in the costume of his high caste, stood the conscious and proud Acota, and, although his jewels might not have vied with those worn by others who stood by him, yet the brightness of his eyes more than compensated.  Next to Acota stood Mezrimbi, the son of the chief Brahmin, and he, only, could be compared to Acota in personal beauty; but his character was known—­he was proud, overbearing, and cruel.  The beauteous Babe-bi-bobu feared him, for there was a clause in her father’s will, by which, if the first choice of the princess should prove by any intermediate accident to be ineligible, his father, the chief Brahmin, was empowered to make a selection for the princess, and his decision was to be equally inviolable.  The beauteous eyes of the princess first lighted upon the form of Mezrimbi, and she trembled, but the proud bearing of Acota reassured her, and waving her hand as she sat, she addressed the assembled youths as follows:—­

“Faithful and gentle rayahs, impute it to no want of modesty that, for once, I sink the graceful bashfulness of the virgin, and assume the more forward deportment of the queen.  When all appear to possess such merit, how can I slight all but one by my decision?  Let me rather leave it to the immortal Vishnu to decide who is most worthy to reign over this our kingdom of Souffra.  Let Vishnu prompt you to read your destiny; I have placed a flower in this unworthy bosom, which is shortly to call one of you its lord.  Name then, the flower, and he who first shall name it, let him be proclaimed the lawful king of Souffra.  Take then, your instruments, noble rayahs, and to their sounds, in measured verse, pour out the name of the hidden flower, and the reason for my choice.  Thus shall fate decide the question, and no one say that his merits have been slighted.”

Having finished her address, the beauteous princess let fall her veil, and was silent.  A shout of applause was followed by wild strummings and tunings of mandolins, and occasional scratching of heads or turbans, to remember all that Hafiz had ever written, or to aid their attempts at improviso versification.  Time flew on, and no one of the young rayahs appeared inclined to begin.  At last one stepped forward, and named the rose, in a borrowed couplet.  He was dismissed with a graceful wave of the hand by the princess, and broke his mandolin in his vexation, as he quitted the hall of audience.  And thus did they continue, one after another, to name flower after flower, and quit the hall of audience in despair.  Then might these beautiful youths, as they all stood