“May it please your sublime highness, she soon will be.”

* * * * *

At an early hour the proclamation was made that the princess was about to take unto herself a husband from the high caste youths of Souffra, and that all whom it might concern should repair to the palace, to be present at the ceremony.  As it concerned all Souffra—­all Souffra was there.  The sun had nearly reached to the zenith, and looked down almost enviously upon the gay scene beneath, broiling the brains of the good people of Souffra, whose heads paved, as it were, the country for ten square miles, when the beauteous Princess Babe-bi-bobu made her appearance in the hall of audience, attended by her maidens and the grandees of Souffra, who were the executors to her father’s will.  At the head of them was the chief Brahmin, who looked anxiously among the crowd for his son Mezrimbi, who had not made his appearance that morning.  At last he espied his rich dress, his mantle, his turban and jewelled scimitar, but his face was muffled up in a shawl, and the chief Brahmin smiled at the witty conceit of his son, that of having his own beauteous person muffled as well as that of the now scarred Acota.  And then silence was commanded by a thousand brazen trumpets, and enforced by the discharge of two thousand pieces of artillery, ten square miles of people repeated the order for silence, in loud and reiterated shouts—­and at last silence obeyed the order, and there was silence.  The chief Brahmin rose, and having delivered an extemporaneous prayer, suitable to the solemnity and importance of the occasion, he proceeded to read the will of the late king—­he then descanted upon the Molean controversy, and how it was now an article of the Souffrarian faith, which it was heresy and impalement not to believe, that “moles were not scars, and only blemishes when they were considered so to be.”  The choice of the princess, continued the learned Brahmin, has however not been made; she has left to chance that which was to have proceeded from her own free will, and that without consulting with the ministers of our holy religion.  My heart told me yesterday that such was not right, and contrary not only to the king’s will, but the will of Heaven; and I communed deeply on the subject after I had prayed nine times—­and a dream descended on me in my sleep, and I was told that the conditions of the will would be fulfilled.  How to explain this answer from above I know not:  perhaps the youth who was fortunate in discovering the flower, is also the youth of the princess’s choice.

“Even so,” replied the princess, in a soft, melodious voice, “and therefore is my father’s will obeyed.”

“Where, then, is the fortunate youth?” said the chief Brahmin; “let him appear.”

Babe-bi-bobu, who, as well as others, had in vain looked round for Acota, was astonished at his not making his appearance, and still more so when he did, as they thought, appear, led in by the four black mutes, with his face enveloped in a shawl.