received in battle to be a bar to advancement; but they were checked by the brahmins, who told them that there was a holy and hidden mystery contained in the injunction of the old king's will. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "By the beard of the Prophet, it takes a long time to get a husband for this princess of yours, Menouni," observed the pacha with a yawn. "Your sublime highness will not be surprised at it, when you consider the conditions of the old king's will." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The examination was most strict, and even a small cut was sufficient to render a young man ineligible; a corn was considered as a blemish--and a young man even having been bled by a leech to save his life, lost him all chance of the princess. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Pray may I ask, if a barber had cut the skin in shaving their heads, was that considered as a scar?" "Most decidedly, your highness." "Then those fakirs and mollahs, with their spectacles, and the brahmins, were a parcel of fools. Were they not Mustapha?" "Your highness's wisdom is like the overflowing of the honey pot," replied Mustapha. "You know, Mustapha, as well as I do, that it is almost impossible not to draw blood, if there happens to be a pimple, or a bad razor; but, however, proceed, Menouni, and if possible marry this beautiful princess." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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:--