“On the contrary,” retorted the Pasha, a little tartly, “I am not likely to forget it, so long as the daughter of the Sultan of Kopaul condescends to remain the wife of the Pasha of Ubikwi.”
For Muley Mustapha had married above his station, and the circumstance had not been permitted to escape his memory. He never complained of his lot; but, when his faithful Vizier once hinted that the Koran allowed each true believer the blessing of four wives, he answered with a sigh, “I find one enough for this world: the rest I will take in houris.”
Some subtle reflection of that sentiment must have made itself visible on the face of the Pasha at this moment; for his worthy spouse, with apparent irrelevance, suddenly exclaimed,—
“Muley Mustapha, if you are going to cast your vagabond Vizier in my face, I will leave the room—until I have time to go home to my father, who will protect me from insult.”
“Great Allah!” cried the Pasha. “Who is casting anybody in your face? And who has mentioned the name of the Vizier?”
But the virtuous Kayenna had risen to her feet, and in low, intense tones began:—
“Sir, there is a limit to what even a wife may endure. When I think that a son of mine is threatened with contamination at the hands of a low, disreputable, adventurous vagabond, like your worthless underling”—
Here the good lady was so overcome by her feelings that she burst into a flood of tears, and had to be borne, shrieking, to her apartments.
“I foresee that I shall have trouble in bringing up that boy,” mused Muley Mustapha, as he relighted his nargileh, and stroked his flowing beard.
Braver man there was not in all Islam than the dauntless young Pasha of Ubikwi, whose valor on many a hard-fought field finally won him the favor of the Sultan of Kopaul, and the fair hand of that Sultan’s only child. Once, some years after his marriage, he propounded to Shacabac the Wayfarer, then a sage whose merits had not been appreciated by a dull generation, the old paradox of the Frankish schoolmen: “When an irresistible force meets with an immovable object, what happeneth?” And the wise man answered, “In case of matrimony, the Force retireth from business.” Struck by the aptness of the reply, Muley Mustapha made the sage his Vizier on the spot.