asked was whether they had provided the horse with everything. "He wouldn't let us come near him," said the two elder sisters; "it was our youngest sister here who took care of him."
No sooner had the Padishah heard this than he gave his youngest daughter to the horse to wife, but his two other daughters he gave to the sons of his Chief Mufti and his Grand Vizier, and they celebrated the three marriages at a great banquet, which lasted forty days. Then the youngest daughter turned into the stable, but the two eldest dwelt in a splendid palace. In the daytime the youngest sister had only a horse for a husband and a stable for a dwelling; but in the night-time the stable became a garden of roses, the horse-husband a handsome hero, and they lived in a world of their own. Nobody knew of it but they two. They passed the day together as best they could, but eventide was the time of their impatient desires.
One day the Padishah held a tournament in the palace. Many gallant warriors entered the lists, but none strove so valiantly as the husbands of the Sultan's elder daughters.
"Only look now!" said the two elder daughters to their sister who dwelt in the stable, "only look now! how our husbands overthrow all the other warriors with their lances; our two lords are not
