THE GENIAL SULTAN

A sultan should be genial, you’ll admit, even if he is nothing else. But, because so few sultans are, Selim, the Sultan of Dar, renowned for his good nature, was much beloved not only among his own subjects, but among those of nearby lands, all of whom wanted to live in his kingdom.

In fact they crowded in so thickly that Selim had to think and think of ways to get someone else to help take care of them. The truth of the matter was that he wanted a vacation. For he was, as you can imagine, a very busy as well as a very genial sultan. But, although he had set his heart on a fishing trip, it was impossible to find anyone who could take his place even for a week; no one else was able to be, at one and the same time, Decider of Quarrels, Commander in Chief of the Army, Head Writer of the Laws, and also Champion Ball-Player of the nation.

His was indeed a difficult place to fill. Long and long the sultan puzzled over the matter while many new wrinkles went crinkling over his forehead and about his eyes as he pondered. Where was he to find a man to take his place? The Sultan thought of everyone, from Matzar, the Adviser in Chief, whose business it was to give unnecessary advice, and Piff, the Head Jailer, who was out of a job most of the time because the Sultan always pardoned all prisoners two or three hours after he had imprisoned them, to Casia, the youngest of his thirty-one wives, who would have made a very good ruler if she could only have kept herself from poking her nose into other people’s affairs. It was a trait the Sultan very much disliked. But she got along very well with all the other wives because there was nothing that went on inside or outside the minds of others that she could not tell them. She had even come to the point of informing the Sultan of thoughts that he was going to think the day after tomorrow, which was, you will agree, too much.

To go away was not as simple as it would at first appear. The Sultan called a meeting. Of course Matzar, the Chief Adviser, Piff, the Head Jailer, Peran, the First Wife, and Casia, the Beautiful, were there. When the Sultan asked his questions they all fell to talking and planning so hard that they had little time to think of ways and means to help him.

At last Selim, pulling at the corners of his fierce black moustache, cried aloud:

“But all this does not help me to go fishing!”

“If you will not take my advice——” began Matzar.

“And when, Matzar,” demanded the Sultan, “has your advice been taken? Your office is to give advice which no one ever follows. You have been very good—I could ask no better counsellor. But that does not help me to go fishing!”

“You are thinking,” put in Casia sweetly, “of how lovely it would be if you could just go away without a word and never come back.”

At that the Sultan glared at her while the ends of his black moustache waved in the air.

“I had not thought of it yet,” he cried curtly. “I was about to think of it the day after tomorrow.”

“He might think of it, my dear,” said Peran, the First Wife, “but he would never do so. He is far too busy. Last week he sent one hundred and three men to prison for theft, laziness and curiosity! He is a very busy man.”

“Ah!” wailed Piff, the Head Jailer, “you do not know! That same week he pardoned one hundred and four of them and my jail is as empty as ever! Oh, for the old days when his father, Trebizond, the Terrible, ruled! There was no overcrowding in the country then. Only the prisons were crowded—and those who escaped fled at once to other lands. Now they cannot come back quickly enough. But the rooms in my jail are all going to waste because of Your Majesty’s regrettable good nature. If Your Majesty would not pardon all of them, there would be plenty of room in the city for the rest of us.”

“Yes,” agreed Peran, “he is hopelessly genial.”

“There is much in what you say,” replied the Sultan. “But all this does not help me to go fishing.”

“He was always one to stick to a point,” went on Peran, a remark which almost made the Sultan angry.

“I have an idea!” he exclaimed finally, pleased with himself to have thought of it before Casia could guess it.

“What?” they demanded in one breath.

“I shall have a medal struck off,” said the Sultan. “There shall be but one like it in all the land. It shall be wrought of ivory and inlaid with rubies—and he who wins it shall rule in my place for a week.”

“But what must he do to win it?” asked Matzar.

“That, is my secret,” answered Selim, looking very hard at Casia whom he feared had already guessed it.

“Could a woman win it?” demanded Peran.

“That she might,” said Selim, who had no objection to women voting, thinking or even talking—he was so genial.

“But how?” gasped Peran and Casia together.

For answer the Sultan only put his finger to his lips and smiled mysteriously.

The next morning forty craftsmen went to work for forty days on the ivory medal, carving it, hunting for precious stones to adorn it, and polishing them until they shone like starlight over mountain torrents. Then, when it was finished, the Sultan sent forth a herald who carried it aloft, swung on a golden chain, and proclaimed to all the people that he who won it should rule for a week in the Sultan’s palace.

Much clamor and talk arose throughout the length and breadth of the land. The news flew from mouth to mouth. Crowds gathered in the already over-crowded streets. But when, one day, the Sultan appeared dressed as a hermit in rough, gray robes and walking barefooted, excitement and curiosity knew no bounds. All stopped to look and gape, pressing so close to him that only a very narrow pathway was left for the Sultan amid the jostling shoulders.

“Your Majesty,” advised Matzar, who was shocked at this behavior, “I should like to suggest that you put on your royal robes again instead of these ridiculous rags. What are you doing in the streets without your proper clothing?”

“Merely trying to do my morning shopping,” replied the Sultan calmly, “if these people would only let me pass. I am badly in need of some new fish-hooks——”

“Your Majesty’s jokes,” interrupted Matzar, “are not——”

But his words were cut short by a loud cheer; and, as he looked, he saw that the Sultan had shed his gray hermit’s robe and now appeared as a fighter, armed only with a short dagger. The people then thought that they understood and, nodding wisely, many of them ran home and returned similarly clad. But, although the Sultan fought with many he encountered, bearing defeat from some (while others he vanquished), no one was awarded the ivory medal, not even Matzar, who had disarmed the Sultan three times.

“Why do I not then win the medal?” he demanded of the Sultan.

But the Sultan only threw back his head and laughed.

“It is not a medal for fighters,” he replied. “Is it not enough that you have defeated your ruler?”

But, although the Sultan laughed much, he was still sad at heart. He thought of all the fishes slipping away forever down the flashing streams to the sea, and sighed.

Three days went by and on the fourth the Sultan issued from his palace clad in the bright orange garments of a street merchant. On his head he balanced, somewhat awkwardly, a tray on which were silver images, jewelled bracelets and strings of pearls. There was no one who did not stop his work to watch the Sultan pass. No one thought of anything else that day. Still the medal remained hidden in the Sultan’s scarlet girdle; and although he joked with those who bought his wares, a longer wrinkle than ever crept toward the corners of his mouth. He walked on, balancing the heavy tray on his head, until he had come to the outskirts of the city. There again Matzar addressed him.

“Is this a joke?” he demanded huffily, “this medal and this fishing trip? If so, I advise you to give it up.”

“Be careful, Matzar,” warned the Sultan. “Someday you will give advice that I can follow and then you will lose your job.”

Just then the Sultan stopped short and he was so surprised at what he saw that he very nearly tipped over the precious tray and all that it contained.

“Look!” exclaimed Selim.

There, seated on a high chair before her shop, stringing jade beads upon a scarlet thread, sat a young slave girl, her bronze arms flashing in the sunlight with each motion of her slender body. Her profile was fine as the line of the cloud that had drifted across the sky. Her clear green eyes followed each turn of her needle so intently that she never glanced at Selim and Matzar as they paused before her. When she did look up, however, Selim knew that she recognized him—for who in all the land knew not the Genial Sultan—but, unlike the mob, she gave no sign of surprise.

“Wouldst buy or sell?” she asked.

“I would buy your string of green beads,” the Sultan answered, “green like the forests where I am so soon to go.”

“Your Majesty does not know that he——” began Matzar.

But the Sultan did not let him finish. He addressed the girl again.

“Do you know me?”

“You are Selim,” replied the slave girl, “Sultan of Dar.”

“And do you not think it strange that I lay aside my royal robes to walk the streets as a common merchant?”

Then the slave girl made a reply that caused all the crowd to gasp.

“I ply my trade and you ply yours,” she said, while her silver needle again flashed in the air, “nor have I time to sit and stare.”

“Well, of all——!” Matzar started to speak, but once more the Sultan stopped him.

“What do you want for your string of jade?” he asked.

“What will you give me for it?” replied the slave girl.

For answer the Sultan slipped his hand into his orange robe and drew forth the ivory medal that it had taken forty days to fashion, and threw it about her neck.

“She only,” he said, “who can tend her own affairs in peace and let me tend mine, can rule my people wisely.”

So the slave girl, amid the rejoicings of the multitude, was crowned Thirty-Second Sultana of the land.

“We will turn the jail into a hotel,” she said on her Coronation Day, “for with the Genial Sultan as ruler, it is a complete waste as a jail. It is so big that there will be plenty of room for all.”

The Sultan, hearing, knew that he had chosen well and, slipping his rods over his shoulder and his pail over his arm, he crept quietly out of the back door of the palace and went fishing.