Its purport is that an Eastern monarch, "to protect himself against the craft and infidelity of women resolves that the wife he chooses him every day shall be put to death before the next." Two sisters devote their lives to put an end to such massacres.

The eldest, who becomes the king's wife, begs that her sister may spend the last night of her life in their room.

At dawn the royal bride entertains her sister with a story which is cleverly left unfinished.

Such is the sultan's curiosity to hear the end, that the bride of a night is not slain, as usual.

But as soon as one tale is ended another is begun, and for one thousand and one nights the clever narrator keeps her audience of two in suspense.