'We will have no Sultan but Khaled!' he cried. 'Give us Abdullah that we may make trappings for our camels from his skin.' Then Khaled sheathed his sword and came forward from under the gate, and Zehowah stood veiled beside him. 'Where is this Abdullah?' he asked. 'Find him if you can, for I would like to speak with him.' Then there was silence for a space. But by this time Abdullah's men had fled, for they had already been forced back in the crowding, and so soon as they saw Khaled standing unhurt under the palace gate, they turned quickly and ran for their lives to escape from the city, seeing that all was lost. 'Where is Abdullah?' Khaled asked again. And a voice from afar off answered, as though heralding the coming of a great personage. 'Behold Abdullah, the Sultan of Nejed!' it cried. Then the multitude turned angrily, grasping swords and spears and breathing curses. But the murmur broke suddenly into a shout of laughter louder even than the cry for Khaled had been. For a great procession had entered the square and the people made way for it as it advanced towards the palace. First came a score of lepers, singing in hideous voices and dancing in the early sun, filthy and loathsome to behold. And then came all manner of cripples, laughing and chattering, with coloured rags fastened to their staves, an army of distorted apes. Then, walking alone and feeling his way with his staff came the Sheikh of the beggars. And in one hand he held the end of a halter, which was fastened about Abdullah's head and neck and between his teeth, so that he could not cry out. And the blind man chanted a kasid which he had composed in the night in honour of Abdullah ibn Mohammed el Herir, the victorious Sultan of Nejed. 'Upon whom may Allah send much boiling water,' sang the Sheikh of the beggars after each stave. And Abdullah, his head and face shaven as bald as an ostrich's egg, was bent by the weight he carried, for upon his shoulders rode the cripple whom they called the Ass of Egypt, clapping the wooden shoes he used on his hands, like cymbals to accompany the song of the blind man. And last of all came a veiled woman, walking sadly, for she could not escape, being surrounded and driven on by many scores of beggars, all dancing and shouting and crying out mock praises of the Sultan Abdullah and his wife. But as the procession moved on the laughter increased a hundredfold, until all men's eyes were blind with mirth, and their breasts were bursting and aching with so much merriment. At last the Sheikh of the beggars stood before Khaled holding the halter. And here he made a deep obeisance, pulling the halter so that Abdullah nearly fell to the ground.