All through the night Khaled pondered, calling up all that he had seen in the world in former times, until he fell asleep at last, wearied in heart. Very early in the morning one of Zehowah's women came and stood by his bed and waked him. He could see that her face was pale in the dawn, her limbs trembled and her voice was uncertain. 'Arise, my lord!' she said. 'A messenger has come from the army with evil news, and stands waiting in the court.' Khaled sprang up, and Zehowah awoke also. 'What is this message?' he asked hastily. But the woman threw herself upon the floor and covered her face, as though begging forgiveness because she brought evil tidings. 'Speak!' said Zehowah. 'What is it?' 'Our lord the Sultan is dead!' cried the woman, and she broke out into weeping and crying and would say nothing more. But when Zehowah heard that her father was dead, she sat down upon the floor and beat her breast and tore her hair, and wailed and wept, while all the women of the harem came and gathered round her and joined in her mourning, so that the whole palace was filled with the noise of their lamentations. Khaled went out into the court and questioned the messenger, who told him that the Sultan had held a great feast in the evening in the gardens of Dereyiyah, having with him the woman Almasta and the other captive women, and being served by black slaves. But, suddenly, in the night, when most of the soldiers were already asleep, there had been a great cry, and the slaves and women had come running from the tent, crying that the Sultan was dead. This was true, and the Jewish physician who had gone out with his master declared that he had died from an access of humours to the head, brought on by a surfeit of sweetmeats, there being at the time an evil conjunction of Zoharah and Al Marech in square aspect to the moon and in the house of death. Khaled therefore mounted his bay mare and rode quickly out to Dereyiyah, where he found that the news was true, and the women were already preparing the Sultan's body for burial. Having ordered the mourning, and commanded the army to prepare for the return to the city, Khaled set out with the funeral procession; and when he reached the walls of Riad he turned to the left and passed round to the north-east side of the city where the burial-ground is situated. Here he laid the body of his father-in-law in the tomb which the latter had prepared for himself during his lifetime, and afterwards, dismissing the mourners, he went back into the city to the palace.