“If that secret,” answered the slave, “relate to prince Codadad, I dare promise you shall have audience of her this very day; but if it concern not him, it is needless for you to endeavour to be introduced; for her thoughts are all engrossed by her son, and she will not hear of any other subject.”  “It is only about that dear son,” replied the surgeon, “that I wish to speak to her.”  “If so,” said the slave, “you need only follow us to the palace, and you shall soon have the opportunity.”

Accordingly, as soon as Pirouzè was returned to her apartment, the slave acquainted her that a person unknown had some important information to communicate to her, and that it related to prince Codadad.  No sooner had he uttered these words, than Pirouzè expressed her impatience to see the stranger.  The slave immediately conducted him into the princess’s closet, who ordered all her women to withdraw, except two, from whom she concealed nothing.  As soon as she saw the surgeon, she asked him eagerly, what news he had to tell her of Codadad?  “Madam,” answered the surgeon, after having prostrated himself on the ground, “I have a long account to give you, and such as will surprise you.”  He then related all the particulars of what had passed between Codadad and his brothers, which she listened to with eager attention; but when he came to speak of the murder, the tender mother fainted away on her sofa, as if she had herself been stabbed like her son.  Her two women used proper means, and soon brought her to herself.  The surgeon continued his relation; and when he had concluded, Pirouzè said to him, “Go back to the princess of Deryabar, and assure her from me that the sultan shall soon own her for his daughter-in-law; and as for yourself, be satisfied, that your services shall be rewarded as liberally as they deserve.”

When the surgeon was gone, Pirouzè remained on the sofa, in such a state of affliction as may easily be imagined; and yielding to her tenderness at the recollection of Codadad, “O my son,” said she, “I must never then expect to see you more!  Alas! when I gave you leave to depart from Samaria, and you took leave of me, I did not imagine that so unfortunate a death awaited you at such a distance from me.  Unfortunate Codadad!  Why did you leave me?  You would not, it is true, have acquired so much renown, but you had been still alive, and not have cost your mother so many tears.”  While she uttered these words, she wept bitterly, and her two attendants moved by her grief, mingled their tears with hers.

Whilst they were all three in this manner vying in affliction, the sultan came into the closet, and seeing them in this condition, asked Pirouzè whether she had received any bad news concerning Codadad?  “Alas! sir,” said she, “all is over, my son has lost his life, and to add to my sorrow, I cannot pay him the funeral rites; for, in all probability, wild beasts have devoured him.”  She then told him all she had heard from the surgeon, and did not fail to enlarge on the inhuman manner in which Codadad had been murdered by his brothers.