18. The black palace is so called from the colour of the building, which is all of the finest polished black marble. There are always burning in it five thousand everlasting lamps. It has also an hundred folding doors of ebony, which are each of them watched day and night by an hundred negroes, who are to take care that nobody enters besides the governor.
19. Helim, after having conveyed the body of his daughter into this repository, and at the appointed time received her out of the sleep into which she was fallen, took care some time after to bring that of Abdallah into the same place. Balsora, watched over him till such time as the dose he had taken lost its effect. Abdallah was not acquainted with Helim's design when he gave him this sleepy potion.
20. It is impossible to describe the surprise, the joy, the transport he was in at his first awaking. He fancied himself in the retirement of the blest, and that the spirit of his dear Balsora, who he thought was just gone before him, was the first who came to congratulate his arrival. She soon informed him of the place he was in, which notwithstanding all its horrors, appeared to him more sweet than the bower of Mahomet, in the company of his Balsora.
21. Helim, who was supposed to be taken up in the embalming of the bodies, visited the place very frequently. His greatest perplexity was how to get the lovers out of it, the gates being watched in such a manner as I have before related. This consideration did not a little disturb the two interred lovers.
22. At length Helim bethought himself, that the first day of the full moon of the month Tizpa was near at hand. Now it is a received tradition among the Persians, that the souls of those of the royal family, who are in a state of bliss, do, on the first full moon after their decease, pass through the eastern gate of the black palace, which is therefore called the Gate of Paradise, in order to take their flight for that happy place.
23. Helim, therefore, having made due preparation for this night, dressed each of the lovers in a robe of azure silk, wrought in the finest looms of Persia, with a long train of linen whiter than snow, that flowed on the ground behind them. Upon Abdallah's head he fixed a wreath of the greenest myrtle, and on Balsora's a garland of the freshest roses. Their garments were scented with the richest perfumes of Arabia.