Chefchaouen © Mark Wade

Now when Abeniaf saw that all the people were on his side, and obeyed him, his heart grew and he was puffed up, insomuch that he despised those who were as good as himself or better.

Albeit he was of good parentage, for his fathers before him had all been Alcaydes ever since Valencia was in the hands of the Moors.

And because he knew that the King had not fled out of the town, he made search for him, and found him in the house where he had hidden himself with his women.

Now the King when he fled from the Alcazar had taken with him the best of his treasures, pearls, among which was one the most precious and noble that could be, so that nowhere was there a better one to be found, nor so good; and precious stones, sapphires and rubies and emeralds; he had with him a casket of pure gold full of these things; and in his girdle he had hidden a string of precious stones and of pearls, such that no King had so rich and precious a thing as that carkanet.

They say that in former times it had belonged to Queen Seleyda, who was wife to Abanarrexit King of Belcab, which is beyond sea; and afterwards it had come to the Kings called Benivoyas, who were Lords of Andalusia; after that King Alimaymon of Toledo possessed it, and gave it to his wife, and she gave it to the wife of her son, who was the mother of this Yahia.

Greatly did Abeniaf covet these treasures and this carkanet, and incontinently he thought in his heart that he might take them and none know thereof, which could no ways be done unless he slew King Yahia.

When therefore it was night he gave order to cut off his head, and to throw it into a pond near the house in which he had been taken.

This was done accordingly, and Abeniaf took the treasures, and they who were set over King Yahia to guard him and murder him, took also each what he could, and concealed it.

And the body lay where it had been slain till the following day; but then a good man who grieved for the death of his Lord took it up, and laid it upon the cords of a bed, and covered it with an old horsecloth, and carried it out of the town, and made a grave for it in a place where camels were wont to lie, and buried it there, without gravecloths and without any honours whatsoever, as if the corpse had been the corpse of a villain.