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When he had adopted this better mood, a step was heard upon the staircase, and after a long and unequal descent, Hereward, in his heavy armour, at length coolly arrived at the bottom of the steps. Behind him, panting and trembling, partly with cold and partly with terror, came Douban, the slave well skilled in medicine. "Welcome, good Edward!
Sir, replied the vizier, I am very well informed of what I have had the honour to represent to your majesty, therefore do not let your dangerous confidence grow to a further height; if your majesty be asleep, be pleased to awake; for I do once more repeat it, that the physician Douban did not leave the heart of Greece, his country, nor come hither to settle himself at your court, but to execute that horrid design which I have just now hinted to you.
Though you heap favours upon the physician Douban, your majesty does not know that he is a traitor, sent by your enemies to take away your life." "From whom," demanded the king, "have you the suggestion which you dare pronounce? Consider to whom you are speaking, and that you are advancing what I shall not easily believe."
"If you hold me not competent," said Douban, somewhat vain of the trust necessarily reposed in him, "to judge of the treatment of my patient, your Imperial Highness must take the risk and the trouble upon yourself." "Marry, I shall," said the Emperor, "for the scruples of leeches are not to be indulged, when the fate of kingdoms and the lives of monarchs are placed against them in the scales.
The Grecian king was not satisfied with having admitted the physician Douban to his table, but caused him to be clad in a rich robe, ordered him two thousand pieces of gold, and thinking that he could never sufficiently acknowledge his obligations to him, continued every day to load him with new favours.
"Well, genie," said he, "you see that what passed betwixt the Grecian king and his physician Douban is acted just now by us." The Grecian king, continued he, instead of having regard to the prayers of the physician, who begged him to spare his life, cruelly replied, "No, no; I must of necessity cut you off, otherwise you may assassinate with as much art as you cured me."
When the vizier found the king in such a temper as he wished, "Sir," said he, "the surest and speediest method you can take to secure your life, is to send immediately for the physician Douban, and order his head to be struck off." "In truth," said the king, "I believe that is the way we must take to frustrate his design."
When the vizier found the king in such a temper as he wished, "Sir," said he, "the surest and speediest method you can take to secure your life, is to send immediately for the physician Douban, and order his head to be struck off." "In truth," said the king, "I believe that is the way we must take to frustrate his design."
Sir, continues the Grecian king's vizier, to return to the physician Douban, if you do not take care, the confidence you put in him will be fatal to you: I am very well assured that he is a spy sent by your enemies to attempt your majesty's life. He has cured you, you will say: But, alas! who can assure you of that?
I shall soon satisfy his curiosity and yours, answers the sultaness; and then, addressing herself to Schahriar, Sir, continued she, as soon as the fisherman had concluded the history of the Greek king and his physician Douban, he made the application to the genie, whom he still kept shut up in the vessel.
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