save me? He needed only have left me to my disease. I could not have escaped it, my life was already half gone. Forbear, then, to fill me with unjust suspicions. Instead of listening to you, I tell you that from this day forward I will give that great man a pension of a thousand sequins per month for life. Nay, though I were to share with him all my riches and dominions, I should never pay him enough for what he has done for me. I perceive it to be his worth which raises your envy; out do not think that I will be unjustly possessed with prejudice against him.'
'I am very well assured,' said the vizier, '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? He has, perhaps, cured you only in appearance, and not radically. Who knows but that the medicine he has given you may, in time, have pernicious effects?'
The Grecian king, who had by nature very little sense, was not able to see through the wicked design of his vizier, nor had he firmness enough to persist in his first opinion. This conversation staggered him. 'Vizier,' said he, 'thou art in the right. He may be come on purpose to take away my life, which he could easily do by the very smell of some of his drugs. We must consider what is proper for us to do in this case.'
When the vizier found the king in such a mood 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 cut off as soon as he comes.'
'In truth,' said the king, 'I believe that is the way we must take to put an end to his design.' When he had spoken thus, he called for one of his officers, and ordered him to go for the physician, who, knowing nothing, came to the palace in haste.
'Do you know,' said the king, when he saw him, 'why I sent for you?'
'No, sir,' answered he, 'I wait till your majesty be pleased to inform me.'
'I sent for you,' replied the king, 'to rid myself of you by taking your life.'
No man can express the surprise of the physician when he
