From
whom have you this, answered the king, that you dare tell it me?
Consider to whom you speak, and that you advance a thing which I
shall not easily believe. 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.
No, no, vizier, replies the king, I am certain that this man,
whom you treat as a villain and a traitor, is one of the best and
most virtuous men in the world; and there is no man I love so
much. You know by what medicine, or rather by what miracle, he
cured me of my leprosy; if he had a design upon my life, why did
he save me? He needed only to have left me to my disease; I could
not have escaped; my life was already half gone; forbear, then,
to fill me with any 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 his life;
nay, though I did share with him all my riches and dominions, I
should never pay him enough for what he has done me; I perceive
it to be his virtue that raises your envy; but do not think that
I will be unjustly possessed with prejudice against him; I
remember too well what a vizier said to King Sinbad, his master,
to prevent his putting to death the prince his son.
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