Severe restrictions, painful
observances, fasts, and penance, are necessary on the part of the
sage who uses this mode of cure; and if, through neglect of these
preparations, by his love of ease, or his indulgence of sensual
appetite, he omits to cure at least twelve persons within the
course of each moon, the virtue of the divine gift departs from
the amulet, and both the last patient and the physician will be
exposed to speedy misfortune, neither will they survive the year.
I require yet one life to make up the appointed number."
"Go out into the camp, good Hakim, where thou wilt find a-many,"
said the King, "and do not seek to rob my headsman of HIS
patients; it is unbecoming a mediciner of thine eminence to
interfere with the practice of another. Besides, I cannot see
how delivering a criminal from the death he deserves should go to
make up thy tale of miraculous cures."
"When thou canst show why a draught of cold water should have
cured thee when the most precious drugs failed," said the Hakim,
"thou mayest reason on the other mysteries attendant on this
matter.
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