and my head will answer your questions. But permit
me once more to implore your majesty's clemency; for God's sake
grant my request, I protest to you that I am innocent." "Your
prayers," answered the king, "are in vain; and were it for
nothing but to hear your head speak after your death, it is my
will you should die." As he said this, he took the book out of
the physician's hand, and ordered the executioner to do his duty.

The head was so dexterously cut off that it fell into the basin,
and was no sooner laid upon the cover of the book than the blood
stopped; then to the great surprise of the king, and all the
spectators, its eyes, and said, "Sir, will your majesty be
pleased to open the book?" The king proceeded to do so; but
finding that the leaves adhered to each other, that he might turn
them with more ease, he put his finger to his mouth, and wetted
it with spittle. He did thus till he came to the sixth leaf, and
finding no writing on the place where he was desired to look for
it, "Physician," said he, "there is nothing written." "Turn over
some more leaves," replied the head. The king went on, putting
always his finger to his mouth, until the poison with which each
leaf was imbued, coming to have its effect, the prince found
himself suddenly taken with an extraordinary fit, his eye-sight
failed, and he fell down at the foot of the throne in violent
convulsions.

When the physician Douban, or rather his head, saw that the
poison had taken effect, and that the king had but a few moments
to live; "Tyrant," it cried, "now you see how princes are
treated, who, abusing their authority, cut off innocent men: God
punishes soon or late their injustice and cruelty." Scarcely had
the head spoken these words, when the king fell down dead, and
the head itself lost what life it had.

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. "If the Grecian
king," said he, "had suffered the physician to live, God would
have continued his life also; but he rejected his most humble
prayers, and the case is the same with thee, O genie! Could I
have prevailed with thee to grant me the favour I supplicated, I
should now take pity on thee; but since, notwithstanding the
extreme obligation thou west under to me, for having set thee at
liberty, thou didst persist in thy design to kill me, I am
obliged, in my turn,