The Armenian told her that His Highness had ceased taking European medicine. She was astonished and alarmed, and at once wrote a letter to the Amîr. She asked him what it all meant—she read the letter to me—asked whether he were a King or a boy. At one time he said the English Doctor was all that was wise and learned, and the next he ceased taking his medicine: was he going back to the Hakims who had killed his father and his father’s father! Why was this?
The answer from the Amîr arrived: the Sultana read it to me.
The Sultana’s Letter: the Answer.
His Highness said he was a King and no boy; but he added that there was quarrelling between two Interpreters and he feared there would be a mistranslation and that he should suffer. For this reason he considered it better that he should cease taking European medicine for the present. He was not angry with the English Doctor: on the contrary, he realized the benefit he had received from his treatment, and would resume his medicine when the suitable time arrived.
That night Malek, the Page, came to me. He said that the Hindustani had crept to the Amîr in the morning, and had whispered this story: He had implored me to give good medicine to the Amîr: and that at once I had wished to kick and strike him; that I was giving His Highness alcohol in all his medicines, and it was this that lulled the pain, though it would afterwards make him worse: that he had heard me say I had only this one medicine that could affect His Highness!
I could not find it in my heart to blame the Amîr. Wearied out with months of suffering, he lacked the keen judgment that is his characteristic. Nevertheless, in a matter of such vast importance, the fact, that any condition could place one at the mercy of an obscure intriguing Hindustani, gave such a shock to my confidence that I never entirely recovered it while I was in the service of the Amîr. Once in a lifetime was enough for such an experience as I had been through; for had the illness of either Amîr or Sultana terminated fatally, while they were under my care, my fate would have been sufficiently appalling.
I was to visit His Highness daily, although he was under the care of the Hakims. His manner to me was never so kind as now. I examined his condition as before, and he described to me the treatment the Hakims were subjecting him to.
They had no specific medicine, but administered drugs that produced frequent and copious alvine evacuations. I said one day—in my anxiety—that I feared they were, in His Highness’s feeble condition, overdoing this line of treatment. His Highness rebuked me and said,
“When I am under the care of Hakims, I do as Hakims say; when under your care, as you say.”