"I am capable of nothing now," replied Nourgehan, "but of loving and adoring you; but at least permit me to give a full proof of the justice I do your merit. Assist in the divan, preside in all affairs, and give me your counsels: I can follow none that are more prudent or better judged."
"The diamond boasted," replied Damake, smiling, "that there was no stone which equalled it in strength and hardness. Allah, who loves not pride, changed its nature in favour of lead, the vilest of metals, to which He gave the power to cut it. Independently of the pride I must render myself guilty of if I accepted your offers,—Allah forbid that I should do that wrong to my Sovereign Lord!—to authorize by my behaviour the reproaches that would be thrown upon him. There would be a foundation to say that he was governed by a woman. I allow," added she, "that your Majesty ought to have a Vizier: you cannot see to everything with your own eyes, and I believe I am able to show you one worthy of Nourgehan."
"Name him to me," replied he, "and I will give him the charge this moment."
"Your Majesty," replied the beauteous Damake, "must know him before you accept him. I hope you will find in him whom I propose those virtues and talents necessary in a man dignified with so great an employment. He lives in the city of Balk, and is named Diafer. The post of Vizier to one of the most powerful Kings of the Indies has been in his family above a thousand years. Judge then, my lord, what a collection of admirable precepts he must have upon all parts of government, and yet a Prince, blinded by the pernicious counsels of his favourites, has deposed him, and he passes his days at Balk—days which might be happy if he had not lived in the habit of labour and a hurry of great affairs, which seldom leave the mind at liberty to be satisfied with anything less tumultuous."
Nourgehan immediately replied, "Diafer is my Vizier: Damake can never be mistaken."
Upon the spot he wrote to the Governor of Balk, and sent him a note for a hundred thousand sequins, to be delivered to Diafer, to defray the expenses of his journey; and he charged the same courier with a letter for Diafer, in which he conjured him to accept the post that he had destined him for.
Diafer began his journey. He was received with magnificence in every city, and the Emperor sent all the noblemen of his Court to meet him, and conduct him to the palace which he had destined for him in the kingdom of Visiapour, where he then resided. He was treated there with incredible magnificence during three days, after which he was conducted to an audience of the Prince. He appeared at the height of joy for possessing a man whom Damake esteemed so highly; but that joy was of no long duration, for the Prince, who was so gracious and so prejudiced in his favour, flew into the most dreadful anger the moment Diafer appeared in his presence.
"Go," said he to him, "depart this moment, and never see me again!"
Diafer obeyed, and retired in all the confusion, the sorrow, and the surprise that such a reception must needs give him. He returned to his apartment without being able to imagine the cause of the King's sudden anger, who, in the meantime, held a council, and examined the affairs of his kingdom, without taking any notice of what had passed with him whom he had destined to be his Vizier.
He afterwards repaired to the apartment of Damake, who, already informed of an event which employed the thoughts of the whole Court, doubted not that there was an alteration in the mind of him to whom she was so perfectly attached. The sorrow which this reflection had given her had plunged her into a state so languishing as scarce left her the use of speech. Yet making an effort to conquer herself, she said to him, after some moments' silence,