"How is it possible, my lord, that after all the expenses you have been at, and all the cares you took for the arrival of Diafer at your Court—after all the honours you have ordered to be paid him, and those that you have loaded him with, you should receive him so ill?"
"Ah! Damake," cried Nourgehan, "I should have had no regard to all that I have done for him, to his illustrious family, nor to the fatigues that he has suffered in coming so far, if any one but you had recommended him to me. I would have had his head struck off the moment he presented himself before me, and it was wholly in regard to you that I satisfied myself with banishing him from my presence for ever."
"But how did he incur your indignation?" pursued Damake.
"Know, then," resumed Nourgehan, "that when he came up to me he had the most subtle of poisons about him."
"May I ask you, my lord," returned Damake, "what certainty you have of such a fact, and if you may not doubt of the fidelity of him who made you the report?"
Nourgehan replied, "I knew it myself. I permit you to inquire into it, and you will find whether I was mistaken or not."
When Nourgehan had left Damake more reassured as to the heart of the Emperor, though alarmed at the impressions he was capable of taking so lightly, she sent for Diafer, who appeared sunk in the most violent chagrin. She conversed with him for some time, and perceiving how deeply the ill-treatment he had received from the King had plunged the poniard of sorrow into his heart, she said to him that he ought not to afflict himself so much, that the wrath of Nourgehan would be of no long duration, and that he would soon repair the affront that he had publicly given him. She added that Princes had their hasty moments, that ought to be passed by and excused. When she had a little calmed his chagrin, she finished her discourse by saying to him,
"If I have deserved your confidence, if you believe that I shall endeavour to repair the affront you have suffered—since I, by doing justice to your talents, was the innocent cause of that which has happened to you—if I deserve any return from you, vouchsafe to inform me why you had poison about you when you were presented to Nourgehan?"
Diafer, surprised at this question, after having reflected some moments, replied, "True, I had poison with me; but my heart, though I bore it about me, was as pure as the dew of the morning. I even have it now that I speak to you." Saying this, he drew a ring from his finger and presented it to her. "The setting of this ring," said he, "encloses a most subtle poison. It is a treasure that has been preserved in our family from father to son these thousand years. My ancestors have always worn it, to preserve themselves from the anger of those Princes they served, in case they should have had the misfortune to displease them in the exercise of their post of Vizier. You may believe," continued he, "that when the King sent for me, who was wholly unknown to him, to exercise that charge, and conscious of the many enemies a stranger generally meets with, I would not forget to bring this treasure. The sorrow that the cruel behaviour of Nourgehan has given me, and the shame that he has covered me with, render it still more precious to me: it will not be long before I make use of it."
Damake obtained from him that he should delay, at least for some days, this fatal design, and conjured him to wait in his palace till he heard from her.