The Viziers were enraged. Delay might discover the truth, through the cloud under which they had concealed it. As they jointly endeavoured to conceal the stratagems they had devised in secret, the third among them went early the next day to the palace.
The King inquired if the interval that had elapsed had produced no new light.
"Sire," replied this minister, "the police which, under your Majesty's orders, we exercise, maintains the peace of your capital, and all would be perfectly quiet if the throne were avenged of the outrage of this son of a villain, whose punishment your Majesty still delays. The people are murmuring at it, and I should have thought myself wanting in my duty had I concealed from you their uneasiness, the consequences of which may be dangerous. It is never too soon to prevent a rebellion, and that which is now forming would be extremely fatal."
Constrained by these observations, the King commanded the criminal to be brought before him.
"Unhappy man!" said he to him, "thou shalt never summon me to the tribunal of Heaven for having hastened thy punishment. I have listened to all the weak shifts by which thou hast defended thyself. I have weighed their value. But reserve and circumspection have an end. My people murmur. Their patience and mine is exhausted. Heaven and earth look to me for justice, and thou hast reached thy last moment."
"Sire," replied the modest Aladin, "do the people look for an example of your justice? Impatience is the fault of the people. But patience ought always to sit upon the throne, amidst the virtues which form its basis and safety. This virtue, necessary to all, and which calls upon us for that resignation which we owe to the eternal decrees, raised the patient Abosaber from the bottom of a well even to the throne."
"Who is this Abosaber?" asked the King. "Give me a short account of his history."
THE HISTORY OF ABOSABER THE PATIENT.
Sire (said Aladin), Abosaber, surnamed the Patient, was a wealthy and generous man, who lived in a village which he rendered happy by his charities. He was hospitable and beneficent to the poor, and every one that applied to him. His granaries were full, his ploughs were continually at work, his flocks covered the plains, and he maintained plenty in the country. He had a wife and two children, and the happiness of this way of life was disturbed by nothing but the devastations of a monstrous lion, which ravaged the stables and folds belonging to the peaceful cultivators of these happy regions, according to its necessities and those of its young.