Next night the husband returned, and examined the parrot again about what had passed during his absence.  The bird answered, Good master, the lightning, thunder, and rain, did so much disturb me all night, that I cannot tell how much I suffered by it.  The husband, who knew that there had been neither thunder, lightning, nor rain that night, fancied that the parrot, not having told him the truth in this, might also have lied to him in the other; upon which he took it out of the cage, and threw it with so much force to the ground that he killed it; yet afterwards he understood, by his neighbours, that the poor parrot had not lied to him when it gave him an account of his wife’s base conduct, which made him repent that he had killed it.  Scheherazade stopped here, because she saw it was day.

All that you tell us, sister, says Dinarzade is so curious, that nothing can be more agreeable.  I shall be willing to divert you, answers Scheherazade, if the sultan, my master, will allow me time to do it.  Schahriar, who took as much pleasure to hear the sultaness as Dinarzade, rose, and went about his affairs, without ordering the vizier to cut her off.

The Fifteenth Night.

Dinarzade was punctual this night, as she had been the former, to awake her sister, and begged of her, as usual, to tell her a story.  I am going to do it, sister, says Scheherazade; but the sultan interrupted her, for fear she should begin a new story, and bid her finish the discourse between the Grecian king and his vizier about his physician Douban.  Sir, says Scheherazade, I will obey you, and went on with the story as follows.

When the Grecian king, says the fisherman to the genie, had finished the story of the parrot; and you, vizier, adds he, because of the hatred you bear to the physician Douban, who never did you any hurt, you would have me cut him off; but I will take care of that, for fear I should repent it, as the husband did the killing of his parrot.

The mischievous vizier was too much concerned to effect the ruin of the physician Douban to stop here.  Sir, says he, the death of the parrot was but a trifle, and I believe his master did not mourn for him long.  But why should your fear of wronging an innocent man hinder your putting this physician to death?  Is it not enough that he is accused of a design against your life to authorize you to take away his?  When the business in question is to secure the life of a king, bare suspicion ought to pass for certainty; and it is better to sacrifice the innocent than to spare the guilty.  But, sir, this is not an uncertain thing; the physician Douban has certainly a mind to assassinate you.  It is not envy which makes me his enemy; it is only the zeal and concern I have for preserving your majesty’s life, that make me give you my advice in a matter of this importance.  If it be false, I deserve to be punished in the same manner as a vizier was formerly punished.  What had that vizier done, says the Grecian king, to deserve punishment?  I will inform your majesty of that, says the vizier, if you will be pleased to hear me.