Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/424

412 maturely what event it may produce. Nevertheless, for want of observing this rule, we engage every day in affairs of ill consequence. For my part, I value very much the dervise's advice. I will always bear it in my mind, and command it to be written in letters of gold on every door of my palace, on the walls, and on the goods; and that it be engraved on all my plate;' which was done accordingly.

"In a short time after this, a great lord of the court, urged on by ambition rather than any cause he had to complain of that prince, resolved to deprive him both of his crown and life. To this end, he found means to get a poisoned lancet, and, applying himself to the king's surgeon, said to him, 'If thou wilt bleed the king with this lancet, here are ten thousand crowns in gold, which I give thee as a present. As soon as thou hast done the business, the throne is mine. I have already projected the means to mount it; and I promise thee, that, when I am king, I will make thee my grand vizier, and that thou shalt partake with me in the sovereign power.' The surgeon, blinded with the advantage of the proposal the great man had made him, accepted of it without the least hesitation. He received the ten thousand crowns in hand, and put the