ains that he should be healed.

The physician, seeing that Zardan was in favour with the king, attended
him diligently, and, having right well judged his ease, soon made this
report to the king; "I have been unable to discover any root of disease
in the man: wherefore I suppose that this weakness is to be ascribed to
distress of spirit." But, on hearing his words, the king suspected
that his son had been wroth with Zardan, and that this slight had
caused his retirement. So, wishing to search the matter, he sent
Zardan word, saying "To-morrow I shall come to see thee, and judge of
the malady that hath befallen thee."

But Zardan, on hearing this message, at daybreak wrapt his cloak around
him and went to the king, and entered and fell in obeisance on the
ground. The king spake unto him, "Why hast thou forced thyself to
appear? I was minded to visit thee myself, and so make known to all my
friendship for thee." He answered, "My sickness, O king, is no malady
common to man; but pain of heart, arising from an anxious and careful
mind, hath caused my body to suffer in sympathy. It had been folly in
me, being as I am, not to attend as a slave before thy might, but to
wait for thy Majesty to be troubled to come to me thy servant." Then
the king enquired after the cause of his despondency; Zardan answered
and said, "Mighty is my peril, and mighty are the penalties that I
deserve, and many deaths do I merit, for that I have been guilty of
neglect of thy behests, and have brought on thee such sorrow as never
before."

Again said the king, "And of what neglect hast thou been guilty? And
what is the dread that encompasseth thee?" "I have been guilty," said
he, "of negligence in my close care of my lord thy son. There came an
evil man and a sorcerer, and communicated to him the precepts of the
Christian religion." Then he related to the king, point by point, the
words which the old man spake with his son, and how gladly Ioasaph
received his word, and how he had altogether become Christ's. Moreover
he gave the old man's name, saying that it was Barlaam. Even before
then the king had heard tell of Barlaam's ways and his extreme severity
of life; but, when this came to the ears of the king, he was
straightway astonied by the dismay that fell on him, and was filled
with anger, and his blood well-nigh curdled at the tidings. Immediately
he bade call one Araches, who held the second rank after the king, and
was the chief in