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Two weeks later I met the King's physicians in Marduk's tower, where we sacrificed a sheep together and the priests examined its liver; in Babylon the priests consult the livers of sacrificial beasts, interpreting therefrom much that is hidden from others. They told us that the King would be exceedingly wroth but that no man would lose his life because of it or suffer lasting hurt, though we must beware of claws and spears. Next we bade the astronomers consult the Book of the Heavens to learn whether the day was auspicious for this undertaking. They told us that the day was not unfavorable although we might have chosen a better. Next the priests at our request poured oil into water and in this sought to read the future. Having surveyed the oil, they said they saw nothing remarkable--or at least nothing of ill omen. As we left the temple, a vulture flew over us carrying in its claws a human head it had snatched from the wall. This the priests interpreted as a favorable sign--though to me it appeared very far from that.
Warned by the auguries, we dismissed the King's guard and shut the lion out, for when the King became angered, he might have set it upon us, to rend us, as the physicians declared had been known to happen. But King Burnaburiash came stoutly in, having fortified his liver with wine--as they say in Babylon--though when he saw the dentist's chair that had been conveyed to the palace he turned extremely pale and said that he had important affairs of state to see to, which he had forgotten while drinking.
He made as if to go, but while the other physicians lay face downward upon the floor, wiping it with their mouths, I seized the King's hand and encouraged him, saying that all would speedily be over if he would only have courage. I ordered the doctors to cleanse themselves, and I purified the dentist's instruments in the fire of the scarab, then rubbed numbing salves into the boy's gum till he commanded me to stop, saying that his cheek was like wood and he could no longer move his tongue. Then we set him in the chair, binding his head to it and putting wedges in his mouth so that he could not close it. I held his hands and cheered him, the dentist audibly invoked all the gods of Babylon to aid him and, putting the forceps into the boy's mouth, whipped out the tooth more deftly than I have ever seen it done. Despite the gags the King yelled in a terrible manner, and the lion began roaring outside the door, hurling itself against it till it creaked and scratching at it with its claws.
It was a terrifying moment, for when we had unbound the boy's head and taken the wedges from his jaws, he spat blood into a dish, shrieking and yelling, with the tears pouring down his face. He roared that his bodyguard should put us all to death; he called his lion and kicked over the holy fire and beat his physician with a stick till I took it from him and bade him rinse his mouth. This he did while the physicians lay at his feet quaking in every limb, and the dentist thought that his last hour was come. But the King quieted down and drank some wine, though with a wry mouth, and asked me to divert him as I had promised.
We went into the great banqueting hail, for the room in which the tooth had been drawn was no longer pleasing to the King. Indeed, he intended to close it forever and call it the Accursed Room. I poured water into a vessel and let the King and the other doctors taste it and satisfy themselves that it was, indeed, ordinary water. Next I poured the water slowly into another vessel, and as it ran into this, it was transmuted into blood so that the King and his physicians cried aloud in dismay.
After this the King rewarded his physicians richly and made the dentist a wealthy man, and he sent them all away. But he bade me stay, and I taught him how to change water into blood, giving him some of the substance that must be mixed with the water to bring the miracle about. It is a simple matter as everyone famili…
