VI.] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 131 



permitted to open his defence to the court, which he did in the 

 following terms : 



" Stars of justice, abysses of knowledge, mirrors of truth, 

 whose gravity is as that of lead, whose inflexibility is as that of 

 iron, who rival the diamond in clearness, and possess no little 

 affinity with gold ; since I am permitted to address your august 

 assembly, I swear by Ormuzd that I have never seen the respect- 

 able lady dog of the queen, nor beheld the sacrosanct horse of 

 the King of Kings. 



" This is what happened. I was taking a walk towards the 

 little wood near which I subsequently had the honour to meet 

 the venerable chief eunuch and the most illustrious grand hunts- 

 man. I noticed the track of an animal in the sand, and it was 

 easy to see that it was that of a small dog. Long faint streaks 

 upon the little elevations of sand between the footmarks con- 

 vinced me that it was a she dog with pendent dugs, showing 

 that she must have had puppies not many days since. Other 

 scrapings of the sand, which always lay close to the marks of the 

 forepaws, indicated that she had very long ears ; and, as the im- 

 print of one foot was always fainter than those of the other 

 three, I judged that the lady dog of our august Queen was, if I 

 may venture to say so, a little lame. 



" With respect to the horse of the King of Kings, permit me 

 to observe that, wandering through the paths which traverse the 

 wood, I noticed the marks of horse-shoes. They were all equi- 

 distant. 'Ah !' said I, ' this is a famous galloper.' In a narrow 

 alley, only seven feet wide, the dust upon the trunks of the trees 

 was a little disturbed at three feet and a half from the middle 

 of the path. * This horse/ said I to myself, ' had a tail three 

 feet and a half long, and, lashing it from one side to the other, 

 he has swept away the dust.' Branches of the trees met over- 

 head at the height of five feet, and under them I saw newly 

 fallen leaves ; so I knew that the horse had brushed some of the 

 branches, and was therefore five feet high. As to his bit, it 

 must have been made of twenty-three carat gold, for he had 

 rubbed it against a stone, which turned out to be a touchstone, 

 with the properties of which I am familiar by experiment. 

 Lastly, by the marks which his shoes left upon pebbles of another 

 kind, I was led to think that his shoes were of fine silver." 



