on account of his insignificance, to go wherever he pleased, and, as a domestic animal, was a witness of what passed in the most profound secrecy.  This little mute was strongly attached to the queen and Zadig.  With equal horror and surprise he heard the cruel orders given.  But how to prevent the fatal sentence that in a few hours was to be carried into execution!  He could not write, but he could paint; and excelled particularly in drawing a striking resemblance.  He employed a part of the night in sketching out with his pencil what he meant to impart to the queen.  The piece represented the king in one corner, boiling with rage, and giving orders to the eunuch; a bowstring, and a bowl on a table; the queen in the middle of the picture, expiring in the arms of her woman, and Zadig strangled at her feet The horizon, represented a rising sun, to express that this shocking execution was to be performed in the morning.  As soon as he had finished the picture he ran to one of Astarte’s women, awakened her, and made her understand that she must immediately carry it to the queen.

At midnight a messenger knocks at Zadig’s door, awakes him, and gives him a note from the queen.  He doubts whether it is a dream; and opens the letter with a trembling hand.  But how great was his surprise! and who can express the consternation and despair into which he was thrown upon reading these words:  “Fly this instant, or thou art a dead man.  Fly, Zadig, I conjure thee by our mutual love and my yellow ribbons.  I have not been guilty, but I find I must die like a criminal.”

Zadig was hardly able to speak.  He sent for Cador, and, without uttering a word, gave him the note.  Cador forced him to obey, and forthwith to take the road to Memphis.  “Shouldst thou dare,” said he, “to go in search of the queen, thou wilt hasten her death.  Shouldst thou speak to the king, thou wilt infallibly ruin her.  I will take upon me the charge of her destiny; follow thy own.  I will spread a report that thou hast taken the road to India.  I will soon follow thee, and inform thee of all that shall have passed in Babylon.”  At that instant, Cador caused two of the swiftest dromedaries to be brought to a private gate of the palace.  Upon one of these he mounted Zadig, whom he was obliged to carry to the door, and who was ready to expire with grief.  He was accompanied by a single domestic; and Cador, plunged in sorrow and astonishment, soon lost sight of his friend.

This illustrious fugitive arriving on the side of a hill, from whence he could take a view of Babylon, turned his eyes toward the queen’s palace, and fainted away at the sight; nor did he recover his senses but to shed a torrent of tears and to wish for death.  At length, after his thoughts had been long engrossed in lamenting the unhappy fate of the loveliest woman and the greatest queen in the world, he for a moment turned his views on himself and cried:  “What then is human life?  O virtue, how hast thou served