BY the way Zadig comforted his servant, and exhorted him to patience; but he could not help making, according to his usual custom, some reflections on human life.  “I see,” said he, “that the unhappiness of my fate hath an influence on thine.  Hitherto everything has turned out to me in a most unaccountable manner.  I have been condemned to pay a fine for having seen the marks of a spaniel’s feet.  I thought that I should once have been impaled on account of a griffin.  I have been sent to execution for having made some verses in praise of the king.  I have been upon the point of being strangled because the queen had yellow ribbons; and now I am a slave with thee, because a brutal wretch beat his mistress.  Come, let us keep a good heart; all this perhaps will have an end.  The Arabian merchants must necessarily have slaves; and why not me as well as another, since, as well as another, I am a man?  This merchant will not be cruel; he must treat his slaves well, if he expects any advantage from them.”  But while he spoke thus, his heart was entirely engrossed by the fate of the Queen of Babylon.

Two days after, the merchant Setoc set out for Arabia Deserta, with his slaves and his camels.  His tribe dwelt near the Desert of Oreb.  The journey was long and painful.  Setoc set a much greater value on the servant than the master, because the former was more expert in loading the camels; and all the little marks of distinction were shown to him.  A camel having died within two days’ journey of Oreb, his burden was divided and laid on the backs of the servants; and Zadig had his share among the rest.

Setoc laughed to see all his slaves walking with their bodies inclined.  Zadig took the liberty to explain to him the cause, and inform him of the laws of the balance.  The merchant was astonished, and began to regard him with other eyes.  Zadig, finding he had raised his curiosity, increased it still further by acquainting him with many things that related to commerce, the specific gravity of metals, and commodities under an equal bulk; the properties of several useful animals; and the means of rendering those useful that are not naturally so.  At last Setoc began to consider Zadig as a sage, and preferred him to his companion, whom he had formerly so much esteemed.  He treated him well and had no cause to repent of his kindness.

THE STONE

As soon as Setoc arrived among his own tribe he demanded the payment of five hundred ounces of silver, which he had lent to a Jew in presence of two witnesses; but as the witnesses were dead, and the debt could not be proved, the Hebrew appropriated the merchant’s money to himself, and piously thanked God for putting it in his power to cheat an Arabian.  Setoc imparted this troublesome affair to Zadig, who was now become his counsel.

“In what place,” said Zadig, “didst thou lend the five hundred ounces to this infidel?”