The principal huntsman and the first eunuch never doubted but that Zadig had stolen the king’s horse and the queen’s spaniel.  They therefore had him conducted before the assembly of the grand desterham, who condemned him to the knout, and to spend the rest of his days in Siberia.  Hardly was the sentence passed when the horse and the spaniel were both found.  The judges were reduced to the disagreeable necessity of reversing their sentence; but they condemned Zadig to pay four hundred ounces of gold for having said that he had not seen what he had seen.  This fine he was obliged to pay; after which he was permitted to plead his cause before the counsel of the grand desterham, when he spoke to the following effect: 

“Ye stars of justice, abyss of sciences, mirrors of truth, who have the weight of lead, the hardness of iron, the splendor of the diamond, and many properties of gold:  Since I am permitted to speak before this august assembly, I swear to you by Oramades that I have never seen the queen’s respectable spaniel, nor the sacred horse of the king of kings.  The truth of the matter was as follows:  I was walking toward the little wood, where I afterwards met the venerable eunuch, and the most illustrious chief huntsman.  I observed on the sand the traces of an animal, and could easily perceive them to be those of a little dog.  The light and long furrows impressed on little eminences of sand between the marks of the paws plainly discovered that it was a female, whose dugs were hanging down, and that therefore she must have whelped a few days before.  Other traces of a different kind, that always appeared to have gently brushed the surface of the sand near the marks of the forefeet, showed me that she had very long ears; and as I remarked that there was always a slighter impression made on the sand by one foot than the other three, I found that the spaniel of our august queen was a little lame, if I may be allowed the expression.

“With regard to the horse of the king of kings, you will be pleased to know that, walking in the lanes of this wood, I observed the marks of a horse’s shoes, all at equal distances.  This must be a horse, said I to myself, that gallops excellently.  The dust on the trees in the road that was but seven feet wide was a little brushed off, at the distance of three feet and a half from the middle of the road.  This horse, said I, has a tail three feet and a half long, which being whisked to the right and left, has swept away the dust.  I observed under the trees that formed an arbor five feet in height, that the leaves of the branches were newly fallen; from whence I inferred that the horse had touched them, and that he must therefore be five feet high.  As to his bit, it must be gold of twenty-three carats, for he had rubbed its bosses against a stone which I knew to be a touchstone, and which I have tried.  In a word, from the marks made by his shoes on flints of another kind, I concluded that he was shod with silver eleven deniers fine.”