Cethru shook his head:  “My lanthorn seed the rat, maybe!” he muttered.

“Old owl!” said the Captain of the Watch:  “Be careful what you say!  If you saw the rat, why did you then not aid this unhappy citizen who was bitten by it—­first, to avoid that rodent, and subsequently to slay it, thereby relieving the public of a pestilential danger?”

Cethru looked at him, and for some seconds did not reply; then he said slowly:  “I were just passin’ with my lanthorn.”

“That you have already told us,” said the Captain of the Watch; “it is no answer.”

Cethru’s leathern cheeks became wine-coloured, so desirous was he to speak, and so unable.  And the Watch sneered and laughed, saying: 

“This is a fine witness.”

But of a sudden Cethru spoke: 

“What would I be duin’—­killin’ rats; tidden my business to kill rats.”

The Captain of the Watch caressed his beard, and looking at the old man with contempt, said: 

“It seems to me, brothers, that this is an idle old vagabond, who does no good to any one.  We should be well advised, I think, to prosecute him for vagrancy.  But that is not at this moment the matter in hand.  Owing to the accident—­scarcely fortunate—­of this old man’s passing with his lanthorn, it would certainly appear that citizens have been bitten by rodents.  It is then, I fear, our duty to institute proceedings against those poisonous and violent animals.”

And amidst the sighing of the Watch, it was so resolved.

Cethru was glad to shuffle away, unnoticed, from the Court, and sitting down under a camel-date tree outside the City Wall, he thus reflected: 

“They were rough with me!  I done nothin’, so far’s I can see!”

And a long time he sat there with the bunches of the camel-dates above him, golden as the sunlight.  Then, as the scent of the lyric-flowers, released by evening, warned him of the night dropping like a flight of dark birds on the plain, he rose stiffly, and made his way as usual toward the Vita Publica.

He had traversed but little of that black thoroughfare, holding his lanthorn at the level of his breast, when the sound of a splash and cries for help smote his long, thin ears.  Remembering how the Captain of the Watch had admonished him, he stopped and peered about, but owing to his proximity to the light of his own lanthorn he saw nothing.  Presently he heard another splash and the sound of blowings and of puffings, but still unable to see clearly whence they came, he was forced in bewilderment to resume his march.  But he had no sooner entered the next bend of that obscure and winding avenue than the most lamentable, lusty cries assailed him.  Again he stood still, blinded by his own light.  Somewhere at hand a citizen was being beaten, for vague, quick-moving forms emerged into the radiance of his lanthorn out of the deep violet of the night air.  The cries swelled, and died away, and swelled; and the mazed Cethru moved forward on his way.  But very near the end of his first traversage, the sound of a long, deep sighing, as of a fat man in spiritual pain, once more arrested him.