“How savage he is he unfortunately proved on the person of the poor Persian slave; and his watchfulness is known to all the household,” cried Orion.

“But I would beg you, worthy merchant,” said Neforis, “and in the name of all present, to give us the help of your experience.  I myself—­wait a little wait:  in spite of her long hair and her short wits a woman often has a happy idea.  I, probably, was the first to come on the robber’s track.  It is clear that he must belong to the household since the dog did not attack him.  Paula, who was so wonderfully quick in coming to the rescue of the Persian, is of course not to be thought of. . .”

Here her husband interrupted her with an angry exclamation:  “Leave the girl quite out of the question wife!”

“As if I supposed her to be the thief!” retorted Neforis indignantly, and she shrugged her shoulders as Orion, in mild reproach, also cried:  “Mother! consider. . . .” and the merchant asked: 

“Do you mean the young girl from whom I had to take such hard words last night?—­Well, then, I will stake my whole fortune on her innocence.  That beautiful, passionate creature is incapable of any underhand dealings.”

“Passionate!” Neforis smiled.  “Her heart is as cold and as hard as the lost emerald; we have proved that by experience.”

“Nevertheless,” said Orion, “she is incapable of baseness.”

“How zealous men can be for a pair of fine eyes!” interrupted his mother.  “But I have not the most remote suspicion of her; I have something quite different in my mind.  A pair of man’s shoes were found lying by the wounded girl.  Did you do what my lord Orion ordered, Sebek?”

“At once, Mistress,” replied the steward, “and I have been expecting the captain of the watch for some time; for Psamtik. . . .”

But here he was interrupted:  the officer in question, who for more than twenty years had commanded the Mukaukas’ guard of honor, was shown into the room; after answering a few preliminary enquiries he began his report in a voice so loud that it hurt the governor, and his wife was obliged to request the soldier to speak more gently.

The bloodhounds and terriers had been let out after being allowed to smell at the shoes, and a couple of them had soon found their way to the side-door where Hiram had waited for Paula.  There they paused, sniffing about on all sides, and had then jumped up a few steps.

“And those stairs lead to Paula’s room,” observed Neforis with a shrug.

“But they were on a false scent,” the officer eagerly added.  “The little toads might have thrown suspicion on an innocent person.  The curs immediately after rushed into the stables, and ran up and down like Satan after a lost soul.  The pack had soon pulled down the boy—­the son of the freedman who came here from Damascus with the daughter of the great Thomas—­and they went quite mad in his father’s room:  Heaven