“Yes, yes,” cried the slaves, “of a certainty thou hast described the dog. The Empress is in a swoon on account of the loss of her favourite and will certainly not recover until Aline is restored to her; tell us, therefore, where thou hast seen the dog!” “I have seen no dog,” replied Abner, “neither was I so much as aware that our Empress possessed one.” Then both the stable men and the slaves of the harem fell to abusing Abner, the shameless Jew, who did not scruple to make game of his Emperor and Empress. They seized him and dragged him before the Emperor and recounted all that had happened, suggesting that most certainly the Jew had seen and stolen the animals in question. The Jew continued to protest his innocence, but all in vain; by way of a beginning he was ordered and received fifty strokes with the bastinado upon the soles of his feet, and after that he was assured that if the horse and the little dog were not recovered he would pay for their loss with his life. The palace was still in a high state of commotion, when a black slave came running in, breathless and exhausted, but bearing the good news that both horse and dog had been found. The horse, fed on the best corn and oats in the Emperor’s stable, had yet preferred his freedom and a bite of grass in a green meadow, where he had been found quietly grazing. As for the little dog, he had been found in the company of a number of mongrels whose society was quite unfit for such an aristocratic little animal as an Empress’ pet. The Emperor now demanded an explanation from Abner as to how he had been able to describe two animals he had never seen. The Jew bowed low before the Emperor and made answer: “I was taking a walk in the cool of the evening in a little wood, where the soil was sandy and loose; presently I noticed the prints of small paws, the right fore-paw print making a slighter impression in the sand than the others, therefore I knew the little animal was lame. One each side of the fore-paw prints there was a slight trail in the sand which proved the animal’s ears had been long and sweeping the ground, and it was impossible to avoid knowing that the tail was long and feathery, for, in an access of joy, probably at the freedom he was enjoying, he had wagged his tail to and fro, and brushed the sand aside. Therefore I knew to a nicety the kind of dog that had passed that way.