"Died!" replied Zegris. "Folks survive other sorts of accidents." "How?" cried Zelmaida. "Can there be a more dreadful one than the indiscretion of a Toy? Well, there is no medium left. One must either renounce gallantry, or resolve to pass for a woman of pleasure." "Indeed," said Mirzoza, "the option is severe." "No, no, madam," replied another lady, "you will see that women will fix their resolution. They will allow Toys to prate as much as they please; and will go their own way, without troubling themselves with what the world shall say. And after all, what does it signify, whether it be a woman's Toy or her lover that proves indiscreet? Are things less exposed?" "Upon a serious consideration of the whole affair," continued a third, "if a woman's adventures must be divulged, 'tis better it should happen by her Toy than her lover." "The notion is singular," said the favorite; "and true," replied she who had broach'd it: "for, pray, observe that a lover is generally dissatisfied, before he becomes indiscreet, and therefore tempted to be revenged by exaggerating every thing: whereas a Toy talks without passion, and adds nothing to the truth." "For my part," said Zelmaida, "I am not of that opinion. In this case it is not so much the importance of the depositions, as the strength of the evidence, that ruins the criminal. A lover, who by his discourse dishonours the Altar, on which he has sacrificed, is a kind of impious person, who deserves no credit: but if the altar lifts up its voice, what answer can be made." "That the altar knows not what it says," replied the second. Monima, hitherto mute, broke silence, in order to say in a dragging, lazy tone: "Ah! let my Altar, since you call it so, speak or be silent, I fear nothing from its talk." Mangogul enter'd that very instant, and Monima's last words did not escape him. He levell'd his Ring at her, and her Toy was heard to cry out: "Do not believe her, she lies." Her female neighbours, gazing at each other, ask'd whose Toy it was that made this answer. "'Tis not mine," said Zelmaida; "nor mine," said another; "nor mine," said Monima; "nor mine," said the Sultan. Every one, and the favorite among the rest, persisted in the negative.