Yûsuf Effendi, Câdi of El Cûds, was sullen and discontented, in the mood to strike his best friend. An hour ago a scribbled note from the Mutesarrif had dashed the complacency with which he sat listening to a case of fraud between a Jew and a Greek, having garnered more than the sum sued for in bribes from either party. The court had to be cleared, judgment given hastily, when he loved deliberation and the dainty quibbling of the pleaders before him. Other cases, no less profitable, had to be adjourned—rich plaintiffs and defendants driven forth with the money in their hands; and all in favor of a cause prejudged by his superior—a political cause for which no gifts could be received, no advocates employed—at the behest of an unclean beast, the English consul. “It is imperative that the delinquents die ere sunset. Make some show of trial. Shut the door.” There was no evading the clear orders of one on whose will he depended for rank and honor. Yet he would fain have shirked the responsibility, for in a fat and easy way he feared God. Though he received gifts, of course, from all and sundry, in giving judgment he knew no influence save the rights of the case. He was no roving, conscienceless official to level foul with clean, but a man of fixed abode and consequent respectability, who, though urbane in his dealings with the infidels, esteemed them no more than dogs in his way to business. This charge to do the dirty work of a Frank humiliated him. It galled his pride, also, to have to endure the familiarity and regard the hints of a low-born Christian of his own city, who actually had the impudence to sit at his right hand, in the place of honor. Yûsuf would fain have invoked the Mûfti, as usual in cases of religious difference; but, knowing the anxiety of the governor that the trial should be hid especially from the mosque authorities, he dared not do so. He groaned in soul: “O day of evil! Is it not enough that I, who had ever enjoyed the security which belongs to respect, have been robbed of my rents, stripped, and foully insulted within this week? Must I afterwards jeopardize my salvation at the call of the wicked?” The inflow of so many prisoners as almost to fill the hall caused the judge to discern faint rays of hope. It could be necessary to condemn only a few of them; and the rest, in the rapture of escape, might well make thank offerings to their preserver. He turned from converse with the noisome beast beside him to whisper in his scribe’s ear: “Write: How many are to die? and address to his Highness the Mutesarrif.” The scribe straightway wrote as commanded, while the Nazarene, sweetly smiling, craned his neck in a vain attempt to spy what was written. The note was given to an attendant who, crying, “Oäh! Oäh!” pushed his way to the door.