to be conducted back to prison.

The seventh day had just appeared since the condemnation of the young
Aladin had been so often deferred. It was the time of a festival. The
grandees, the courtiers, and the nobility of the kingdom were
assembled around the throne, a duty they were obliged to fulfil. The
ten Viziers had all their creatures there. Some of these, authorized
by the duties of their station, undertook to speak to the King
against the Superintendent, by repeating all the strongest and most
deceitful things that had been said, in order to bring the Sovereign
to the resolution of exercising against this convicted criminal all
the severity of justice. They finished by insinuating that, being
descended from robbers, nothing was to be expected from him but
crimes. Every one appeared to support these assertions by looks and
gestures.

The unanimity of these advices, in appearance so disinterested, shook
the monarch once more. He thought himself obliged to acknowledge these
marks of zeal by thanks, and to justify the irresolution of his
conduct. "I do not mean," he said, "that the wicked should remain
unpunished, but I would wish that the criminal himself, convinced that
he has merited death, should be forced to acknowledge the equity of
the judgment by which he is condemned."

After this observation he ordered the criminal, who was still loaded
with irons, to be brought before him.

"Audacious young man!" said he to him, "you see around me the
representatives of my nation, to whom the continuance of your life is
a grievance. It is only by your death that the murmurings of my people
can be appeased."

"Sire," replied Aladin, with respect and dignity, "as to the crime
with which so many voices seem to accuse me, and with whose vengeance
I am pursued, I throw it always far from me, even to the shadow of
suspicion. If the nation were here worthily represented, its voice
would be the voice of God, and would be lifted up in favour of my
innocence. This voice, to whose sound every one is deaf at this
moment, yet resounds at the bottom of your Majesty's heart. The fowler
has less power to smother with his hands the bird which he holds in
them, than you have to take away my life. Your clemency alone would
not have led you to have deliberated so long, if the finger of Allah
did not weigh in your heart the atrocity of the imputations with which
I am charged, and if the power of the star which rules my fortune were
not op