Archaz,
the treasurer, who fell upon him at the very moment when he was
removing the gold from the pot, bound him, and took him straight before
the king. The king, who felt cross enough at having his slumber
disturbed, received his confidential chief body-messenger very
ungraciously, and at once began an examination of the case. The pot had
been dug from the earth, and, together with the spade and the cloak
full of gold, was placed at the king's feet. The treasurer stated that,
with his watchman, he had surprised Muck in the very act of burying
this pot full of gold in the ground.

The king asked the accused if this were true, and where he had got the
gold. Little Muck, conscious of his innocence, replied that he had
discovered it in the garden, and that he was attempting to dig it up,
and not to bury it. All present laughed loudly at his defense, but the
king, extremely enraged at what he believed to be the cool effrontery
of the dwarf, cried: "What, wretch! Do you persist in lying so
shamelessly to your king, after stealing from him? Treasurer Archaz, I
call upon you to say whether you recognize this as the amount of money
that is missing from my treasury?" The treasurer answered that, for his
part, he was sure that this much, and still more, had been missing from
the royal treasury for some time, and he would take his oath that this
was part of the stolen money. The king thereupon commanded that Little
Muck should be put in chains, and thrown into the tower; and handed the
money over to his treasurer to put back into the treasury.

Rejoiced at the fortunate outcome of the affair, the treasurer
withdrew, and counted over the gold pieces at home; but this wicked man
never once noticed, that in the bottom of the pot lay a scrap of paper,
on which was written: "The enemy has over-run my country, and therefore
I bury here a part of my treasure; whoever finds it will receive the
curse of a king if he does not at once deliver it to my son.--_King
Sadi_."

Little Muck, in his prison, was a prey to the most melancholy
reflections. He knew that the penalty for robbery of royal property was
death; and yet he hesitated to reveal to the king the magical powers of
his stick, because he rightly feared that it, and his slippers, would
then be taken away from him. But neither could his slippers give him
any aid in his present condition, for he was chained so closely to the
wall that, try as he might, he could not turn on his heel