ast, becoming weary,
resumed his travels, until emerging from the wilderness he entered the
dominions of the King of Ayodhya. His extraordinary appearance speedily
attracted the attention of the royal officers, by whom he was apprehended
and brought before his majesty.

"It is evident," pronounced the monarch, after bestowing his attention on
the case, "that thou art in possession of an object too rare and precious
for a private individual, of which thou must accordingly be deprived. I
lament the inconvenience thou wilt sustain. I would it had been thy hand or
thy foot."

Sorianus acknowledged the royal considerateness, but pleaded the
indefeasible right of property which he conceived himself to have acquired
in his own head.

"In respect," responded the royal logician, "that thy head is conjoined to
thy shoulders, it is thine; but in respect that it is purple, it is mine,
purple being a royal monopoly. Thy claim is founded on anatomy, mine on
jurisprudence. Shall matter prevail over mind? Shall medicine, the most
uncertain of sciences, override law, the perfection of human reason? It is
but to the vulgar observation that thou appearest to have a head at all; in
the eye of the law thou art acephalous."

"I would submit," urged the philosopher, "that the corporal connection of
my head with my body is an essential property, the colour of it a
fortuitous accident."

"Thou mightest as well contend," returned the king, "that the law is bound
to regard thee in thy abstract condition as a human being, and is disabled
from taking cognisance of thy acquired capacity of smuggler--rebel, I
might say, seeing that thou hast assumed the purple."

"But the imputation of cruelty which might attach to your majesty's
proceedings?"

"There can be no cruelty where there is no injustice. If any there be, it
must be on thy part, since, as I have demonstrated, so far from my
despoiling thee of thy head, it is thou who iniquitously withholdest mine.
I will labour to render this even clearer to thy apprehension. Thou art
found, as thou must needs admit, in possession of a contraband article
forfeit to the crown by operation of law. What then? Shall the intention of
the legislature be frustrated because thou hast insidiously rendered the
possession of _my_ property inseparable from the possession of _thine_?
Shall I, an innocent proprietor, be mulcted of my right by thy fraud and
covin? Justice howls, righteousness weeps, integrity sta