“I was not so entranced by the natural beauty of the scene as to neglect the duty which this sound recalled. I fell immediately upon my knees and was careful to add to the accustomed prayers of that hour my heart-felt thanks for the Guidance and the Grace which had so singularly increased my fortunes in the last few hours.
“As I rose from these devotions I heard upon my right a low wailing sound and was astonished to discover there, seated hopelessly beneath a small shrub and waving his hands in grief, a young man of much my own height and appearance: but I flatter myself that not even in my most careful assumptions of innocence have I ever worn such a booby face.
“He was swaying slowly from side to side, and as he did so moaning a ceaseless plaint, the words of which I caught and which touched me to the heart. Over and over again he recited his irreparable loss. He had but that small sum! It was his patrimony! His sole security! How should he answer for it? who should now support him? or what should he do?
“So he wailed to himself in miserable monotone till I could bear it no longer, for I saw that I had by a singular coincidence come upon that poor young man whose pouch I had been given in error by the magistrate of the city.
“I bowed before him. He noticed me listlessly enough and asked me what I would. I told him I thought I could give him comfort. Was it not he, said I, who had left a certain pouch (I carefully described it) containing sundry coins upon a prayer-stone outside the city at this very same sunset hour of the day before? His despair was succeeded by a startling eagerness. He leapt to his feet, seized my arm, rose feverishly and implored me to tell him further.
“‘Alas,’ I said, ‘what I have to tell you is but little! I fear to raise your hopes too high—but at any rate I can put you upon the track of your property.’
“‘Sir,’ said he, resuming his hopeless tone for a moment, ‘I have already done my best. I went to the Chief Magistrate of the city to claim it and was met by an officer of his who told me that the purse had already been delivered to its owner, suspected my claim and bade me return. But how shall I prove that it is mine, or how, indeed, receive it, since the abominable thief who took possession of it must by now be already far away?’
“‘You do him an injustice,’ said I. ‘It is precisely of him whom you uncharitably call a thief that I would speak to you. You think that he is far away, whereas he is really at your hand whenever you choose to act, for this is the message that I bring you. He awaits you even now, and if you will present yourself to him he will restore your property.’
“‘How can you know this?’ said the young man, gazing at me doubtfully. ‘By what coincidence have you any knowledge of the affair?’