Page:Candide Smollett E. P. Dutton.djvu/92

 In the midst of his transports there arrived an officer, followed by the Abbé of Périgord and a file of musketeers.

“There,” said he, “are the two suspected foreigners.”

He had them seized forthwith and bade the soldiers carry them off to prison.

“Travellers are not treated in this manner in El Dorado,” said Candide.

“I am more of a Manichæan now than ever,” said Martin.

“But pray, good Sir, where are you taking us?” asked Candide.

“To a dungeon,” said the officer.

Martin having recovered his calm judged that the lady who pretended tobe Cunegund was a cheat, that the Abbé of Périgord was a sharper, who had imposed upon Candide’s simplicity so quickly as he could, and the officer another knave whom they might easily get rid of.

Candide, following the advice of his friend Martin, and burning with impatience to see the real Cunegund, rather than be obliged to appear at a court of justice, proposed to the officer to make him a present of three small diamonds, each of them worth three thousand pistoles.

“Ah, Sir,” said this understrapper of justice, “had you committed ever so much villainy, this would render you the honestest man living in my eyes. Three diamonds, worth three thousand pistoles. Why, my dear Sir, so far from leading you to jail, I would lose my life to serve you. There are orders to arrest all strangers, but leave it to me. I have a brother at Dieppe in Normandy. I myself will conduct you thither, and if you have a diamond left to give him, he will take as much care of you as I myself should.”

“But why,” said Candide, “do they arrest all strangers?”

The Abbé of Périgord answered that it was because a poor devil of the province of Atrébatie heard somebody tell foolish stories, and this induced him to commit a parricide; not such a one as that in the month of May,, but such as that in the month of December in the year , and such as many that have been perpetrated in other months and years by other poor devils who had heard foolish stories.

The officer then explained to them what the Abbé meant.

“Monsters,” exclaimed Candide. “Is it possible that such horrors should pass among a people who are continually singing and dancing? Is there no immediate means of flying this abominable country, where monkeys provoke tigers? I have seen bears in my country, but men I have beheld nowhere but 1em