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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. But when notice of death was served on him the following day, he thought better of the matter, concluding it was wiser to live without the stick, than to die with it. He, therefore, sent to the king, begging to make a private communication, and disclosed the secret to him. The king would not credit his confession; but Little Muck promised a test of the stick’s power, if the king would grant him his life. The king gave him his word on it, and, unseen by Muck, had some gold buried in the garden, and then ordered Muck to find it. After a few moments hunt, Muck’s stick struck three times on the ground. This assured the king that his treasurer had deceived him, and he therefore sent him–as is customary in the Levant–a silken cord, with which to strangle himself. But to Little Muck he said: “It is true that I promised to spare your life, but as I believe that you possess more than one secret in connection with this stick, you will be imprisoned for life, unless you confess what connection there is between this stick and your fast running.”

Little Muck, whose experience for a single night in the tower had given him no desire for a longer imprisonment, acknowledged that his whole art lay in the slippers; still he did not inform the king about the three turns on the heel. The king tried on the slippers himself, in order to test them, and run about the garden like a madman, making many attempts to stop, but he did not know how to bring the slippers to a stand-still, and Little Muck, who could not forego this bit of revenge, let him run around till he fell senseless.

When the king recovered consciousness, he was fearfully enraged at Little Muck, who had run him out of breath. “I have pledged my word to give you life and liberty, but if you are within my territory in twelve hours, I will have you imprisoned!” As for the stick and slippers, he had them locked up in his treasury.