'Yes,' replied the negress. 'Rustan is very affectionate. He says that I am his Zoë, his "life," because he would surely die of starvation without me!'
'Yes,' replied the negress. 'Rustan is very affectionate. He says that I am his Zoë, his "life," because he would surely die of starvation without me!'
Her thoughts had flown back to the deed of justice she meant to do if she should ever be near the Emperor Andronicus; and if Areté had come later to mean virtue, it had meant courage first, manly, unflinching courage; and as Zoë was only a Greek girl and not a German professor, she naturally supposed that Areté was the very word from which Arethusa was derived.
'It is a fine name,' observed her gaoler obsequiously.
'And what shall I call you?' asked Zoë.
'I am Kyría Karaboghazji.' The negress tossed her flaming head and smiled with satisfied vanity. 'My husband calls me Zoë,' she added, with an amazing smirk, and some affectation of shyness.
'Zoë!' The high-born girl repeated her own name in genuine astonishment.
'Yes,' replied the negress. 'Rustan is very affectionate. He says that I am his Zoë, his "life," because he would surely die of starvation without me!'
'I see,' said the Greek girl.
She would not have believed that before lying down in her prison that night she would be forced to make an effort to suppress a laugh.
'And now it is growing late,' said the negress again, 'and Rustan is wondering why I do not come to comb his beard and smooth his pillow, and prepare his drink for the night. Good-night, Kokóna Arethusa! May Holy Charalambos send you dreams of delight!'
'And to you also, Kyría Karaboghazji,' Zoë answered, though the form of the woman's salutation was new to her.
The negress went out, still much pleased with herself, and swaying her massive hips as she walked. She shut the door, and Zoë heard the big key move in the lock.
The two slave-girls had stood at a respectful distance throughout the conversation, their hands crossed submissively and their eyes bent on the floor, for Rustan's wife had already taught them manners in order to improve their price. But she was no sooner gone than they looked at each other, and their lips began to twitch nervously; in another moment they were both seized with a convulsion of silent laughter. They shook from head to foot, they held their sides, they bent and swayed, and twisted their hands together, but not a sound escaped their lips. Beyond this, they could not control their mirth, and while they laughed they looked anxiously at Zoë.
She herself could not help smiling when she thought of the negress's enormous self-satisfaction, but presently she shook her head at the girls and laid her finger on her lips. Their amusement subsided quickly, for though she seemed kind, they knew what they had to expect if one word from her should expose them to the negress's displeasure.
Zoë was very tired, now that the great sacrifice was made, and she let the slave-girls help her as much as they would. They even made her eat something and drinka little water. Now and then, when they looked up at her, she patted them on the shoulder and smiled faintly, but her thoughts were far away in the ruined house in the beggars' quarter. When the girls had helped her in the bath and had dried her feet that had been stained with mud and blue with the cold, they chafed them with their hands and kissed them.
'They are like two little white mice!' said Yulia, laughing softly.
'No, they are like young doves!' said Lucilla.
And they each slipped one of her feet into a slipper of deerskin; and then they clothed her for the night, in fine dry linen and a small green silk jacket. They were skilful with their hands though they were still so young, and she let them do what they thought she needed, and lay down at last, to be covered and tucked in as warmly and comfortably as when Kyría Agatha used to put her to bed, before the boys had been born and had taken her place.
In a few minutes the little maids had put out the lamp, leaving only the small light in the bath; then they noiselessly devoured all the sweetmeats left on the table, after which they curled themselves upon the carpet under their blankets and were asleep in a moment, like young animals.
For a few moments Zoë still tried to think; tired though she was, she hated herself for being able to rest in such comfort while Kyría Agatha was perhaps awake under her pile of rags, and Nectaria was hugging the straw to keep a little warmth in her old body. But thenshe thought of the morrow, and of all that Nectaria would do with the gold for the sick woman and the little boys, and in this soothing reflexion she was borne softly away out of this world of slavery, through the ivory gates to the infinite gardens of dreamland.
She was waked by the sunshine streaming into the room through the window, and as she opened her eyes she saw the iron bars, and remembered where she was. She sighed, for she had been happy in her sleep. The girls were sitting cross-legged on the carpet, side by side, at a little distance, silently awaiting her pleasure. She turned her head on the pillow and lay on one side, looking at their small dark faces; but she did not speak to them yet. They were very much alike, she thought, commonplace girls, differing so little from thousands of other young slaves in the great city, that it would be hard for her to recognise them, if she should not see them for a few days. They would be disposed of soon, of course, for there was always a demand for healthy young house slaves who had been properly taught. She envied them their homely features, their coarse black hair, their angular figures, their sallow cheeks, and their cunning little black eyes. They could only be sold as workers. All her life Zoë had heard the price of house-slaves discussed, even more freely than the price of clothes or jewels, and she knew that neither of the girls was worth more than five-and-twenty ducats. She wondered what Rustan meant to ask for herself; he would certainly not demand less than double the sum he had paid.
While she was reflecting on these questions, and wishing all the time that she might have news of Kyría Agatha during the day, the big key moved in the Persian lock. The two girls sprang to their feet and stood in a respectful attitude, Zoë turned her eyes as she heard the sound, the door opened, and the negress's flaming head appeared in the sunlight. She saw that Zoë was awake, and she entered the room, shutting the door behind her. She greeted her valuable prisoner in the half-familiar, half-obsequious tone she had adopted from the first, asking her how she had slept, and whether the little maids had done their duty. The latter question was accompanied by a fierce look at the two girls. Zoë answered that they were most skilful and well behaved. The negress looked at the remains of the supper on the table.
'So the Kokóna Arethusa is fond of sweetmeats,' she observed. 'She eats only a mouthful from one bird and all the sugar-plums!'
Zoë was on the point of uttering an exclamation of surprised denial, when she met the terrified eyes of the two slave-girls and checked herself with a smile.
'I am very fond of sweets,' she answered carelessly.
The black woman seemed satisfied and turned from the table. She opened the wardrobe next, and selected what she considered the handsomest of the dresses that lay folded on the shelves within. Zoë watched her curiously. She unfolded garments of apple-green silk, and one of peach-coloured Persian velvet embroideredwith silver, with a sash of plaited green silk and gold threads. The two girls took the things from her and laid them out.
'Surely,' Zoë said, 'you do not wish me to wear those clothes!'
'They are very good clothes,' observed the negress coaxingly. 'Look at this velvet coat! There are even seed-pearls in the embroidery, and it is quite new and fresh. My husband bought it from the Blachernæ palace, when Handsome John was imprisoned. It belonged to one of the favourite ladies. The slaves who ran away stole all the things and sold them.'
'I would rather wear something plainer,' said Zoë; but at the mention of the captive Emperor her brown eyes had grown very dark and hard, and her voice almost trembled.
'Kokóna Arethusa must look her best this morning,' objected Rustan's wife. 'She will receive a visit.'
Zoë started a little, and instinctively drew the bed-clothes up to her chin.
'Already!' she exclaimed in a low tone.
The negress grinned from ear to ear.
'The Kokóna will perhaps not spend another night under our humble roof,' she said. 'I do not know anything certainly as yet, because the customer has not seen you,' she continued more familiarly, 'but Rustan has consulted the astrologer, who says that these are fortunate days for our buying and our selling. So I do not doubt but that the customer will be pleased with your looks, Kokóna, for indeed, though I do not wishto flatter you, we have not entertained such a beauty in our modest home for a long time!'
All this was, of course, intended to put Zoë in a good humour, in order that she might produce an agreeable impression on the expected purchaser. Rustan had once missed a very good bargain because the merchandise had burst into tears at the wrong moment.
'What sort of person is the customer?' asked the girl. 'Do you know who he is?'
She asked the question quietly, but she held her breath as she waited for the reply.
'I forget his name,' answered the negress after a moment's thought. 'He is a foreigner, a rich young merchant who lives in a fine house by the Golden Horn.'
'A Christian, then?' Zoë asked, controlling her voice.
The other pretended to be shocked.
'Does the Kokóna Arethusa believe that Rustan would be so wicked as to sell a Christian maid to the Turks? Rustan is a very devout man, Kokóna! He would not do such an irreligious thing!'
Zoë remembered the allowance of three copper pennies daily, and how he had driven her to sell herself for Kyría Agatha's sake; but she did not care to impugn Rustan's piety.
'So the astrologer says that I shall be sold to-day,' she observed with an affectation of carelessness, though her heart was sinking, and she felt a little sick. 'Is he a great astrologer?'
'He is Rustan's friend, Gorlias Pietrogliant,' answered the negress, who was now turning over certain fine linen in the wardrobe. 'Yes, he is a good star-gazer, especially for merchants. He is very poor, but many have grown rich through consulting him.'
She found what she wanted, and held up a beautifully embroidered garment of linen as fine as a web.
'And if you are so fortunate as to go to the rich merchant's house,' she added, 'you may win favour of him by telling him to consult Gorlias about his affairs whenever he is in doubt.'
'Gorlias.' Zoë repeated the name, for she had never heard it.
'Gorlias Pietrogliant, who lives near the church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus. Every one in that quarter knows him.'
'I shall remember,' Zoë said.
She understood at last why Rustan had been in the habit of going often to that church, where she had been kneeling in a dark corner when he had first seen her. Thence he had followed her to the ruined house. But she did not know that it was part of his regular business to frequent the churches of the poorest quarters, because it was there that starving girls were most often to be seen, praying to heaven for the bread that so rarely came from that direction. Many a good bargain had Rustan made by following a poor little ragged figure with a pretty face to a den of misery, and he was a perfect expert in doling out alms until his victim yielded or was forced to yield by her parents, for a handful of gold;nor has his method of conducting the business greatly changed, even in our own day, excepting that the slave-dealers themselves are mostly women now.
Having selected all the garments necessary for Zoë's costume, the negress bade one of the slave-girls take away the remains of the supper and bring what was already prepared for the morning. The maid obeyed, and was not gone two minutes. She brought in a bowl of cherries, with white bread and butter and fresh water, all on a polished tray of chiselled brass.
'Fruit is better for the health than sweetmeats at this time of day,' observed the mistress of the house. 'By and by, at dinner, the Kokóna shall have all she wishes.'
The little slaves looked at Zoë furtively and she smiled.
'Yes,' she said, 'fruit is much better in the morning.'
Rustan's wife came and stood beside the bed and scrutinised Zoë's face.
'I think,' she said critically, 'that as the customer is a foreigner, it will be better not to paint your eyes. The natural shadows under them are not bad.'
'I never painted my face in my life!' cried the girl, rather indignantly.
'And the Kokóna is quite right!' answered the negress, anxious to keep her in a good humour. 'Besides,' she continued, fawning again, 'I am here only to do your bidding and to wait on you to-day. Will it please you to bathe now? I shall wait on you myself.'
'The little maids are very quick and clever,' objectedZoë, who hardly looked upon the strapping African as a woman.
'No doubt, Kokóna, but this is a part of our business, and I do it better than they.'
'I would rather let them help me, if I must be helped,' said Zoë. 'But, indeed, I am quite used to dressing myself.'
'And pray,' argued the negress, grinning and growing familiar again, 'how could Rustan give his customers a written guarantee, unless I assured him, that there is no cause for complaint, no blemish, no scar, no hidden deformity, no ugly birthmark?'
Zoë turned her face away on the pillow.
'I had not thought of that,' she answered.
'Heaven forbid that I should myself,' returned the woman, relapsing into her obsequious manner again, 'if it were not to save the young Kokóna from any trouble or annoyance with our customer! If it will but please her to call herself my mistress and me her slave, she shall not be disappointed. If I am rough or clumsy she shall box my ears whenever she pleases, and I shall not complain!'
The little maids devoutly wished that Zoë would avail herself of their tyrant's extraordinary offer, but they dared not smile. She still turned her face away and was silent.
'See!' coaxed the African. 'I take off my coat!' She suited the action to the word and divested herself of her outer garment, which was the long coat and skirt in one, worn only by free women. 'I cover my head, inthe Kokóna's presence!' She quickly flattened her wild red hair under a kerchief which she knotted at the back of her neck. 'I roll up my sleeves! Am I anything but a slave, a bath-woman? Why will the beautiful Kokóna not let me wait on her?'
Zoë turned her eyes and saw the change, and suddenly her objection vanished; for Rustan's wife looked precisely like the black slave-women who used to attend the ladies in the Roman bath in Rhangabé's palace. The association of ideas was so strong that the young girl could not help smiling faintly.
'As you please,' she said, raising herself upon one hand and preparing to get up.
Carlo Zeno's interview with Rustan had been short and business-like, as has been said. It was indeed not at all likely that a man of the Venetian's temper and tastes would talk with a Bokharian slave-dealer a moment longer than necessary.
Rustan, on hearing what was wanted, declared that he had the very thing; in fact, by a wonderful coincidence, it was the very thing in the acme of perfection, a dream, a vision, fully worth four hundred ducats, and certainly not to be sold for three hundred; it had fine natural hair that had never been dyed; its teeth were twenty-eight in number, the wisdom teeth not having yet appeared, and Rustan would wager that Messer Carlo could not find a single pearl in all Constantinople to match one of those eight-and-twenty; its ankles were so finely turned that a woman could span them with her thumb and forefinger. Rustan felt safe in saying this, for his black wife's huge hand could have spanned Zoë's throat; also it had a most beautiful and slender waist, which, as Messer Carlo remarked, was certainly a point of beauty. Moreover, Rustan would deliver a signed and sealed certificate with it.
For Zeno was conscientious, and held Marco Pesaro's letter in his hand while he questioned the Bokharianin regard to the various points in succession, lest he should forget any one of them. He did not in the least believe a word that Rustan said, of course. The East was never the land of simple, trusting faith between man and man. He would even have wagered that Rustan had nothing in his prison of the sort Pesaro wanted, and at the moment of the interview he would have been quite right. But he was tolerably sure that if he insisted on having the best, the best to be had would be forthcoming in a week at the utmost. Satisfied with this prospect, he dismissed Rustan and thought no more about the matter, except to wish that Marco Pesaro had not troubled him with such an absurd commission.
A fine young gentleman of later times would probably have thought few quests more amusing than this, and would have dreamt that night of the beauties he intended to see before at last deciding upon the purchase. Doubtless, there were young Venetians even then in Constantinople who would have envied Zeno the amusing task of criticising pretty faces, hands, and ankles.
But he was not of the same temper or disposition as those gay youths. He could not remember that any woman had ever made a very profound impression on him, even in his boyish days. When he was in Greece, it had been suggested to him that he might as well marry, like other young men, and he had allowed himself to be betrothed to a sleepy Greek heiress who had conceived an indolent but tenacious admiration for his fighting qualities; but it had pleased the fates that she shoulddie before the wedding-day of a complication of the spleen superinduced by a surfeit of rose-leaf jam and honey-cakes. He was rather ashamed to own to himself that her translation to a better world had been a distinct relief to his feelings, for he had soon discovered that he did not love her, though he had been too kind to tell her so, and too honourable to think of breaking his promise of marriage.
He did not despise women either; indeed, his conduct in the affair of his betrothal had proved that. Now and then he had paused in his restless career to think of a more peaceful life, and in the pictures that rose before his imagination there was generally a woman. Unhappily, he had never seen any one like her in real life, and when he was tired of dreaming he shrugged his shoulders at such impossibilities and went back to his adventurous existence without a sigh. Yet it might be thought that although he did not fall in love he might now and then spend careless hours with the free and frail, for he made no profession or show of austerity, and whatever he really might be, he did not aspire to be called a saint. He had been a wild student in Padua once, and had drunk deep and played high, until he had suddenly grown tired of stupid dissipation and had left the dice to play the more exciting game of life and death as a soldier of fortune under a condottiere, during five long wandering years. But at the core of his nature there was something ascetic which his comrades could never understand, and at which they laughed when he was not within hearing; for he was an evil man toquarrel with, as they had found out. He never killed his man in a duel if he could help it, but he had a way of leaving his mark for life on his adversary's face which few cared to risk.
And now it was long indeed since his lips had touched a woman's, for his character had taken its final manly shape, and the only folly to which he still yielded now and then was that of risking his life recklessly whenever he fancied that a cause was worth it; but this he did not look upon as madness, still less as weakness, and there was no one to argue the question with him. His honest brown eyes softened sometimes, almost like a woman's, but only for pity or kindness, never for word or look of love.
He rose in the bright spring morning just before the sun was up, and went down the steps at the water's edge below his house and swam far out in clear water that was still icy cold. Then he dressed himself completely as strong and healthy men do, who hate to feel that they are not ready to face anything from the beginning of the day. But while he was dressing he was not thinking of the errand that was to take him to Rustan's house an hour before noon. Indeed, he had quite forgotten it, till he saw Omobono folding Pesaro's letter in his neat way in order to file it for reference. As the secretary knew what it contained, and had been actively employed in the matter to which it referred, he had thought there could be no great sin of curiosity in reading it carefully while his master was at his toilet. It would have been wrong, he thought, to find out whatwas in it before Zeno himself had broken the seal, but since it was open, it was evidently better that the secretary should understand precisely what was wanted of his employer, for such knowledge could only increase his own usefulness. For the rest, he vaguely hoped that Zeno would take him into close confidence and ask his opinion of any merchandise he thought of buying; for Omobono had a high opinion of his own taste in beauty, and had wished to pass for a lively spark in his young days.
But Zeno evidently considered himself qualified to decide the matter without help, for when it lacked an hour of noon he set his secretary at work on a fair copy of a letter he had been preparing, ordered his horse and running footman, and went upon his errand without any other attendant or companion. Omobono looked out of the window and watched him as he mounted, innocently envying him his youth and strength. The greatest fighting man of his century moved as such men generally do, without haste and without effort, never wasting a movement and never making an awkward one, never taking a fine attitude for the sake of effect, as the young men of Raphael's pictures so often seem to be doing, but always and everywhere unconsciously graceful, self-possessed, and ready for anything.
He rode a half-bred brown Arab mare, for he was not a heavy man, and he preferred a serviceable mount at all times to the showy and ill-tempered white Barbary, or the rather delicate thoroughbred of the desert, which were favourites with the rich Greeks of Constantinople.He was quietly dressed, too; and his bare-legged runner, who cleared the way for him when the streets were crowded, wore a plain brown tunic and cap, and did not yell at the poorer people and slaves or strike them in passing as the footmen of great personages always did. Zeno had picked him out of at least a hundred for his endurance and his long wind.
So they went quietly and quickly along, the man and his master, following very nearly the way which Omobono had taken on the previous afternoon, till they came to the long wall crested with sharp bits of rusty iron and broken crockery, and stopped before the only door that broke its blank length. Zeno looked at the defence critically, and wondered just how great an inducement would make him take the trouble of getting over it, at the risk of cutting his hands and tearing his clothes. Before any one answered his footman's knock, he had decided that it would be an easy matter to bring his well-broken horse close to the wall, to stand on the saddle, draw himself up and throw a heavy cloak over the spiky iron and the sharp-edged shards with one hand while hanging by the other. The rest would be easy enough. It was always his instinct to make such calculations when he entered or passed by any place that was meant to be defended.
This time the door was opened by Rustan Karaboghazji in person, and he bowed to the ground as Zeno got off his horse and stood beside him. Still bending low he made way and with a wide gesture invited his visitor to enter. But Zeno had no intention of wasting timeby going in till he was assured that there was something ready for his inspection in the way of merchandise.
In answer to his question Rustan turned up his face sideways and smiled cunningly as he gradually straightened himself.
'Your Magnificence shall see!' he answered. 'Where is the letter? Every point is perfect, as I promised.'
'Were you really speaking the truth?' laughed Zeno. 'I expected to come at least three times before seeing anything!'
Rustan assumed an expression of gentle reproach.
'If your Splendour had dealt with Barlaam, the Syrian merchant, or with Abraham of Smyrna, the Jewish caravan-broker,' he said, 'it would have been as your Greatness deigns to suggest. Moreover, your Highness would not have been satisfied after all, and would have come at last to the house of your servant Rustan Karaboghazji, surnamed the Truth-speaker and the Just, and also the Keeper of Promises, by those who know him. It must have been so, since there is but one treasure in all the Empire such as your Mightiness asks for, and it is in this house.'
Zeno laughed carelessly, and entered.
'Your Unspeakableness is amused,' said Rustan, fastening the outer door carefully with both keys. 'But if it is not as I say, I entreat your High Mightiness to kick his humble servant from this door to the Seven Towers and back again, passing by the Chora, Blachernæ, and the Church of the Blessed Pantokrator on the way.'
'That would take a long time,' observed Zeno. 'Open the door and let me see the girl.'
'Your Grandeur shall see, indeed!' answered Rustan, smiling confidently as he led the way. 'Rustan the Truth-speaker,' he continued, as if to himself while walking, 'Karaboghazji the faithful Keeper of Promises!'
He gently caressed his beautiful black beard as he went on. He took Zeno through the small part of the house which he reserved for his own use, far from the larger rooms where he kept his stock of slaves. In an inner apartment they met the negress, resplendent in scarlet velvet and a heavy gold chain, her red hair combed straight out from her head. When Zeno appeared, she at once assumed what she considered a modest but engaging attitude, crossing her great hands upon her splendid coat, and looking down with a marvellous attempt at a simper.
Rustan stood still and for a moment Zeno thought that the dealer had ventured to jest with him, by showing him the terrific negress in her finery as the incomparable treasure of which he had spoken. But Rustan's words explained everything.
'My Life,' he said, speaking to his wife in a caressing tone, 'is the girl ready to be seen?'
'As my lord commanded me,' replied the negress, keeping her hands folded and bending a little.
'This lady,' said Rustan to Zeno, 'is my wife, and my right hand.' He turned to her. 'Sweet Dove,' he said, 'pray lead his Magnificence to the slave's room. I will wait here.'
Zeno seemed surprised at this arrangement.
'My wife' explained Rustan, 'understands the creatures better than I. My business is buying and selling; it is her part to keep the merchandise in good condition, and to show it to the customers who honour us.'
He smiled pleasantly as he said this, and remained standing while Zeno followed the negress out of the room. As he walked behind her he could not help noting her strong square shoulders, and the swing of her powerful hips, and her firm tread, and he conceived the idea that she would be a match for any ordinary man in a tussle. He was certainly not thinking of the slave-girl he was about to inspect.
Another door opened, and he was in a room flooded with sunshine and sweet with spring flowers; he stopped, and unconsciously drew one sharp breath of surprise. Zoë had been sitting in a big chair in the sun, and had half risen as the door opened, her hand resting on one of the arms of the seat. Her eyes met Zeno's, and for a moment no one moved. If Rustan had been present he would have raised the price of the merchandise to five hundred ducats at least; the black woman only grinned, well pleased with the appearance of the girl whom she had herself dressed to receive the customer's visit of inspection.
Zoë's hand tightened a little on the arm of the chair and she sank quietly into her seat again as she turned her eyes from Zeno's face, forgetting that she had promised herself to stand erect and cold as a slave should when she is being exhibited.
If the Venetian still doubted that by some mysterious chance of fate the girl he had come to buy at the slave-dealer's was as well born as himself, her movement as she sat down dispelled his lingering uncertainty. He had entered the room carelessly, still wearing his cap. As Zoë resumed her seat, he took it from his head, bowing instinctively, as he would have done on meeting a woman of his own class. A faint colour rose in the girl's cheeks, as she looked at him again.
Rustan's wife laughed silently, standing a little behind him. Zoë spoke first.
'Pray, sir,' she said, 'be covered.'
'His High Mightiness uncovers his head for coolness,' said the negress.
Zeno gave her a sharp glance and then turned to Zoë.
'It is not possible that you are a slave,' he said, coming a little nearer and looking down into her face.
But she would not meet his eyes.
'It is the truth, sir,' she said. 'I am a slave and any one may buy me and take me away.'
'Then you have been carried off by force,' Zeno answered with conviction, 'in war, perhaps, or in some raid of enemies on enemies. Tell me who you are and how it happened, and by the body of blessed Saint Mark, I will give you back free to your own people!'
Zoë looked at him in silent surprise. The negress answered him at once, for she did not like the turn affairs were taking, and though she had never heard of Carlo Zeno, she judged from his looks that he was able to make good his promise.
'Your Splendour does not really believe that my husband would risk the punishment of a robber for carrying off a free woman!' she cried.
'I am a slave,' Zoë said quietly. 'Only a slave and nothing else. There is no more than that to tell.'
She drew one hand across her brow and eyes as if to shut out something or to drive it away. Zeno came nearer and stood alone beside her.
'Tell me your story,' he said in a lower tone. 'Do not be afraid! no one shall hurt you.'
'There is no more to tell,' she repeated, shaking her head. 'But you are kind, and I thank you very much.'
She raised her clear brown eyes gratefully to his for a moment. There was sadness in them, but he saw that she had not been weeping; and like a man, he argued that if she were very unhappy she would, of course, shed copious tears the live-long day, like the captive maidens in the tales of chivalry. He looked at the beautiful young hand, now lying on the arm of the chair, and for the first time in his life he felt embarrassed.
The negress, who was not at all used to such methods in the buying and selling of humanity, now came forward and began to call attention to the fine quality of her goods.
'Very fine natural hair,' she observed. 'Your Gorgeousness will see at once that it has never been dyed.'
She took one of Zoë's plaits in her hand, and the girl shrank a little at the touch.
'Let her alone!' Zeno said sharply. 'I am not blind.'
'It is her business to show me,' Zoë answered for her, in a tone of submission.
'Tell me your story,' he said in a lower tone. 'Do not be afraid! no one shall hurt you.'
'Tell me your story,' he said in a lower tone. 'Do not be afraid! no one shall hurt you.'
'It shall not be her business much longer,' replied Zeno, almost to himself.
He suddenly turned away from her, went to the open window, and looked out, laying one hand on the iron bars. It was not often that he hesitated, but he found himself faced by a very unexpected difficulty. He was executing a commission for a friend, and if he bought a slave with his friend's money, he should feel bound in honour to send her to her new master at the first opportunity. On the other hand, though it was perfectly clear from the girl's behaviour that she expected no better fate, he was intimately convinced that in some way a great wrong was being done, and he had never yet passed a wrong by without trying to right it with his purse or his sword. Clearly, he was still at liberty to buy Zoë for himself, and take her to his home; yet he shrank from such a solution of the problem, as if it were the hardest of all. What should he do with a young and lovely girl in his house, where there were no women, where no woman ever set foot? She would need female attendants, and of course he could buy them for her, or hire them; but he thought with strong distaste of such an establishment as all this would force upon him. Besides, he could not keep the girl for ever, merely because he suspected that she was born a lady and was the victim of some great injustice. She denied that she was. What if she should persist in her denial after he had bought her to set her free? What if she really had no family, no home, no one to whom she could go, or wished to go? He would not turn her out, then; he would notsell her again, and he should not want her. Moreover, he knew well enough that it was not his nature to go on leading the peaceful life of a merchant much longer, even if the threatening times would permit it. He had always been as free as air. As he was now living, if it should please him to leave Constantinople, he could do so in twenty-four hours, leaving his business, though at a loss, to another merchant—for he had prospered. But it would be otherwise if this girl were in the house, under his protection, and it never occurred to him, after he had looked into her eyes, that she could live under his roof except in order that he might protect her—protect her from imaginary enemies, right imaginary wrongs she had never suffered, and altogether make of her what she protested that she was not.
It was absurd to think of such a thing, and having come to this conclusion in a shorter time than it has taken me to describe his thoughts, he turned abruptly with the intention of buying her for Marco Pesaro's account.
Unfortunately, when he saw her face he could not do it.
'I will send a palanquin for you in an hour,' he said hurriedly, and he made for the door in evident anxiety to get away without exchanging another word with Zoë.
The negress followed him quickly into the next room, very much surprised at his way of doing business.
'If it please your Glory,' she began, overtaking him with difficulty, but he would not listen, and hurried on.
'I will settle with Rustan,' he said.
But in the room where he had left her, Zoë was leaning back in her chair alone, gazing at the sunlit window. At that very moment, so far as she knew, the gold was being counted out that was the price of her young life. In an hour she would be taken away in a closed litter, as she had been brought last night, she would be carried into another house, the slide would slip back, and she would be told to get down.
The voice would be a man's. Who was he? What was his name? What was she to be to him? He was a Venetian, she guessed by his dress, and she felt that his blood was gentle, like her own. But that was all, though she was already his property. It was dreadful; or, at least, it should be dreadful to think of! She felt that she ought to long for death now, a thousand times more earnestly than last night.
But she did not. For she was a most womanly woman already, though not nineteen, and there are few women of that intensely feminine temper who cannot judge at a first meeting with a man whether they can gain power over him or not. Moreover, this strength is greatest with men who are most profoundly masculine, because it is not the influence of one character over another, but the deeper, stronger, more mysterious power of sex over sex.
Little Omobono's thin legs carried him up and down the stairs of Zeno's house at an astonishing pace during the next hour; for Carlo gave fifty orders, every one of which he insisted should be executed at once. It was not a small thing to instal a woman luxuriously in a house in which no woman had set foot since Carlo had lived there, and to do this within sixty minutes. It is true that the rich young merchant had great store of thick carpets and fine stuffs, and all sorts of silver vessels, and weapons from Damascus, and carved ivory chessmen from India; but though some of these things quickly furnished the upper rooms which Zeno set apart for the valuable slave's use while she remained under his roof, yet scimitars, chessmen, and heathen idols of jade were poor substitutes for all the things a woman might be expected to need at a moment's notice, from hairpins and hand-mirrors to fine linen pillow-cases, sweetmeats, and a lap-dog. Zeno's ideas of a woman's requirements were a little vague, but he determined that Zoë should want nothing, and he charged Omobono with the minute execution of his smallest commands.
He himself lived simply and almost rudely. He slept on a small hard divan with a little hard cushionunder his head, and a cloak to cover him in cold weather. He hated hot water, scented soap, and all the soft luxuries of the Roman bath. There was no mirror in his room, no elaborate toilet service of gold and silver, such as fine young gentlemen used even then. He liked a good dinner when he was hungry, good wine when he was thirsty, and a wide easy-chair when he had worked all day; but it never had cost him a moment's discomfort to exchange such a home as he now lived in for the camp or the sea.
Women were different beings, however, so he made all allowances for them, and went to extreme lengths in estimating their necessities, as Omobono found to his cost. Yet with all his preoccupation for details, Zeno forgot that Zoë must have a woman to wait on her at once, and when he realised the omission, almost at the last minute, the future conqueror of the Genoese, the terror of the Mediterranean, the victorious general of the Paduan campaign, the hero of thirty pitched battles and a score of sea-fights, felt his heart sink with something like fear. What would have happened if he had not remembered just in time that Marco Pesaro's slave must have a maid? She should have two, or three, or as many as she needed.
'Omobono,' he said, as the little secretary came up the stairs for the twentieth time, 'go out quickly and buy two maids. They must be young, healthy, clean, clever, and silent. Lose no time!'
'Two maids?' The secretary's jaw dropped. 'Two maids?' he repeated almost stupidly.
'Yes. Is there anything wonderful in that? Did you expect to wait on the lady yourself?'
'The lady?' Omobono opened his little eyes very wide.
'I mean,' answered Zeno, correcting himself, 'the—the young person who is going to be lodged here. Lose no time, I say! Go as fast as you can!'
Omobono turned and went, not having the least idea where to go. Before he had reached the outer door, Zeno called after him down the stairs.
'Stop!' cried the merchant. 'It is too late. You must go and get the lady—the young person. Take two palanquins instead of one, and tell Rustan to let her choose her own slaves. You can put the two into one litter and bring them all together.'
'But the price, sir?' enquired Omobono, who was a man of business. 'Rustan will ask what he pleases if I take him such a message!'
'Tell him that if he is not reasonable he shall do no more business with Venetians,' answered Zeno, from the head of the marble stairs.
Omobono nodded obediently and followed his instructions. So it came to pass that before long he found himself within Rustan's outer wall with two palanquins and eight bearers, besides a couple of Zeno's trusty men-servants, well armed, for he carried a large sum of money in gold. The Bokharian and the secretary went into an inner room to count and weigh the ducats, but before this began Omobono delivered his message in full.
'Forty ducats!' cried Omobono, casting up his eyes, and preparing to bargain for at least half an hour.
'Forty ducats!' cried Omobono, casting up his eyes, and preparing to bargain for at least half an hour.
'I have the very thing,' said Karaboghazji. 'There are two girls who have waited on her and with whom she ismuch pleased. As for asking too high a price, forty ducats for the two is nothing. They are a gift, at that.'
'Forty ducats!' cried Omobono, casting up his eyes, and preparing to bargain for at least half an hour.
'If it is dear,' said Rustan, his face becoming like stone, 'may my tongue never speak the truth again!'
Considering attentively the consequences of such an awful fate Omobono did not think that the Bokharian risked any great inconvenience if the imprecation should take effect.
'It is far from me,' said the secretary, 'to suggest that your words are not literally true, according to your own light. But you must be aware that the price of maid-servants has fallen much since yesterday, owing to the arrival of a shipload of them from Tanais.'
Rustan shook his head and maintained his stony expression.
'They are worthless,' he said. 'Do you suppose I should not have bought the best of them? There has been a plague of smallpox in their country, and they are all pitted. They are as oranges, blighted by hail.'
As Omobono had invented the ship and its cargo, he found it hard to refute Rustan's argument, which was quite as good as his own.
'May my fingers be turned round in their sockets and close on the back of my hand, if I have asked one ducat too much,' said the Bokharian with stolid calm.
Omobono hesitated, for a new idea had struck him. Before he could answer, a door opened and Rustan's wife, who had put off her finery, ushered in Zoë, closelyveiled and wrapped in the cloak she had worn on the previous night. It was, in fact, necessary that she should be delivered up in return for the gold, and the negress had supposed that the counting was almost over.
'My turtle dove,' said Rustan in dulcet tones, 'fetch those two girls who have waited on Kokóna Arethusa. The Venetian merchant will buy them for her.'
The negress grinned and went out. By this time Omobono had made up his mind what to say.
'My dear sir,' he began, in a conciliatory tone, consider that we are friends, and do not ask an exorbitant price. I beseech you to be obliging, by four toes and five toes.'
Omobono wondered what would happen after he had pronounced the mysterious words. Rustan looked keenly at him and was silent for a moment. Neither of them noticed that Zoë made a quick movement as she stood by the table between them. The Bokharian rose suddenly and went to shut the door.
'Where?' he asked as he crossed the small room.
Omobono's face fell at the unexpected and apparently irrelevant question. Instantly Zoë bent down and whispered three words in his ear. Before Rustan turned back to hear the clerk's answer, she was standing erect and motionless again, and he did not suspect that she had moved.
'Over the water,' answered Omobono, with perfect confidence.
'You may have the two for four-and-twenty ducats,' said Rustan. 'But you cannot expect me to take anythingoff the price of the Kokóna,' he added. 'I bargained with your master, and he agreed.'
'No, no! Certainly! And I thank you, sir.'
'I suppose,' said Rustan, 'that you would do as much for me.'
'Of course, of course,' answered Omobono. 'Shall we count the ducats?'
When the operation was almost finished, the negress returned with the two slave-girls, whose commonplace features were wreathed in smiles, and they began to kiss the hem of Zoë's cloak. Omobono inspected them critically.
'Are you pleased with them, Kokóna?' he enquired of Zoë. 'My master is very anxious that you should be satisfied.'
'Indeed I am,' Zoë answered readily. 'They are very clever little maids.'
The two were almost crying with delight, and only a meaning movement of the negress's hand to her girdle checked them. They were not out of her power yet. Omobono eyed them, and really thought them cheap at twelve ducats each, as indeed they were. He was paying four hundred for Zoë, but Rustan did not mean her to see the gold, and had covered it with one of his loose sleeves as she entered. He now begged his wife take the three slaves to the palanquins while he finished counting and weighing, and wrote out his receipt for the money. He called the negress his pet mouse, his little bird, and the down-quilted waistcoat of his heart, and but for her terrific appearance, and the weapon she carried in her girdle, Omobono would have laughed outright.
Rustan wrote on a strip of parchment, in bad Greek:—