The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate

XV – The Hills of Iron

On the ninth of Tashritu, twelve human beings and four beasts of burden straggled across the green flatlands of Boron. The traveler's rags flapped loosely about their bodies, so that their wearers were not much better covered than the naked Alabi who, standing storklike on one leg and watching their cattle, stolidly looked around as they passed.

The wayfarers' skins were burnt to deep bronze, spotted by insects bites, and seamed by scratches from thorns. Their ribs showed, as Bessas had harried them on for several days without taking time to hunt fresh meat. All bore loads on their backs, and four led two mules and two camels. Of the thirty-five beasts of burden with which they had left Meroê, only these survived. In the last few days, one more camel had died, and a lion had taken the horse. The surviving animals moved slowly and feebly, with hanging heads, despite the plentiful grass of the country through which they had come.

Some of Bessas' party limped, and all reeled with fatigue as they pushed along with sticks cut from saplings. Bessas, who bore by far the heaviest load, ranged from one end of the column to the other like a sheepdog, barking:

"Close up there! Straighten up, Umayya! We near the city, and we must march as if we were strong and fearless. Hurry up, Merqetek, if you do not crave a cut of my stick! Shimri, what in Arallu are you doing?" '

The Judaean had paused, where the path crossed a stony patch of ground, to stoop under his load and pick up some reddish-black pebbles.

"Iron ore, by the Lord of die Waters!" he said, grinning up.

"What of it? We are not going into the ironmongery business. Get along!"

They passed through groves of small trees with enormous pale-green leaves, each leaf comprising a whole branch. From these trees hung huge bunches of finger-shaped fruits.

More and more of the Alabi—men who had been loafing and women who had been working the vegetable gardens—left their tasks to gape at the strangers. Soon the travelers were surrounded by a crowd of Negroes, pointing, gesticulating, and shouting. Children shrieked and dogs barked. Myron said to Bessas:

"I do not suppose that Ethiopians are more prone to violence than men of other races. But they are so noisy that it is difficult to ascertain whether they intend violence or not."

The Alabi were, like the Anderae, very tall and rather slender. They were coated with cow-dung ash and colored clays, which pigmented their bodies in an endless variety of hues—various shades of red, orange, yellow, gray, and white.

The Alabi, like the Anderae, removed the two lower center front teeth. Besides their ornaments of bone, wood, and ivory, their hair was dressed with the help of dried mud into bizarre horns, crests, and helmets. Ostrich plumes sprouted from many of these coiffures.

Ahead of the party, the stockade of Boron spread along the banks of the Astasobas. Skulls topped a dozen poles about the gate, from which a group of spearmen issued, marching towards the newcomers.

"Ground your loads in a circle," said Bessas. "Sit on them and keep these knaves from pilfering, but do not strike or wound one without my command."

The Alabi crowded round, poking at the loads, fingering the travelers' tattered garments, trying to thrust fingers into the visitors' ears and mouths, and laughing loudly. They showed neither hostility nor a desire to steal, but simple curiosity and vast amusement. Their heavy body odor offended Myron's nostrils.

Then the group from the town arrived. A man shouted and whacked a few shoulders with a stick, whereupon the crowd divided to let the dignitaries through. A tall, grave Alab with a necklace of cane-rat bones spoke in a sharp, authoritative tone. Merqetek said:

"I cannot understand him, for I have never been so far south."

"Try all the tongues you know," said Bessas.

At length someone fetched an Alab who had lived among the Nubae. Explanations began. He of the rat-bone necklace said:

"I am Dimo, general of King Gau of the Alabi."

Bessas told who he was, adding that he wished to stop at Boron to rest and then pass on through King Gau's dominions.

"In that case," said General Dimo, "you must give King Gau a hundred strings of beads, fifty iron spearheads, fifty iron hoes, and one man-load of salt."

Bessas said: "O Myron, you are a better haggler than I. Chaffer this knave down, for the tribute he demands would clean us out."

Myron addressed himself, through the interpreters, to the general: "Unfortunately we lost our salt in the Shaikaru country. We could give ten strings of beads ..."

The haggling went on for an hour. Dimo sometimes spoke threateningly, and the spearmen frowned and hefted their horn-tipped weapons. But the travelers, on Bessas' orders, remained calm. The Alabi surged about, laughing and gabbling. When one group drifted off, another took their place.

At length Dimo accepted a fraction of the tribute he had first demanded. He signaled a drummer, who struck up a rhythm to show that the travelers were now under the king's protection.

King Gau sat on an ivory-legged bench in the royal hut and looked at his visitors from under heavy lids. As nude as all the other Alabi, he wore a necklace of crocodile teeth and, on each wrist, a heavy bracelet of ebony set with ivory spikes. Spearmen stood about; messengers came and went. A page held a gourd and, at a signal from the king, presented the vessel so that the king might drink of the contents through a straw.

Gau fingered a short sword, one of several cheap blades that Bessas had bought in Meroê. In response to Bessas' question, he said:

"We have no such beast as this sirrush in our land, although I have heard of strange creatures in other countries, such as men without mouths, and men with serpents for legs. The only strange creatures in Alabia are witches, whereof we have a plenty; we have burnt thirty-seven in the last moon.

"For that matter, I was always told that the men who dwelt beyond Kush had noses like those of elephants. Yet now I see that this is not true, however strange you may appear."

"Are we then the first men of our race to reach your land, O King?"

"Aye. The Kushites come hither once or twice in a generation. Sometimes they come to trade, which we welcome; sometimes they come to steal our folk for slaves, in which case we fight them. Why do you men of the North need slaves, when you have beasts like those you brought with you to bear your burdens?"

"Because, I suppose, men like to compel others to do their will. And speaking of animals, we started out with many more, but sickness has struck them down."

"That is the nagana," said the king. "We never drive our cattle very far to the east or the south, because they then catch the nagana and die."

"Well, I see that we shall have to hire men to carry our baggage. Can your subjects be retained for this purpose, King?"

King Gau took a pull at his gourd. Other pages presented gourds to the visitors. Myron found the liquid to be a fermented fruit juice, sweet and bland.

"Have you never drunk banana wine before?" asked King Gau. "Now, about those porters—"

One of the ruler's women burst in and hurled a rattle of speech at him. With an angry roar, Gau leaped up, swung his arm, and smote the woman on the shoulder blade with one of his spiky bracelets. The woman screamed and ran out of the audience room with red blood starting from the wounds in her back. Myron glimpsed the scars of other such wounds.

"Women!" said the king. "As I was saying, I think not that you can hire my people for porterage. They are too proud, holding the raising of cattle to be the only manly occupation. However, five days' journey down the river live the Ptoemphani, who worship a dog. Being but dogs themselves, they care not what they do. I will send a messenger, asking for—how many will you need?"

"Fifty or sixty, King."

"I will ask for sixty bearers, then. Of course they must needs consult their god ere they embark upon any such enterprise, and unless he wag his tail they will do nought."

Bessas said: "King Gau, know you aught of a party of Kushites who fled south through this land, upwards of forty years ago? The story runs that they went on until they came to a great lake, where they built a house of stone."

Gau smiled thinly. "Oh, aye. I was a child when they passed through Boron, and I remember when four of them returned, going north on their way to Kush. I have heard of these lakes, which lie south of the Mattitaean country, at the foot of the Mountains of the Moon."

"Said you Mountains of the Moon, O King?"

"Aye. It is said that the tops of these mountains are covered with salt, so that they shine like the moon at its fullness. But no man dares to climb to the region of salt, for fear of the giants of salt that dwell there."

"What of the Kushites, sire?"

"They say the chief of these Kushites told a local hunting tribe that he and his men were gods. As gods, they commanded these hunters to build their stone house, which was a great wonder. But then the chief turned himself into a great black demon and slew his fellows. The hunters fled, and the demon still haunts the house of stone. Now no one goes nigh to the place, for fear of the demon.''

Bessas arranged to buy food. "And another thing, if you please, sire. Could I obtain some tanned hides for new tents and clothes?"

The king had some trouble, through his translators, in understanding the word "clothes." At last he said:

"I suppose I can arrange it; though I cannot understand why you foreigners cover your bodies with those dirty, ugly things. Are you maimed or deformed in some of your parts, that you seek to hide them?"

The following morning, the day after their arrival, King Gau summoned his visitors again. He greeted them with grave courtesy, inquiring whether they were well-fed and womaned.

"I have sent a messenger to the Ptoemphani," he said. "The ancestral spirits willing, he will be back in ten days. When you set out, I will also send one of my people with you as a guide and interpreter. You must avoid the land of the Mattitae, up the river, because we are at war with them and they would slay you if you entered their land from ours."

"Which way shall we take to avoid them?" asked Bessas.

"To the west. The route to the east is not good, because great swamps cover the land." King Gau brought out the sword that Bessas had given him and fingered the blade. "Strangers, I have been thinking about this thing, and also about the iron hoes and spearheads that we sometimes get in trade from the northern peoples. Long have I wondered how this stuff is made. You, coming from lands where they make many strange things, must know. What great spell is needed to create iron?"

Shimri bounded to his feet, sputtering. "Your M-Maj-esty! I—I can tell you. Iron is mmm—it is made from a kind of heavy red stone, with fire and hammering." He wiped the drool from his chin.

Bessas muttered in Greek: "Ye gods, Myron, can't you shut the fool up? If the king believes he can use him, he'll mew him up here like a caged bird forever."

"Too late," said Myron. "The king has already grasped the idea."

Gau smiled. "You interest me, man with a small chin. Is this red stone to be found in our land?"

"Aye, sir, it is. Behold!" Shimri drew from his pouch a couple of ironstone pebbles. "I found these within a furlong of Boron. I could make iron for you."

Gau fingered the pebbles. "Meseems I have seen rock of this kind in the hills to the west of the river. If I send a man with you, will you cross over there now and tell me if there be enough of this stone to enable us to make our own iron?"

"Why, Your Majesty, I—ah—"

"Good!" King Gau snapped his fingers. A stalwart spearman stepped up, to whom the king gave careful instructions. "If you go now, you will be back for dinner. May the ancestral spirits favor your search!"

As Shimri departed, Bessas muttered: "He cleverly gives us no chance to talk to Shimri in private and prompt him to report no ore. If King Xerxes asks me, I shall advise him to leave the Alabi alone, for while they are but savages their king is as shrewd as Oroxaeus."

The principal hardship of life in Boron, Myron found, was neither the creeping things nor the smells, but the insatiable curiosity of the inhabitants. A ring of them surrounded the travelers' encampment, watching every action day and night and commenting upon them with animated gestures and loud, rich laughs. Sometimes an Alab would stand on one leg, with the foot of his other leg resting against his knee, leaning on his spear, and watching the camp from sunrise to sunset.

The evening after the second audience, Shimri limped in late for his dinner, his eyes bulging. "Oh, what a fuf-fool I was!" he burst out. "Do you know what this pork-eating king says?"

"That you are commanded to tarry in Boron and teach his people smithery," said Bessas, chewing.

"How in Dagon's name knew you that?"

"We are not all quite so addlewitted as you, my lad. Tell us the bad news."

"Well, I—I went with the black man, as the king said, and I found a muchel of ore. It begins three or four leagues from the river. When I returned and told the king of this, he asked me about the making of iron. I answered, and he said: 'Friend Shimri, the gods have sent you to teach us this art. You shall remain here whilst your comrades go looking for their crocodile-pard. When they return downriver you may rejoin them—if you have carried out your part of the bargain.' I did not recall ever having made any bargain, but I thought it well not to argue with the king."

"You showed one glimmering of sense, anyway," said Myron.

"But what shall I d-d-do? I cannot—I cannot remain here amongst these uncircumcised savages, whose language I do not even speak! You must smuggle me out somehow!"

"It was not our doing," said Bessas heavily, "that you sounded off so eloquently to the king this morning. Having cooked your stew you must eat it. As for smuggling you out, we cannot. King Gau holds us in the hollow of his hand; and, even if we escaped his wrath now, we should face it on our return."

"But I lack the proper tools! I have no picks and shovels for digging the ore, no flux or charcoal for smelting, and no hammers, anvils, pincers, and tongs for working."

"You should have thought of that ere you told the king you could make iron for him. A word is like a bird: once sent forth it is never recaptured. If you now go and protest that you did but utter empty boasts, he will surely visit his wrath upon you. You will have to make your own picks of horn and shovels of wood, burn your own charcoal, and construct your own hammers of stone and tongs of green branches."

Shimri burst into sobs.

Ten days later King Gau, with his bodyguards and pages, rode past the camp astride an ox. For a time he watched Bessas' party, all of whom, under their leader's frowning gaze, were busily making or mending. Some worked on garments, some on tents, and some on weapons. Through interpreters, the king spoke to Myron:

"Could I make my own folk as diligent as that, I could conquer all the tribes along my borders. I could in-vade Kush and enslave its people! Come with me to where the man Shimri works and explain what he does."

Myron accompanied the king to the smelting pit, which Shimri, stripped to a loincloth, was lining with clay. A pair of Alabi helped him, though in a fumbling manner because they had hardly any words in common with him. Another pair appeared, bearing a pole whence a basket-load of iron ore from across the river was slung. They dumped the contents of the basket atop the growing pile of ore.

Shimri, his shoulders peeling from sunburn, wiped the sweat from his forehead and turned his red face up. "I have hunted all over this neighborhood without finding any good limestone for flux. Without flux, you lose half your iron in the slag." He gave his shrill, unbalanced laugh. "I know; I shall—ah—work a miracle! I am the great Dagon!" He resumed his work, singing a Dagonite hymn.

"Sometimes," said King Gau, "I think that some god or spirit has taken possession of Shimri." The king looked up, his eyes straining northward. "Your porters come."

Up the river, along the path that lined the eastern bank, came a procession of men with gaudy patterns of red and white painted on their sable skins. Led by Ajang, ' King Gau's tall, grave messenger, they appeared comparatively small and gaunt.

"Their crops have been bad," said King Gau.

The newcomers crowded together, giggling nervously as the Alabi pressed around them, uttering gibes and threats. Myron counted; there were forty-four instead of sixty.

"And withal," said Bessas' familiar growl, "many look not as if they could bear a full talent apiece. But we live as we can, not as we list, as the camel said who tried to fly. Who commands?"

Yilthak, leader of the Ptoemphani, was a mild, middle-aged Negro. When his crew began to scream demands that they be made spearmen instead of simple carriers, Yilthak proved unable to control them. Bessas had to knock a few heads together to restore quiet.

"You think spearmen will have life easy!" he cried. "Well, you shall take turns at these different duties. Myron, make a list of these men, so that we shall know who deserts or misbehaves."

Then Kothar spoke to Merqetek, who spoke to Ajang the messenger, who spoke to Yilthak, who spoke to the porters, who looked serious.

"I merely, told them," said Kothar, "that you had made a magic whereby any evildoer shall be eaten by large purple snakes that will grow in his intestines and devour him from the inside."

"King Gau!" said Bessas. "How many of those riding oxen, pray, are there? As all of our animals have died, we could make good use of such steeds."

"I have many," said the king. "Take such as you wish; it is only a fair return for Shimri's services to us."

Myron spent an hour learning to ride an ox. The animals' gait was easy enough, but they could not be controlled by the rider. Another man had to lead them.

The company also took time to worship Kwoth, the god of the Alabi. "It may do no good," said Bessas, "but we do not want to miss any chances."

"By Zeus the king!" swore Myron the following morning, as the sun rose over the wide green Alabian plain. "Bessas, if I ever thought Zayd's boys a little unruly, I now retract that opinion. They are demigods of order and discipline compared to these whipworthy rascals."

The twain had been trying for a Babylonian double hour to get the expedition under way. But the Ptoemphani made endless difficulties. Every man argued at the top of his lungs that his load was too heavy, or that he had a sore foot, or that his pay should be greater. Men were forever wandering off. They demanded that departure be postponed for an hour—a day—a month.

They threatened to throw down their loads, to refuse to move, to return home.

The Alabi stood on one leg, leaning on their spears, with smug aristocratic smiles on their faces.

"Hereafter," said Bessas, "I swear by Mithra's ten thousand eyes to do my exploring in decent lands, where they have camels and other proper beasts of burden to bear the loads. Trying to use these witlings for the purpose is like trying to pick fleas off a dog with mittens. Come on, you swabs, on the road! Last man gets a cut of the stick!"

A few whacks got the column into motion. There were half a dozen riding oxen, led by armed Ptoemphani; Zayd's four surviving Arabs, also armed and afoot; and the remaining Ptoemphani carrying gear in bags and long reed baskets on their heads and shoulders. Shimri, red of face and eye, stood in the crowd forlornly waving.

A fortnight later they were still marching. They crossed the Nile and struck southwest, into a country of broad plains broken by groups of low hills, of tree-dotted savanna interrupted by patches of solid' forest, in which long-tailed monkeys scampered and large black apes with bare behinds chattered and screamed and threw filth at the travelers.

On the higher ground, euphorbias lifted their many long green fingers heavenwards. Dragon trees bristled with sharp sword-shaped leaves. Enormous lobelias rose like the jade and emerald spires of ancient eastern temples, built back in the days when gods still walked the earth. The explorers plowed through stands of thick grass higher than their heads, where a man could see twenty feet along a trail and no more than five athwart it.

Ajang showed the travelers a small tree with glossy, dark-green leaves and clusters of red berries. When chewed, he explained, the berries of the kahawa tree had the property of banishing sleep.

The continuous rain at last let up, though they still encountered violent thunderstorms. Enormous storm clouds towered miles into the sky. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed as if quarrelsome gods were having it out.

Animals swarmed in the plains, and birds of strange forms and hues filled the air. Swarms of scarlet bee eaters incarnadined entire trees. Grotesque black hornbills flapped heavily past with raucous cries. Ring-necked crows cawed, slender little gray plovers daintily paced the grass for insects, and big brown eagle-hawks hung fearlessly about the company in hopes of offal. At night, cuckoos and barbets sounded the hours with bell-like notes.

The party shrank. Three Ptoemphani ran away, and Amr the Arab stepped on a thick-bodied venomous serpent and died of the bite.

Otherwise, compared with the haggard, exhausted state in which Bessas' people had come to Boron, they were in good health. Dinner seldom lacked a cut of antelope, brought down by Bessas' mighty bow. Besides too many kinds of antelope to remember, they saw herds of wild horses with gaudy black and white stripes.

"Is that the man-eating bull with the movable horns?" asked Myron, pointing.

Half a furlong away, scattered over a low hill, were a score of massive black wild cattle. Unlike the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus, which paid no heed to anything more than a plethron distant, the buffalo saw the travelers as soon as they came into sight. Up came all twenty heads to stare fixedly, so that both curling horns could be seen on the sides of each black muzzle. They stood like statues, except for the slow swing of their heads to keep the travelers in view.

"The horns do not look movable to me," said Bessas, reaching for his bow case. "But we might try cow steak for a change."

However, when the black interpreters saw what the Bactrian was up to, they loudly protested. This was no mere cow, they insisted. Although the buffalo usually let people alone, when wounded it was more to be feared than any other beast. It would trail its foe for leagues for a chance to kill him. At last Bessas sighed and put away his bow.

"This damned responsibility is making an old woman of me," he grumbled. "A year ago, 'twould have taken more than the plaints of a few fearful savages to turn me from my purpose."

One clear night, Myron climbed a hill and stood looking at the strange stars that circled the sky to the south. Long he stood, thinking. He felt that the answer to the problem of the shape of the earth was inside him, trying to burst from his heart—or from his head, if the Egyptians were right in locating the mind in the brain. His mind was pregnant with this solution, but somehow he could not quite bring it to birth.

He paced back and forth, ignoring the roar of a lion. He bit his lips and beat his head with his knuckles. He threw himself down and beat the earth with his fists. Then he leaped up with a yelp, because he had thrown himself on top of a nest of stinging ants. While he was picking the angry insects out of his clothes and skin, a touch on his arm made him start.

It was Umayya. "They sent me to fetch you back," said the Arab. "Elephants are all around, and they feared for your safety."

"Elephants?" said Myron, bringing his mind with an effort back to present reality.

A tree as thick as a man's thigh went over with a crash a few reeds away, and a pair of tusks showed pale against the starlit darkness. Another great black form eclipsed the campfire. A shrill trumpet blast made Myron jump. From all around came other elephantine noises: Squeals, grunts, groans, grumbles, snorts, snores, and the rumble of elephantine stomachs. Mixed with these was the swish of grass and the crackle and crash of branches torn off and trees overthrown.

"Ye gods and spirits!" said Myron. "There do seem to be a few of them. Let us—"

"Yalla!" screamed Umayya, and ran.

Myron smelled elephant and glimpsed a flapping ear that blotted out the stars. The beast, looking as big as the Ishtar Gate, was almost on top of him.

Myron ran after Umayya, following the Arab by the pallor of his loincloth. Although he ran headlong into a baby elephant and mistook a grown one for a tree, he at last arrived back at the camp. Bessas said:

"How in the name of Mithra did you fail to hear them? They've been making a fiendish alarum around us for hours."

"I was thinking about the stars," panted Myron.

"Well, if that's what it is to be a philosopher, I will stick to my sword and bow. Of what avail great thoughts if they allow the thinker to be squashed like an insect?"

But Myron could not give up his private quest. The following day, they halted by the banks of a stream. Myron went off to find a place to wash a dirty shirt.

A clump of trees spread their branches over the stream; from these branches hung masses of globular nests. Hundreds of yellow weaver birds clambered and fluttered about these nests, casting the din of their chatter abroad.

As Myron approached, they flew up in golden clouds. He passed the clump and found a half-submerged boulder that would serve for laundering. Little by little the birds returned to their city.

Myron's gaze rested upon the weaver-bird colony. Thinking of the odd ways of men and beasts, Myron watched as one of the golden birds scrambled upside down about the lower half of its bag-shaped nest.

Myron's mind wandered to similar scenes from the world of nature. He thought of a fly creeping about a fruit, running sure-footedly over the lower as well as the upper surface; or the lizards that swarmed in the Negroes' huts, scuttling upside down across the ceilings of thatch. Now, suppose the world were like such a fruit—spherical, as Bessas had once jestingly suggested—and men were like the fly. Then they could walk on all sides, bottom as well as top, without falling off.

But how would this be possible? Well, how did a fly manage? No doubt a fly had sticky feet, and men did not. But the forces that bound men fast to the earth's surface might work down towards the center of such a ball-earth from all sides. In that case, the direction of "down" would be one of those relative things whereof Herakleitos hinted. Why should one believe that there is any universal direction of "down," the same for gods and men? Why indeed, save that it was one of those things one had always taken for granted?

My "down," he thought, need not be the same as your "down," nor is my "up" your "up." It all depends upon where we stand. If we stand on opposite sides of this fantastic ball-earth, your "down" is my "up" and vice versa.

Myron leaped up and began to pace, striking his palm with his fist. The theory seemed at first utterly insane. But, the longer one thought about it, the more sense it made. Why did one see different stars, the farther south one went? Because one was farther around the bulge of the sphere. Where did the sun go at night? Why, around to the other side of the sphere. Why could one not see clear to the edge of the earth from a high mountain? Because one could not see around the curvature of the sphere. Why did the sun pass directly overhead in this clime, but not farther north? Because this was the part of the earth directly beneath the path of the sun, whereas in Hellas one viewed the sun from outside this zone.

Myron started back for the camp, so filled with his marvelous idea that twice he tripped over buttress roots and fell. At the camp, men were napping or performing small chores. Bessas looked up casually; then his deep-set eyes hardened as he saw that something was up.

"Heurêka auto!" cried Myron.

"You have found what?"

"I know! I know it! At last! It's wonderful!"

"Have you gone mad?"

Myron caught his breath. "The shape of the earth! I have found it! I know it! My dear fellow, this is the greatest d-day of my life!" He seized Bessas' massive arm and squeezed, shaking the arm as a dog shakes its prey. "It is shaped like a ball, a sphere! It is round! This explains everything! I am a made man! At last!"

He poured out a stream of impassioned Greek, arguing and explaining, shaking his fists, slapping Kothar's back, kissing Phyllis, hugging a startled Zayd, then leaping and capering about the camp like one bereft of his senses. He threw himself on the ground and rolled, laughing and crying.

"It's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful ..."

Zayd asked Bessas: "Have the gods taken away our poor friend's wits?"

Bessas shook his head. "Nay. This is a seizure of what the Hellenes call philosophy."

"Is it then a kind of religious frenzy?"

"You might say so, though this religion has no temples. If we pay him no heed, it will pass." Bessas blew his whistle. "Time to pick up our loads! Jump to it, whoresons!"

"I—I was just washing my shirt," said Myron, "and watching these little yellow birds, when—where in Tartaros is my shirt, anyway? I must have left it by the stream!"

He ran off to recover the garment.

That night Myron said to Phyllis: "Come here, my girl."

With a small sigh she came. Afterwards he asked: "Didn't you enjoy it at all?"

"It did not hurt, master. You are a kind man."

"But you are really assotted with that roaring young friend of mine, who makes the ground smoke under him, eh?"

"What if I am, sir? I can do nought. A woman torn from her family is like an insect, floating on a chip which is tossed on a stormy sea, and a slave must obey her master." She wept.

"Well, some day we must do something for you; for you have made my life more pleasant. But for now, we have all we can do to stay alive."