"Now, if our guide is ready we will be going. Slave, bring the basket, at the weight of which you need no longer groan, and you, young woman, strap on this other basket; it is as well that you should begin to be instructed in your domestic duties, for I tell you at once that having heard much of the skill of the Jews in those matters, I have bought you to be my cook and to attend to the dressing of my hair. Farewell, sir, farewell; may we never meet again."
"Farewell," replied the astonished auctioneer, "farewell, my lady Mulier, who can afford to give two thousand sestertia for a cook! Good luck to you, and if you are always as liberal as this, may we meet once a month, say I. Yet have no fear," he added meaningly, "I know when I have been well treated and shall not seek you out--even to please Cæsar himself."
Three minutes later, under the guidance of the clerk, who was as discreet as his master, they had passed, quite undisturbed, through various dark colonnades and up a flight of marble stairs.
"Now you are out of the Forum, so go your ways," he said.
They went, and the clerk stood watching them until they were round a corner, for he was young and curious, and to him this seemed the strangest comedy of the slave-market of which he had ever even heard.
As he turned to go he found himself face to face with a tall man, in whom he recognized that merchant of Egypt who had bid for Pearl-Maiden up to the enormous total of fourteen hundred sestertia.
"Friend," said Demetrius, "which way did your companions go?"
"I don't know," answered the clerk.
"Come, try to remember. Did they walk straight on, or turn to the left, or turn to the right? Fix your attention on these, it may help you," and once more that fortunate clerk found five gold pieces thrust into his hand.
"I don't know that they help me," he said, for he wished to be faithful to his hire.
"Fool," said Demetrius in a changed voice, "remember quickly, or here is something that will----" and he showed him a dagger glinting in his hand. "Now then, do you wish to go the same road as they carried the Jewish girl and the Eastern?"
"They turned to the right," said the clerk sulkily. "It is the truth, but may that road you speak of be yours who draw knives on honest folk."
With a bound Demetrius left his side, and for the second time the clerk stood still, watching him go.