"What are you talking about?" I answered him, unable to understand what he meant. "A horse-dealer?"
"That is what the Romans call the slave merchants."[14]
"How! They traffic in wounded men?" I asked the old man in surprise. "Are there men who buy the dying?"
"Do you not know," he answered with a somber smile, "that after the battle of Vannes there were more dead than living, and not an unwounded Gaul? Upon these wounded men, in default of more able-bodied prey, the slave-dealers who follow the Roman army fell like so many ravens upon corpses."
There was no more room for doubt. I realized that I was a slave. I had been bought. I would be sold again. The "horse-dealer," having finished speaking to the keepers, approached the old man, and said to him in Gallic, but with an accent that proved his foreign origin:
"My old Pierce-Skin—how has your neighbor come on? Has he at last recovered from his stupor? Is he at last able to speak?"
"Ask him," snapped the old man, turning over on the straw. "He'll answer you himself."
The "horse-dealer" thereupon walked over to my side. He seemed no longer angry. His countenance, naturally jovial, was beaming. Putting his two hands on his knees, he stooped down to me; grinned at me; and spoke to me hurriedly, often putting questions which he answered himself, not seeming to care whether I heard him or not.
"You have, then, recovered your spirits, my fine Bull? Yes? Ah, so much the better! By Jupiter, it's a good sign. Now your appetite will return, and it is returning, isn't it? Still better! Before eight days you will be in fine feather. Those brutes of keepers, always in their cups, scourged you, did they? Yes? I'm not a bit surprised—they never do anything else. The wine of Gaul makes them stupid. To strike you! To strike you! And that when you can hardly stand up; besides the fact that in men of the Gallic race, choler is likely to produce bad results. But you are no longer angry, are you? No! So much the better! It is I who should be provoked at those tipsters. Suppose the fury raging in your blood had stifled you! But, bah! those brutes care little for making me lose twenty-five or thirty gold sous,[15] which you will presently be worth to me, my fine Bull. But for greater safety I'll have you taken to a shelter where you will be alone and better off than here. It was occupied by a wounded fellow who died last night—a superb fellow. That was a loss! Ah, commerce is not all gain. Come, follow me."
He set to work to unfasten my chain by a secret spring. I asked him why he always called me "Bull." I would have preferred by far the keeper's lash to the jovial loquacity of this trafficker in human flesh. Certain now that I was not dreaming, still I could hardly accept the reality of what I saw. Unable to resist, I followed the man. At least I would no longer be under the eyes of the keepers who beat me, and the sight of whom made my blood boil. I made an effort to raise myself, but my weakness was still excessive. The "horse-dealer" unhooked the chain, and held one end. As my hands were still shackled, the man with the long black robe and the one who carried the casket took me under the arms, and led me to the extremity of the shed. They made me mount several stairs and enter a small room that was lighted through an iron-barred opening. I looked through the opening and recognized the great square of the town of Vannes, and, in the distance, the house where I had often gone to see my brother Albinik and his wife. In the room were a stool, a table, and a long box of fresh straw, in place of the one in which the other slave had died. I was made to sit on the stool. The black-robed man, a Roman physician, examined my two wounds, constantly conversing in his own language with the "horse-dealer." He took various salves from the casket which his companion was carrying, dressed my hurts, and went to render his services to the other slaves, not, however, before helping the "horse-dealer" to fasten my chain to the wooden box which served as my bed. The physician then took his departure, and left me alone with my master.