They went on quickly. For the last time, as Rustan led her round a sharp turn, she heard the wild cry of the poor mad creature she had listened to so often by day and in the dead of night. Then she was in another street and could hear it no more.
She was not allowed time to think of her condition yet. A few steps farther and Rustan stopped short, still holding her fast by the wrist, and she saw that they had come upon a group of men who were waiting for them. One suddenly held up a lantern which had been covered, and now shed a yellow light through thin leaves of horn, and Zoë saw that he was a big Ethiopian, as black as ebony. She drew her tatters still more closely over her with her free hand and turned away from the light, as well as Rustan's unrelaxing hold would allow.
A moment later some one she could not see threw a wide warm cloak over her shoulders from behind her, and she caught it gladly and drew the folds to her breast.
'Get into the litter,' said Rustan, sharply but not loudly.
There was nothing soft or oily in his tone now. He had bought her and she was a part of his property. Four men had lifted a covered palanquin and held it up with the small open door just in front of her. She turned, sat upon the edge, and bent her head to slip into the conveyance backwards, as Eastern women learn to do very easily. Rustan held her wrist till she was ready to draw in her feet, and as he let her go at last she disappeared within. He instantly closed the sliding panel and fastened it with a bronze pin. There were half-a-dozen round holes in each door to let in air, not quite big enough to allow the passage of an ordinary woman's hand.
Zoë sank back in the close darkness and found herself leaning against yielding pillows covered with soft leather. The palanquin began to move steadily forwards, hardly swaying from side to side, and not rising or falling at all, as the porters walked on with a smooth, shuffling gait, each timing his step a fraction of a second later than that of the man next before him; lest, by all keeping step together, they should set their burden swinging, which is intolerable to the person carried.
Four men carried the litter, a fifth, armed with an iron-shod staff, went before with the lantern, and Rustan followed after. There was nothing in the appearance of the party to excite surprise or curiosity in a city where every well-to-do person who went out in the evening was carried in a palanquin, and accompanied by at least two trusty servants. For that matter, too, Rustan's business was perfectly legitimate, and it concerned no one that he should have a newly bought beauty carried in a closed litter from a distant quarter of the city to his home.
It was true that he had no receipt for his money, acknowledging that it was the stipulated price paid for a full-grown white maid between eighteen and nineteen years old, with brown eyes, brown hair, twenty-eight teeth, all sound, and a pale complexion; who weighed about two Attic talents and five minæ, and measured just six palms, standing on her bare feet. In strict law, he should have had such a document, signed by the father or mother or owner of the slave, but he knew that he was quite safe without it. Like all Bokharians, he was a profound judge of human nature, and he was quite sure that having once submitted to her fate Zoë would not cheat him by claiming the freedom she had sacrificed; moreover, he knew that the adopted daughter of Michael Rhangabé who had died on the stake in the Hippodrome as an enemy of the reigning Emperor, would have but a small chance of obtaining justice, even if she attempted to prove that she had been carried off by force. Rustan Karaboghazji felt that his position was unassailable as he followed the litter that carried his latest bargain through the winding streets of Constantinople towards the narrow lane, one side of which was formed by that mysterious wall which had but one door in it.
He was well pleased with his day's business, for he was quite sure that he had netted a handsome profit. Under his cloak he held a string of beads in one hand, and as he walked he made the calculation of his probable gains, pushing the beads along the string with his thumb. He had paid one hundred and fifty gold ducats for Zoë; but fifty of them were at least a quarter of their value under weight, so that the actual value of the gold was one hundred and thirty-seven and a half ducats. He was quite sure that Zeno would approve the purchase on a careful inspection, and that he would be willing to give three hundred and fifty sequins, though the girl was a little over age, as slaves' ages were counted. She should have been between sixteen and seventeen, yet she was exceptionally pretty, and spoke three languages—Greek, Latin, and Italian. If Zeno paid the price, the clear profit would be two hundred and twelve and a half ducats. The beads worked quickly in Rustan's fingers, and his hard grey eyes gleamed in the dark. Two hundred and twelve and a half on one hundred and thirty-seven and a half, by the new Venetian method of so much in the hundred, which was a very convenient way of reckoning profits, meant one hundred and fifty-four and a half per centum. The beads worked furiously, as the merchant's imagination carried him off into a mercantile paradise where he could make a hundred and fifty per cent on his capital every day of the year except Sundays and high feast days. This calculation was complicated, even for a Bokharian brain, but it was a delightful one to follow out, and Rustan's blood coursed pleasantly through his veins as he walked behind his purchase.
He had lost no time after he had left the beggars' quarter late in the afternoon, by no means sure that Zoë meant to surrender at all, and very doubtful as to her doing so within the next three days. Yet he had boldly promised that Carlo Zeno should see her on approval on the following morning. After all, he risked nothing but a first failure, for if he did not succeed in buying Zoë in time he could nevertheless show the Venetian merchant some very pretty wares. Zeno was not a man to waste words with such a creature as a slave-dealer, and the interview had not lasted ten minutes. It had taken longer than that to weigh the ducats in order to be sure that a certain number of them were under weight. The only thing Rustan now wished was that he had put many more light ones into the bag, since it had not even been opened; for he had naturally expected to be obliged to count them out before old Nectaria, who had a born slave's intelligence about money.