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 anything off 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.