Rustan wrote on a strip of parchment, in bad Greek:—
In the name of the Holy Trinity, Constantinople, the Saturday before Passion Sunday, the second year of Andronicus Augustus Cæsar, and the fourteenth of the Indiction, I have received from the Most Magnificent Carlo Zeno, a Venetian, the sum of four hundred and forty gold ducats of Venice, for the following merchandise:—
| For one Greek maid slave, slave-born,between seventeen and eighteen yearsold, answering to the name of Arethusa,without blemish, scar, or birthmark,having natural brown hair,brown eyes, twenty-eight teeth allsound, weighing two Attic talents andfive minæ more or less, and speakingGreek, Latin, and Italian | Ducats 400 | |
| For two maid slaves, from Tanais, slave-born,of fourteen and fifteen, answeringto the names of Lucilla and Yulia,sound, healthy, never having beentortured or branded, each having blackhair, black eyes, and twenty-eightteeth, trained to wait on a lady, andspeaking intelligible Greek, besides abarbarous dialect of their own, warranteddocile, and not given to stealing;at 20 ducats each | Ducats 40 | |
| In all | Ducats 440 | |
Rustan Karaboghazji, the son of Daddirján, Merchant.
(Witness)—Sebastian Omobono, of Venice, Clerk.
Omobono observed that the receipt acknowledged forty ducats as the price of the two girls, instead of twenty-four.
'Rustan Karaboghazji, surnamed the Truth-speaker, does not sell slaves at twelve ducats,' answered the Bokharian with dignity. 'Moreover, your employer will see that he has paid forty, and you can justly keep the sixteen ducats for yourself.'
'That would not be honest,' protested Omobono, shaking his neat grey beard.
Rustan smiled, in a pitying way.
'You Venetians do not really understand business,' he said, tightening the strings of the canvas bag into which he had swept the gold, and knotting them as he rose.