A word from Tapling set the hands to work lifting the heavy bags of gold onto the quay.
'With the corn on the jetty I will put the gold there too,' said Tapling to Hornblower. 'Keep your eye on it while I look at some of those sacks.'
Tapling walked over to the slave gang. Here and there he opened a sack, looked into it, and inspected handfuls of the golden barley grain; other sacks he felt from the outside.
'No hope of looking over every sack in a hundred ton of barley,' he remarked, strolling back again to Hornblower. 'Much of it is sand, I expect. But that is the way of the heathen. The price is adjusted accordingly. Very well, Effendi.'
At a sign from Duras, and under the urgings of the overseers, the slaves burst into activity, trotting up to the quayside and dropping their sacks into the lighter which lay there. The first dozen men were organized into a working party to distribute the cargo evenly into the bottom of the lighter, while the others trotted off, their bodies gleaming with sweat, to fetch fresh loads. At the same time a couple of swarthy herdsmen came out through the gate driving a small herd of cattle.
'Scrubby little creatures,' said Tapling, looking them over critically, 'but that was allowed for in the price, too.'
'The gold,' said Duras.
In reply Tapling opened one of the bags at his feet, filled his hand with golden guineas, and let them cascade through his fingers into the bag again.
'Five hundred guineas there,' he said. 'Fourteen bags, as you see. They will be yours when the lighters are loaded and unmoored.'
Duras wiped his face with a weary gesture. His knees seemed to be weak, and he leaned upon the patient donkey that stood behind him.