"Be not hasty, my daughter," said he. "The foolish guest turns from a smoking platter, the wise waits till it is cool. Those who desire not to buy may be willing to sell. Will you look on the wares we have brought out of the south?—over the long trackless desert, and through the nations whose hand is ever stretched out to spoil and slay—the Amalekites, the Hivites, and the Anakim."
Ishtar started. The mention of the last-named tribe brought the blood to her brow. She turned back, and replied,
"Show me your wares, if you will, but I too am faint for lack of bread. If I am compelled to take this jewel out of the market unsold, I must creep hence to the city wall, turn my face to its shelter, and so lie down to die."
There was something in her tone that vouched for her truth. He was a merciful man, though he had traded and travelled through the eastern world. Had she bargained with him, he could have found it in his heart to cozen her out of every article she possessed, and had been proud of his own acuteness the while. But this was a different question. It was like fighting an unarmed adversary, taking a prey that made no effort to resist or flee. His heart melted within him for sheer pity and good-will. Caution, however, whispered that such appeals might form the new mode of trading lately adopted in Babylon; and while he took the jewel from her hand, he only said,
"We have enough and to spare of such ornaments. Nevertheless, let us look, and judge for ourselves."
His comrades, of whom there were but two, joined in the examination. From their immovable features she could not guess their opinion; but Ishtar gathered that they meant to trade from the quiet air of depreciation assumed incontinently by each.
After scrutinising the jewel at every possible angle, so as to subject each particle of each stone to the searching test of sunlight, the last speaker, who seemed the principal personage, weighed it carefully in a pair of scales hanging at his belt, and observed,
"One hundred shekels of silver would surely be a fair price, oh! my daughter? But we too have merchandise to sell. Will you not take fifty shekels and your choice of a breadth of silk, a piece of goodly needlework, or a wrought ornament in bronze and ivory from Tyre?"
The clasp was worth three hundred at the lowest, and he felt full of pity and loving-kindness towards the damsel, but a profession is second nature. He was a trader, and must live.
"Your servant is in the hand of my lord," answered Ishtar humbly. "Take the jewel, I pray. Give me the fifty shekels, so that I may buy a morsel of bread, and eat before I die!"