"If thou wouldst know—Ramûa is to be sold to-day—at a goodly price. Therefore our mother smiles."
Baba spoke in a stupid, matter-of-fact tone, and Charmides heard her stupidly. "Ramûa to be sold!" he repeated. "Ramûa to—be——RAMÛA!" he shouted. "RAMÛA! Speak to me! Apollo! My lord! Tell me what this thing is! Tell me that this woman speaks lies to me! Apollo!"
As understanding finally came home to him, he broke into his own tongue. Ramûa's gentle, dog-like eyes were lifted for an instant only to his. In her glance Baba's words were corroborated. Charmides knew from her look that the thing was true. Then he suddenly went forward and took her into his arms.
"Ramûa," he said, brightly, "I love thee. Thou shalt be my wife."
Then at last her resignation was broken through, and she caught him wildly about the neck. Clinging to him, she gave forth a long, wailing sob that seemed to have no end. Baba, white and choked, moved from her place and aimlessly crossed the room to where Bazuzu crouched, nervously twisting a rosebud in his hand. Tight and yet more tightly Charmides held her whom he loved; and in that close embrace peace came upon them both. It would take more strength than my Lord Ribâta had to part these two now.
At this juncture some one came upon the scene—not Ribâta, but Beltani. At the sight that met her eyes her harsh face lost its light, and Charmides was made aware of her presence by a stinging blow on the back of the neck. With the strength of a strong man she tore him away from Ramûa's close embrace, thrust the girl back upon Bazuzu's pallet, and lifted her hand again to strike the Greek in the face. Charmides caught her by the wrist. Then they confronted each other, the wide, blue eyes blazing into the small, glittering, black ones. The woman's look did not falter. She seemed to have in her no sense of shame. Then Charmides, suddenly flinging her off from him, spoke two words in such a tone as he never again used towards a woman:
"Thou fiend!"
For a second Beltani cringed; but she recovered herself. With an unconcern that to the rhapsode was incomprehensible, she presently said, addressing the room generally:
"The food is ready. If any would eat, let him come up-stairs." Then, turning on her heel again, she retreated to the roof.
Not a single one of the four left behind her, disregarded the summons. Such was Beltani's peculiar power. Baba, Bazuzu, and Ramûa, went from fear. Charmides followed them, out of a sense of prudence—the prudence which told him that Ramûa could only be protected if he were permitted to remain in the household. He knew also that her one chance of escape was through him; as perhaps her single desire to escape was on his account. Therefore, with a superhuman effort, he forced himself to bland attention to Beltani throughout the meal, during which the entire story of the adventures of the past night was recounted at length. Charmides' horror at what Ramûa had been through was equalled by his shame and self-reproach at having slept while she, with Bazuzu and Baniya, had stood almost at his side. He made no comments on the tale. Only, when Beltani concluded her recital with the information that at sunset on this very day Ribâta would come in person to bring the gold and to take Ramûa away, Charmides, seeing the girl's shiver of dread, met her look with a smile that sent the first glow of hope back to her heart. The Greek had made a very simple and feasible plan, as it seemed to him. Ramûa would go forth that morning as usual with her flowers, while he would set out towards the temple of Sin. But at nightfall, when Ribâta arrived at the tenement Ut, with his manehs of gold to exchange for a soul, Ramûa, for the first evening of her life, would not be under her mother's roof. Rather he, Charmides, her husband, would keep her out in the city, wherever he chose to lodge, rightfully and lawfully, and with her full consent; for there was no doubt that the priest of Sin would be quite willing to tie the marriage-cord about their wrists for such a sum as the Greek could afford to pay out of the still unemptied bag of his father.