"Who'll say seventy-five?" pleaded the Agozlid. "I brought this being here at the cost of three lives, slaves worth more than a hundred between them. Will you make me take a loss? Surely five thousand stellors—"
"Seventy-five," said a voice.
"Eighty," came an immediate response.
"One hundred," said the noblewoman in the front row.
The Agozlid's toothy face became mellow as the bidding rose spontaneously. From his vantage-point in the last row, Barr Herndon watched.
The proteus wriggled, attempted to escape, altered itself wildly and pathetically. Herndon's lips compressed tightly. He knew something himself of what suffering meant.
"Two hundred," he said.
"A new voice!" crowed the auctioneer. "A voice from the back row! Five hundred, did you say?"
"Two hundred," Herndon repeated coldly.
"Two-fifty," said a nearby noble promptly.