Greatly elated at the thought of his commission, which, though but two and a half per cent., would be quite appreciable, the auctioneer took Marzuk in one hand and the girl in the other, and marched briskly round, declaring their merits and the last bid.
The girl caught up her companion in price, and, passing from hand to hand, was chosen at last by one of the Kaids, who had failed to purchase the pair of girls, at eighty-two dollars. Marzuk saw her frightened eye and quivering lip, she looked once at him and burst into a violent paroxysm of sobbing.
But there was never a big sale in the Sok-el-Abeed without tears in plenty. They were of no more moment to the crowd than the water that the carriers from the south country sprinkled over the sandy market-place.
The auctioneer fetched another boy from the pen and walked round with him and Marzuk.
The latter felt now that the end was coming, he knew that his purchase lay between a fat white-bearded Moor from the country and the keeper of the fandak. He heard the price raised slowly to seventy-five dollars, at which the keeper of the fandak declared with an angry word that he would go no higher.
It was to no hard servitude that Marzuk was taken in the early days when he went for the first time to a master’s house. He was appointed to wait upon his master’s son, a lad of little more than his own age, and if a few blows and some ill-usage were his portion from time to time, he was troubled but little so long as food was good and plentiful.
When the two boys grew towards manhood, their relations became more intimate and friendly, and Marzuk, who had been told off to the fields at every harvest time, was raised to a rather more responsible position, and called upon to superintend the labour of the others. They worked on the land, ploughing and reaping, cultivating the orchards and digging water-pits, or they carried the produce of their master’s fields to the markets of the city.
Here he succeeded, and was sent by his master to the far country markets with corn and oil, sometimes taking journeys of two or three weeks’ duration. Once again his record was satisfactory, and he was further promoted to carry letters and messages to the great country chiefs, with whom his master had commercial or social relations.
So it happened that he escaped the harder fate that waits upon slaves who are idle or vicious or so unfortunate as to find a bad master. Marzuk learned to ride fearlessly, and to know the great tracks that pass for roads in Morocco, and stretch between the far scattered cities.