"Your servant is a dog if he does not answer the question to the satisfaction of the most exacting. This man comes from the sea that lies beyond our northern mountains, and can live in the water. There is no better diver than he; why, he has brought up pebbles that were ten fathoms down, and surely each fathom's depth is worth ten golden pieces."
The speaker turned to the crowd for approval, and the affirmative nods that greeted his appeal brought a smile of satisfaction to his dark face.
"If you speak truth, you are right," answered the vizier. "But where is your proof?"
"Ask the man; he will not lie."
"Can you do what he claims for you?" questioned the vizier, turning to the captive.
A smile of mingled scorn and contempt passed like a flash across the man's face, and then he said:
"What will it matter to me whether I can or no?"
"This," answered the vizier: "if you can, I shall purchase you for the sultan's pearl fisheries. One pearl each day makes you free for the remaining hours, and the sultan is not a hard master. I have known him give slaves their freedom."
"I need no freedom, for my people are here. Shall I have food and shelter?"
As he spoke his glance swept along the faces of the captives and turned away, a bitter disappointment in it, as though it could not find those for whom it sought.