“Out with you,” he ordered, “the boat has waited long, and the captain is cursing and impatient!”
“But the girl must be painted,” objected Binit.
“Haste, then. Ea knows what will befall if Imbi raises the alarm.”
They were in the muddy courtyard of a warehouse, the thatched lofts and storerooms rising in the blackness on every side; two or three swarthy boatmen were standing by in the light of a pair of flickering torches. Binit drew her prisoner’s mantle until it covered the face.
“Now, my gosling,” squeaked she in an ear, “one little cry, and you feel this tingle!” And she followed up her word by pricking the Jewess’s neck with the tip of a very keen knife.
Ruth was silent while Binit hurried her up a dark stairway to an upper loft, full of straw. And there, by an uncertain rushlight, she tore off the girl’s white dress, not neglecting to appropriate two valuable rings on Ruth’s fingers, smeared the Jewess’s body with a red cosmetic that gave her the hue of a sun-tanned peasant; and finally, to complete a transformation, which she accomplished with a dexterity worthy of a loftier cause, threw over her the soiled and sombre garments suitable to a slave-girl.
“A proper serving-maid in truth, by Istar!” asserted Binit, surveying her work, while Gudea summoned from below, “Haste! The boat is departing.”
Binit let the cold edge of the knife touch Ruth’s throat yet a second time. “Remember,” was her warning, “to the boatmen you are my maid. Chatter otherwise—” but she did not complete the promise; the dumb, scared expression on Ruth’s face was token that the threat had gone home.
From the warehouse Tabni and Gudea accompanied them to the quay, where, amid a score of dark masts and hulks, they sought a low-lying, clumsy river barge. The exorcist aided the others aboard, while the six boatmen were loosing the tackling.