He rode a half-bred brown Arab mare, for he was not a heavy man, and he preferred a serviceable mount at all times to the showy and ill-tempered white Barbary, or the rather delicate thoroughbred of the desert, which were favourites with the rich Greeks of Constantinople.

He was quietly dressed, too; and his bare-legged runner, who cleared the way for him when the streets were crowded, wore a plain brown tunic and cap, and did not yell at the poorer people and slaves or strike them in pa.s.sing as the footmen of great personages always did.

Zeno had picked him out of at least a hundred for his endurance and his long wind.

So they went quietly and quickly along, the man and his master, following very nearly the way which Omobono had taken on the previous afternoon, till they came to the long wall crested with sharp bits of rusty iron and broken crockery, and stopped before the only door that broke its blank length. Zeno looked at the defence critically, and wondered just how great an inducement would make him take the trouble of getting over it, at the risk of cutting his hands and tearing his clothes. Before any one answered his footman's knock, he had decided that it would be an easy matter to bring his well-broken horse close to the wall, to stand on the saddle, draw himself up and throw a heavy cloak over the spiky iron and the sharp-edged shards with one hand while hanging by the other. The rest would be easy enough. It was always his instinct to make such calculations when he entered or pa.s.sed by any place that was meant to be defended.

This time the door was opened by Rustan Karaboghazji in person, and he bowed to the ground as Zeno got off his horse and stood beside him.

Still bending low he made way and with a wide gesture invited his visitor to enter. But Zeno had no intention of wasting time by going in till he was a.s.sured that there was something ready for his inspection in the way of merchandise.

In answer to his question Rustan turned up his face sideways and smiled cunningly as he gradually straightened himself.

'Your Magnificence shall see!' he answered. 'Where is the letter?

Every point is perfect, as I promised.'

'Were you really speaking the truth?' laughed Zeno. 'I expected to come at least three times before seeing anything!'

Rustan a.s.sumed an expression of gentle reproach.

'If your Splendour had dealt with Barlaam, the Syrian merchant, or with Abraham of Smyrna, the Jewish caravan-broker,' he said, 'it would have been as your Greatness deigns to suggest. Moreover, your Highness would not have been satisfied after all, and would have come at last to the house of your servant Rustan Karaboghazji, surnamed the Truth-speaker and the Just, and also the Keeper of Promises, by those who know him. It must have been so, since there is but one treasure in all the Empire such as your Mightiness asks for, and it is in this house.'

Zeno laughed carelessly, and entered.

'Your Unspeakableness is amused,' said Rustan, fastening the outer door carefully with both keys. 'But if it is not as I say, I entreat your High Mightiness to kick his humble servant from this door to the Seven Towers and back again, pa.s.sing by the Chora, Blachernae, and the Church of the Blessed Pantokrator on the way.'

'That would take a long time,' observed Zeno. 'Open the door and let me see the girl.'

'Your Grandeur shall see, indeed!' answered Rustan, smiling confidently as he led the way. 'Rustan the Truth-speaker,' he continued, as if to himself while walking, 'Karaboghazji the faithful Keeper of Promises!'

He gently caressed his beautiful black beard as he went on. He took Zeno through the small part of the house which he reserved for his own use, far from the larger rooms where he kept his stock of slaves. In an inner apartment they met the negress, resplendent in scarlet velvet and a heavy gold chain, her red hair combed straight out from her head. When Zeno appeared, she at once a.s.sumed what she considered a modest but engaging att.i.tude, crossing her great hands upon her splendid coat, and looking down with a marvellous attempt at a simper.

Rustan stood still and for a moment Zeno thought that the dealer had ventured to jest with him, by showing him the terrific negress in her finery as the incomparable treasure of which he had spoken. But Rustan's words explained everything.

'My Life,' he said, speaking to his wife in a caressing tone, 'is the girl ready to be seen?'

'As my lord commanded me,' replied the negress, keeping her hands folded and bending a little.

'This lady,' said Rustan to Zeno, 'is my wife, and my right hand.' He turned to her. 'Sweet Dove,' he said, 'pray lead his Magnificence to the slave's room. I will wait here.'

Zeno seemed surprised at this arrangement.

'My wife' explained Rustan, 'understands the creatures better than I.

My business is buying and selling; it is her part to keep the merchandise in good condition, and to show it to the customers who honour us.'

He smiled pleasantly as he said this, and remained standing while Zeno followed the negress out of the room. As he walked behind her he could not help noting her strong square shoulders, and the swing of her powerful hips, and her firm tread, and he conceived the idea that she would be a match for any ordinary man in a tussle. He was certainly not thinking of the slave-girl he was about to inspect.

Another door opened, and he was in a room flooded with sunshine and sweet with spring flowers; he stopped, and unconsciously drew one sharp breath of surprise. Zoe had been sitting in a big chair in the sun, and had half risen as the door opened, her hand resting on one of the arms of the seat. Her eyes met Zeno's, and for a moment no one moved. If Rustan had been present he would have raised the price of the merchandise to five hundred ducats at least; the black woman only grinned, well pleased with the appearance of the girl whom she had herself dressed to receive the customer's visit of inspection.

Zoe's hand tightened a little on the arm of the chair and she sank quietly into her seat again as she turned her eyes from Zeno's face, forgetting that she had promised herself to stand erect and cold as a slave should when she is being exhibited.

If the Venetian still doubted that by some mysterious chance of fate the girl he had come to buy at the slave-dealer's was as well born as himself, her movement as she sat down dispelled his lingering uncertainty. He had entered the room carelessly, still wearing his cap. As Zoe resumed her seat, he took it from his head, bowing instinctively, as he would have done on meeting a woman of his own cla.s.s. A faint colour rose in the girl's cheeks, as she looked at him again.

Rustan's wife laughed silently, standing a little behind him. Zoe spoke first.

'Pray, sir,' she said, 'be covered.'

'His High Mightiness uncovers his head for coolness,' said the negress.

Zeno gave her a sharp glance and then turned to Zoe.

'It is not possible that you are a slave,' he said, coming a little nearer and looking down into her face.

But she would not meet his eyes.

'It is the truth, sir,' she said. 'I am a slave and any one may buy me and take me away.'

'Then you have been carried off by force,' Zeno answered with conviction, 'in war, perhaps, or in some raid of enemies on enemies.

Tell me who you are and how it happened, and by the body of blessed Saint Mark, I will give you back free to your own people!'

Zoe looked at him in silent surprise. The negress answered him at once, for she did not like the turn affairs were taking, and though she had never heard of Carlo Zeno, she judged from his looks that he was able to make good his promise.

'Your Splendour does not really believe that my husband would risk the punishment of a robber for carrying off a free woman!' she cried.

'I am a slave,' Zoe said quietly. 'Only a slave and nothing else.

There is no more than that to tell.'

She drew one hand across her brow and eyes as if to shut out something or to drive it away. Zeno came nearer and stood alone beside her.

'Tell me your story,' he said in a lower tone. 'Do not be afraid! no one shall hurt you.'

'There is no more to tell,' she repeated, shaking her head. 'But you are kind, and I thank you very much.'

She raised her clear brown eyes gratefully to his for a moment. There was sadness in them, but he saw that she had not been weeping; and like a man, he argued that if she were very unhappy she would, of course, shed copious tears the live-long day, like the captive maidens in the tales of chivalry. He looked at the beautiful young hand, now lying on the arm of the chair, and for the first time in his life he felt embarra.s.sed.

The negress, who was not at all used to such methods in the buying and selling of humanity, now came forward and began to call attention to the fine quality of her goods.

'Very fine natural hair,' she observed. 'Your Gorgeousness will see at once that it has never been dyed.'

She took one of Zoe's plaits in her hand, and the girl shrank a little at the touch.

'Let her alone!' Zeno said sharply. 'I am not blind.'

'It is her business to show me,' Zoe answered for her, in a tone of submission.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'Tell me your story,' he said in a lower tone. 'Do not be afraid! no one shall hurt you.']

'It shall not be her business much longer,' replied Zeno, almost to himself.

He suddenly turned away from her, went to the open window, and looked out, laying one hand on the iron bars. It was not often that he hesitated, but he found himself faced by a very unexpected difficulty.

He was executing a commission for a friend, and if he bought a slave with his friend's money, he should feel bound in honour to send her to her new master at the first opportunity. On the other hand, though it was perfectly clear from the girl's behaviour that she expected no better fate, he was intimately convinced that in some way a great wrong was being done, and he had never yet pa.s.sed a wrong by without trying to right it with his purse or his sword. Clearly, he was still at liberty to buy Zoe for himself, and take her to his home; yet he shrank from such a solution of the problem, as if it were the hardest of all. What should he do with a young and lovely girl in his house, where there were no women, where no woman ever set foot? She would need female attendants, and of course he could buy them for her, or hire them; but he thought with strong distaste of such an establishment as all this would force upon him. Besides, he could not keep the girl for ever, merely because he suspected that she was born a lady and was the victim of some great injustice. She denied that she was. What if she should persist in her denial after he had bought her to set her free? What if she really had no family, no home, no one to whom she could go, or wished to go? He would not turn her out, then; he would not sell her again, and he should not want her. Moreover, he knew well enough that it was not his nature to go on leading the peaceful life of a merchant much longer, even if the threatening times would permit it. He had always been as free as air. As he was now living, if it should please him to leave Constantinople, he could do so in twenty-four hours, leaving his business, though at a loss, to another merchant--for he had prospered. But it would be otherwise if this girl were in the house, under his protection, and it never occurred to him, after he had looked into her eyes, that she could live under his roof except in order that he might protect her--protect her from imaginary enemies, right imaginary wrongs she had never suffered, and altogether make of her what she protested that she was not.