“Many a time maidens taken prisoners in war were brought to be sold, but either they did not please me, or they were too dear.  Meantime my money melted away, for we enjoyed life in the time of rest which followed the working hours.  There were dancers too in plenty, in the foreign quarter.

“Well, it was just at the time of the holy feast of Amon-Chem, that a new transport of prisoners of war arrived, and amongst them many women, who were sold publicly to the highest bidder.  The young and beautiful ones were paid for high, but even the older ones were too dear for me.

“Quite at the last a blind woman was led forward, and a withered-looking woman who was dumb, as the auctioneer, who generally praised up the merits of the prisoners, informed the buyers.  The blind woman had strong hands, and was bought by a tavern-keeper, for whom she turns the handmill to this day; the dumb woman held a child in her arms, and no one could tell whether she was young or old.  She looked as though she already lay in her coffin, and the little one as though he would go under the grass before her.  And her hair was red, burning red, the very color of Typhon.  Her white pale face looked neither bad nor good, only weary, weary to death.  On her withered white arms blue veins ran like dark cords, her hands hung feebly down, and in them hung the child.  If a wind were to rise, I thought to myself, it would blow her away, and the little one with her.

“The auctioneer asked for a bid.  All were silent, for the dumb shadow was of no use for work; she was half-dead, and a burial costs money.

“So passed several minutes.  Then the auctioneer stepped up to her, and gave her a blow with his whip, that she might rouse herself up, and appear less miserable to the buyers.  She shivered like a person in a fever, pressed the child closer to her, and looked round at every one as though seeking for help—­and me full in the face.  What happened now was a real wonder, for her eyes were bigger than any that I ever saw, and a demon dwelt in them that had power over me and ruled me to the end, and that day it bewitched me for the first time.

“It was not hot and I had drunk nothing, and yet I acted against my own will and better judgment when, as her eyes fell upon me, I bid all that I possessed in order to buy her.  I might have had her cheaper!  My companions laughed at me, the auctioneer shrugged his shoulders as he took my money, but I took the child on my arm, helped the woman up, carried her in a boat over the Nile, loaded a stone-cart with my miserable property, and drove her like a block of lime home to the old people.

“My mother shook her head, and my father looked as if he thought me mad; but neither of them said a word.  They made up a bed for her, and on my spare nights I built that ruined thing hard by—­it was a tidy hut once.  Soon my mother grew fond of the child.  It was quite small, and we called it Pennu—­[Pennu is the name for the mouse in old Egyptian]—­because it was so pretty, like a little mouse.  I kept away from the foreign quarter, and saved my wages, and bought a goat, which lived in front of our door when I took the woman to her own hut.