“Your father, too,” Hanno remarked in his awkward fashion, “will scarcely make life hard for us.  We shall probably find him in Pontus.  He is getting a cargo of wood for Egypt there.  We have had dealings with him a long time.  He thought highly of Abus, and I, too, have already been useful to him.  There were handsome young fellows on the Pontine coast, and we captured them.  At the peril of our lives we took them to the mart.  He may even risk it in Alexandria.  So the old man makes over to him a large number of these youths, and often a girl into the bargain, and he does it far too cheaply.  One might envy him the profit—­if it were not your father!  When you are once my wife, I’ll make a special contract with him about the slaves.  And, besides, since the last great capture, in which the old man allowed me a share of my own, I, too, need not complain of poverty.  I shall be ready for the dowry.  Do you want to know what you are worth to me?”

But Ledscha’s attention was attracted by other things, and even after Hanno, with proud conceit, repeated his momentous question, he waited in vain for a reply.

Then he perceived that the girl was gazing at the brilliantly lighted square as if spellbound, and now he himself saw before the tent a shed with a canopied roof, and beneath it cushioned couches, on which several Greeks—­men and women—­were half sitting, half lying, watching with eager attention the spectacle which a slender young Hellenic woman was presenting to them.

The tall man with the magnificent black beard, who seemed fairly devouring her with his eyes, must be the sculptor whom Ledscha commanded him to capture.

To the rude pirate the Greek girl, who in a light, half-transparent bombyx robe, was exhibiting herself to the eyes of the men upon a pedestal draped with cloths, seemed bold and shameless.

Behind her stood two female attendants, holding soft white garments ready, and a handsome Pontine boy with black, waving locks, who gazed up at her waiting for her signs.

“Nearer,” Ledscha ordered the pirate in a stifled voice, and he rowed the boat noiselessly under the shadow of a willow on the bank.  But the skiff had scarcely been brought to a stop there when an elderly matron, who shared the couch of an old Macedonian man of a distinguished, soldierly appearance, called the name “Niobe.”

The Hellene on the pedestal took a cloth from the hand of one of the female attendants, and beckoned to the boy, who obediently drew through his girdle the short blue chiton which hung only to his knees, and sprang upon the platform.

There the Greek girl manipulated in some way the red tresses piled high upon her head, and confined above the brow by a costly gold diadem, flung the white linen fabric which the young slave handed to her over her head, wound her arm around the shoulders of the raven-locked boy, and drew him toward her with passionate tenderness.  At the same time she raised the end of the linen drapery with her left hand, spreading it over him like a protecting canopy.