When it was quite dark the old woman came back with something hidden under her tattered shawl, and ZoË drew the rotten shutters that barely hung by the hinges and fastened them inside with bits of rain-bleached cord that were knotted through holes in the wood. She also shut the door and put up a wooden bar across it. While she was doing this she could hear Anastasia, the crazy paralytic who lived farther down the lane, singing a sort of mad litany of hunger to herself in the dark. It was the thin nasal voice of a starving lunatic, rising sharply and then dying away in a tuneless wail:—

The miserable, crazy voice rose to a piercing scream, that made ZoË shudder; and then there came a little low, faint wailing, as the mad woman collapsed in her chair, dreaming perhaps that her prayer was about to be answered.

ZoË had shut the door, and there was now a little light in the ruined room; for Nectaria, the old beggar woman, had been crouching in a corner over an earthen pan in which a few live coals were buried under ashes, and she had blown upon them till they glowed and had kindled a splinter of dry wood to a flame, and with this she had lit the small wick of an earthen lamp which held mingled oil and sheep's fat. But she placed the light on the stone floor so shaded that not a single ray could fall towards the door or the cracked shutters, lest some late returning beggar should see a glimmer from outside and guess that there was something to get by breaking in and stealing; for they were only three women, one dying, one very old, and the third ZoË herself, and two young children, and some of the beggars were strong men who had only lost one eye, or perhaps one hand, which had been chopped off for stealing.

When the light was burning ZoË could see that the sick woman was awake, and she poured out some milk from a small jug which Nectaria had brought, and warmed it over the coals in a cracked cup, and held it to the tired lips, propping up the pillow with her other hand. And the sick one drank, and tried to smile.

Meanwhile Nectaria spread out the rest of the supplies she had brought on a clean board; there was a small black loaf and three little fishes fried in oil, such as could be bought where food is cooked at the corners of the streets for the very poor. The two children gazed at this delicious meal with hungry eyes. They were boys, not more than seven and eight years old, and their rags were tied to them, to cover them, with all sorts of bits of string and strips of torn linen. But they were quite quiet, and did not try to take their share till ZoË came to the board and broke the black loaf into four equal portions with her white fingers. There was a piece for each of the boys, and a piece for Nectaria, and the girl kept a piece for herself; but she would not take a fish, as there were only three.

'This is all I could buy for the money,' said Nectaria. 'The milk is very dear now.'

'Why do you give it to me?' asked the sick woman, in a sweet and faint voice. 'You are only feeding the dead, and the living need the food.'

'Mother!' cried ZoË reproachfully, 'if you love us, do not talk of leaving us! The Bokharian has promised to bring a physician to see you, and to give us money for what you need. He will come in the morning, early in the morning, and you shall be cured, and live! Is it not as I say, Nectaria?'

The old woman nodded her head in answer as she munched her black bread, but would say nothing, and would not look up. There was silence for a while.

'And what have you promised the Bokharian?' asked the mother at last, fixing her sad eyes on ZoË's face. 'Did ever one of his people give one of us anything without return?'

'I have promised nothing,' ZoË answered, meeting her mother's gaze quietly. Yet there was a shade of effort in her tone.

'Nothing yet,' said the sick woman. 'I understand. But it will come—it will come too soon!'

She turned away her face on the pillow and the last words were hardly audible. The little boys did not hear them, and would not have understood; but old Nectaria heard and made signs to ZoË. The signs meant that by and by, when the sick woman should be dozing, Nectaria had something to tell; and ZoË nodded.

There was silence again till all had finished eating and had drunk in turn from the earthen jar of water. Then they sat still and silent for a little while, and though the windows and the door were shut they could hear the mad woman singing again:—

The sick woman breathed softly and regularly. The little boys grew sleepy and nodded, and huddled against each other as they sat. Then old Nectaria took the light and led them, half asleep, to a sort of bunk of boards and dry straw, in a small inner room, and put them to bed, covering them as well as she could; and they were soon asleep. She came back, shading the light carefully with her hand; and presently, when the sick woman seemed to be sleeping also, Nectaria and ZoË crept softly to the other end of the room and talked in whispers.

'She is better to-night,' said the girl.

Nectaria shook her head doubtfully.

'How can any one get well here, without medicine, without food, without fire?' she asked. 'Yes—she is better—a little. It will only take her longer to die.'

'She shall not die,' said ZoË. 'The Bokharian has promised money and help.'

'For nothing? he will give nothing,' Nectaria answered sadly. 'He talked long with me this afternoon, out in the street. I implored him to give us a little help now, till the danger is passed, because if you leave her she will die.'

'Did you try to make him believe that if he would help us now you would betray me to him in a few days?'

'Yes, but he laughed at me—softly and wisely as Bokharians laugh. He asked me if one should feed wolves with flesh before baiting the pit-fall that is to catch them. He says plainly that until you can make up your mind, we shall have only the three pennies he gives us every day, and if your mother dies, so much the worse; and if the children die, so much the worse; and if I die, so much the worse; for he says you are the strongest of us and will outlive us all.'

'It is true!' ZoË clasped her hands against the wall and pressed her forehead against them, closing her eyes. 'It is true,' she repeated, in the same whisper, 'I am so strong!'

Old Nectaria stood beside her and laid one wrinkled cheek to the cold wall, so that her face was near ZoË's, and they could still talk.

'If I refuse,' said the girl, quivering a little in her distress, 'I shall see you all die before my eyes, one by one!'

'Yet, if you leave your mother now——' the old woman began.

'She has lived through much more than losing me,' answered ZoË. 'My father's long imprisonment, his awful death!' she shuddered now, from head to foot.

Nectaria laid a withered hand sympathetically on her trembling shoulder, but ZoË mastered herself after a moment's silence and turned her face to her companion.

'You must make her think that I shall come back,' she whispered. 'There is no other way—unless I give my soul, too. That would kill her indeed—she could not live through that!'

'And to think that my old bones are worth nothing!' sighed the poor old woman; she took the rags of ZoË's tattered sleeve and pressed them to her lips.

But ZoË bent down, for she was the taller by a head, and she tenderly kissed the wrinkled face.

'Hush!' she whispered softly. 'You will wake her if you cry. I must do it, Ria, to save you all from death, since I can. If I wait longer, I shall grow thinner, and though I am so strong I may fall ill. Then I shall be worth nothing to the Bokharian.'

'But it is slavery, child! Do you not understand that it is slavery? That he will take you and sell you in the market, as he would sell an Arab mare, to the highest bidder?'

ZoË leaned sideways against the wall, and the faint light that shone upwards from the earthen lamp on the floor, fell upon her lovely upturned face, and on the outlines of her graceful body, ill-concealed by her thin rags.

'Is it true that I am still beautiful?' she asked after a pause.

'Yes,' answered the old woman, looking at her, 'it is true. You were not a pretty child, you were sallow, and your nose——'

ZoË interrupted her.

'Do you think that many girls as beautiful as I are offered in the slave market?'

'Not in my time,' answered the old woman. 'When I was in the market I never saw one that could compare with you.'

She had been sold herself, when she was thirteen.

'Of course,' she added, 'the handsome ones were kept apart from us and were better fed before they were sold, but we waited on them—we whom no one would buy except to make us work—and so we saw them every day.'

'He says he will give a hundred Venetian ducats for me, does he not?'

'Yes; and you are worth three hundred anywhere,' answered the old slave, and the tears came to her eyes, though she tried to squeeze them back with her crooked fingers.

The sick woman called to the two in a weak voice. ZoË was at her side instantly, and Nectaria shuffled as fast as she could to the pan of coals and crouched down to blow upon the embers in order to warm some milk.

'I am cold,' complained the sufferer, 'so cold!'

ZoË found one of her hands and began to chafe it gently between her own.

'It is like ice,' she said.

The girl was ill-clothed enough, as it was, and the early spring night was chilly; but she slipped off her ragged outer garment, the long-skirted coat of the Greeks, and spread it over the other wretched coverings of the bed, tucking it in round her mother's neck.

'But you, child?' protested the sick woman feebly.

'I am too hot, mother,' answered ZoË, whose teeth were chattering.

Nectaria brought the warm milk, and ZoË lifted the pillow as she had done before, and held the cup to the eager lips till the liquid was all gone.

'It is of no use,' sighed her mother. 'I shall die. I shall not live till morning.'

She had been a very great lady of Constantinople, the KyrÍa Agatha, wife of the Protosparthos Michael RhangabÉ, whom the Emperor Andronicus had put to death with frightful tortures more than a year ago, because he had been faithful to the Emperor Johannes. Until her husband had been imprisoned, she had spent her life in a marble palace by the Golden Horn, or in a beautiful villa on the Bosphorus. She had lived delicately and had loved her existence, and even after all her husband's goods had been confiscated as well as all her own, she had lived in plenty for many months with her children, borrowing here and there of her friends and relatives. But they had forsaken her at last; not but that some of them were generous and would have supported her for years, if it had been only a matter of money, but it had become a question of life and death after RhangabÉ had been executed, and none of them would risk being blinded, or maimed, or perhaps strangled for the sake of helping her. Then she had fallen into abject poverty; her slaves had all been taken from her with the rest of the property and sold again in the market, but old Nectaria had hidden herself and so had escaped; and she, who knew the city, had brought KyrÍa Agatha and her three children to the beggars' quarter as a last refuge, when no one would take them in. The old slave had toiled for them, and begged for them, and would have stolen for them if she had not been profoundly convinced that stealing was not only a crime punishable at the very least by the loss of the right hand, but that it was also a much greater sin because it proved that the thief did not believe in the goodness of Providence. For Providence, said Nectaria, was always right, and so long as men did right, men and Providence must necessarily agree; in other words, all would end well, either on earth or in heaven. But to steal, or kill by treachery, or otherwise to injure one's neighbour for one's own advantage, was to interfere with the ways of Providence, and people who did such things would in the end find themselves in a place diametrically opposite to that heaven in which Providence resided. Of its kind, Nectaria's reasoning was sound, and whether truly philosophical or not, it was undeniably moral.

ZoË was not KyrÍa Agatha's own daughter. No children had been born to the Protosparthos and his wife for several years after their marriage, and at last, in despair, they had adopted a little baby girl, the child of a young Venetian couple who had both died of the cholera that periodically visited Constantinople. KyrÍa Agatha and RhangabÉ brought her up as their own daughter, and again years passed by; then, at last, two boys were born to them within eighteen months. Michael RhangabÉ's affection for the adopted girl never suffered the slightest change. KyrÍa Agatha loved her own children better, as any mother would, and as any children would have a right to expect when they were old enough to reason. She had not been unkind to ZoË, still less had she conceived a dislike for her; but she had grown indifferent to her and had looked forward with pleasure to the time when the girl should marry and leave the house. Then the great catastrophe had come, and loss of fortune, and at last beggary and actual starvation; and though ZoË's devotion had grown deeper and more unselfish with every trial, the elder woman's anxiety now, in her last dire extremity, was for her boys first, then for herself, and for ZoË last of all.

The girl knew the truth about her birth, for RhangabÉ himself had not thought it right that she should be deceived, but she had not the least recollection of her own parents; the Protosparthos and his wife had been her real father and mother and had been kind, and it was her nature to be grateful and devoted. She saw that the KyrÍa loved the boys best, but she was already too womanly not to feel that human nature must have its way where the ties of flesh and blood are concerned; and besides, if her adoptive mother had been cruel and cold, instead of only indifferent where she had once been loving, the girl would still have given her life for her, for dead RhangabÉ's sake. While he had lived, she had almost worshipped him; in his last agonies he had sent a message to his wife and children, and to her, which by some happy miracle had been delivered; and now that he was dead she was ready to die for those who had been his; more than that, she was willing to be sold into slavery for them.

She stood by the bedside only half covered, and she tried to think of something more that she might do, while she gazed on the pale face that was turned up to hers.

'Are you warmer, now?' she asked tenderly.

'Yes—a little. Thank you, child.'

KyrÍa Agatha closed her eyes again, but ZoË still watched her. The conviction grew in the girl that the real danger was over, and that the delicately nurtured woman only needed care and warmth and food. That was all, but that was the unattainable, since there was nothing left that could be sold; nothing but ZoË's rare and lovely self. A hundred golden ducats were a fortune. In old Nectaria's hands such a sum would buy real comfort for more than a year, and in that time no one could tell what might happen. A turn of fortune might bring the Emperor John back to the throne. He had been a weak ruler, but neither cruel nor ungrateful, and surely he would provide for the widow of the Commander of his Guards who had perished in torment for being faithful to him. Then ZoË's freedom might be bought again, and she would go into a convent and live a good life to the end, in expiation of such evil as might be thrust upon her as a bought slave.

This she could do, and this she must do, for there was no other way to save Agatha's life, and the lives of the little boys.

'A little more milk,' said the sick woman, opening her eyes again.

Nectaria crouched over the embers, and warmed what was left of the milk. ZoË, watching her movements, saw that it was the last; but KyrÍa Agatha was surely better, and would ask for more during the night, and there would be none to give her; none, perhaps, until nearly noon to-morrow.

Nectaria took the pan of coals away to replenish it, going out to the back of the ruined house in order to light the charcoal in the open air. The sick woman closed her eyes again, being momentarily satisfied and warm.

ZoË sank upon her knees beside the bed, forgetting that she was cold and half-starved, as the tide of her thoughts rose in a wave of despair.

The fitful night breeze wafted the words of the mad woman's crooning along the lane, 'Eleeison! Eleeison!'

And ZoË unconsciously answered, as she would have answered in church, 'Kyrie eleeison!'

'Blessed Michael, Archangel, give us meat, we starve!' came the wild song, now high and distinct.

'Kyrie eleeison!' answered ZoË on her knees.

Then she sprang to her feet like a startled animal. Some one had knocked at the door. With one hand she gathered her thin rags across her bosom, the other unconsciously went to the sick woman's shoulder, as if at once to reassure her and to bid her be silent.

Again the knocking came, discreet still, but a little louder than before. Nectaria was still away and busy with the pan of coals, and the sick woman heard nothing, for she was sound asleep at last. ZoË saw this, and drew her bare feet out of her patched slippers before she ran lightly to the door.

'Who knocks?' she asked in a very low tone, clasping her tattered garment to her body.

The Bokharian's smooth voice answered her in oily accents.

'I am Rustan,' he said. 'I am suddenly obliged to go on a journey, and I start at dawn.'

ZoË held her breath, for she felt that the last chance of saving her mother was slipping away.

'Do you hear me?' asked Rustan, outside.

'Yes.'

'Will you make up your mind? I will give half as much again as I promised.'

The girl's face had been pale; it turned white now, for the great moment had come very suddenly. She made an effort to swallow, in order to speak distinctly, and she glanced towards the bed. KyrÍa Agatha was in a deep sleep.

'Have your brought the money with you?' ZoË asked, almost panting.

'Yes.'

The hand that grasped the rags to keep them together pressed desperately against her heart. While Rustan could have counted ten, there was silence. Twice again she looked towards the bed and then, with infinite precaution, she slipped out the wooden bar that kept the door closed. Once more she drew her rags over her, for they had fallen back when she used both her hands. She opened the door a little, and saw Rustan muffled in a cloak, his eager face and black beard thrust forward in anticipation of entering. But she stopped him, and held out one hand.

'My mother has fallen into a deep sleep,' she said. 'Give me the money and I will go with you.'

Without hesitation Rustan placed in her outstretched hand a small bag made of coarse sail-cloth, and closely tied with hemp twine.

'How much is it?' she whispered.

'One hundred and fifty gold ducats,' answered the Bokharian under his breath, for he knew that if he did not wake the sleeping woman there would be less trouble.

At that moment Nectaria came back from within, with the pan of coals. ZoË caught her eye and held out the heavy little bag. The woman stared, looked at KyrÍa Agatha's sleeping face, set down the pan upon the floor, and came forward.

'He has brought the money, a hundred and fifty ducats,' ZoË whispered, forcing the bag into Nectaria's trembling hands. 'It is the only way. Good-bye—quick—shut the door before she wakes—tell her I am asleep in the straw—God bless you——'

'Eleeison! Eleeison!' came the wail of the mad woman on the wind.

Before Nectaria could answer ZoË had pulled the door till it shut behind her, and was outside, barefooted on the hardening mud, and scarcely covered. She said nothing now, and Rustan was silent too, but he had taken one of her wrists and held it firmly without hurting it. The fleet young creature might make a dash for freedom yet, foolish as that would be, since he could easily force his way into the ruined house and take back his money if she escaped him. But he had nearly lost a young slave once before, and he would risk nothing, so he kept his strong hand tightly clasped round the slender wrist, though ZoË walked beside him quietly in the deep gloom, thinking only of covering herself from his gaze, though indeed he could scarcely see the outline of her figure.

They went on quickly. For the last time, as Rustan led her round a sharp turn, she heard the wild cry of the poor mad creature she had listened to so often by day and in the dead of night. Then she was in another street and could hear it no more.

She was not allowed time to think of her condition yet. A few steps farther and Rustan stopped short, still holding her fast by the wrist, and she saw that they had come upon a group of men who were waiting for them. One suddenly held up a lantern which had been covered, and now shed a yellow light through thin leaves of horn, and ZoË saw that he was a big Ethiopian, as black as ebony. She drew her tatters still more closely over her with her free hand and turned away from the light, as well as Rustan's unrelaxing hold would allow.

A moment later some one she could not see threw a wide warm cloak over her shoulders from behind her, and she caught it gladly and drew the folds to her breast.

'Get into the litter,' said Rustan, sharply but not loudly.

There was nothing soft or oily in his tone now. He had bought her and she was a part of his property. Four men had lifted a covered palanquin and held it up with the small open door just in front of her. She turned, sat upon the edge, and bent her head to slip into the conveyance backwards, as Eastern women learn to do very easily. Rustan held her wrist till she was ready to draw in her feet, and as he let her go at last she disappeared within. He instantly closed the sliding panel and fastened it with a bronze pin. There were half-a-dozen round holes in each door to let in air, not quite big enough to allow the passage of an ordinary woman's hand.

ZoË sank back in the close darkness and found herself leaning against yielding pillows covered with soft leather. The palanquin began to move steadily forwards, hardly swaying from side to side, and not rising or falling at all, as the porters walked on with a smooth, shuffling gait, each timing his step a fraction of a second later than that of the man next before him; lest, by all keeping step together, they should set their burden swinging, which is intolerable to the person carried.

Four men carried the litter, a fifth, armed with an iron-shod staff, went before with the lantern, and Rustan followed after. There was nothing in the appearance of the party to excite surprise or curiosity in a city where every well-to-do person who went out in the evening was carried in a palanquin, and accompanied by at least two trusty servants. For that matter, too, Rustan's business was perfectly legitimate, and it concerned no one that he should have a newly bought beauty carried in a closed litter from a distant quarter of the city to his home.

It was true that he had no receipt for his money, acknowledging that it was the stipulated price paid for a full-grown white maid between eighteen and nineteen years old, with brown eyes, brown hair, twenty-eight teeth, all sound, and a pale complexion; who weighed about two Attic talents and five minÆ, and measured just six palms, standing on her bare feet. In strict law, he should have had such a document, signed by the father or mother or owner of the slave, but he knew that he was quite safe without it. Like all Bokharians, he was a profound judge of human nature, and he was quite sure that having once submitted to her fate ZoË would not cheat him by claiming the freedom she had sacrificed; moreover, he knew that the adopted daughter of Michael RhangabÉ who had died on the stake in the Hippodrome as an enemy of the reigning Emperor, would have but a small chance of obtaining justice, even if she attempted to prove that she had been carried off by force. Rustan Karaboghazji felt that his position was unassailable as he followed the litter that carried his latest bargain through the winding streets of Constantinople towards the narrow lane, one side of which was formed by that mysterious wall which had but one door in it.

He was well pleased with his day's business, for he was quite sure that he had netted a handsome profit. Under his cloak he held a string of beads in one hand, and as he walked he made the calculation of his probable gains, pushing the beads along the string with his thumb. He had paid one hundred and fifty gold ducats for ZoË; but fifty of them were at least a quarter of their value under weight, so that the actual value of the gold was one hundred and thirty-seven and a half ducats. He was quite sure that Zeno would approve the purchase on a careful inspection, and that he would be willing to give three hundred and fifty sequins, though the girl was a little over age, as slaves' ages were counted. She should have been between sixteen and seventeen, yet she was exceptionally pretty, and spoke three languages—Greek, Latin, and Italian. If Zeno paid the price, the clear profit would be two hundred and twelve and a half ducats. The beads worked quickly in Rustan's fingers, and his hard grey eyes gleamed in the dark. Two hundred and twelve and a half on one hundred and thirty-seven and a half, by the new Venetian method of so much in the hundred, which was a very convenient way of reckoning profits, meant one hundred and fifty-four and a half per centum. The beads worked furiously, as the merchant's imagination carried him off into a mercantile paradise where he could make a hundred and fifty per cent on his capital every day of the year except Sundays and high feast days. This calculation was complicated, even for a Bokharian brain, but it was a delightful one to follow out, and Rustan's blood coursed pleasantly through his veins as he walked behind his purchase.

He had lost no time after he had left the beggars' quarter late in the afternoon, by no means sure that ZoË meant to surrender at all, and very doubtful as to her doing so within the next three days. Yet he had boldly promised that Carlo Zeno should see her on approval on the following morning. After all, he risked nothing but a first failure, for if he did not succeed in buying ZoË in time he could nevertheless show the Venetian merchant some very pretty wares. Zeno was not a man to waste words with such a creature as a slave-dealer, and the interview had not lasted ten minutes. It had taken longer than that to weigh the ducats in order to be sure that a certain number of them were under weight. The only thing Rustan now wished was that he had put many more light ones into the bag, since it had not even been opened; for he had naturally expected to be obliged to count them out before old Nectaria, who had a born slave's intelligence about money.

Inside the litter the girl lay on her cushions in the dark, wondering with a sort of horror at what she had done. She had thought of it indeed, through many days and sleepless nights, and she did not regret it; she would not have gone back, now that she had left plenty and comfort where there had been nothing but ruin and hunger; but she thought of what was before her and prayed that she might close her eyes and die before the morning came, or better still, before the litter stopped and Rustan drew back the sliding door.

In an age and a land of slavery, the slave's fate was familiar to her. She knew that there were public markets and private markets, and that her beauty, which meant her value, would save her from the former; but to the daughter of freeborn parents the difference between the one and the other was not so great as to be a consolation. She would be well lodged, well covered, and well fed, it was true, and she need not fear cruel treatment; but customers would come, perhaps to-morrow, and she was to be shown to them like a valuable horse; they would judge her points and discuss her and the sum that Rustan would ask; and if they thought the price too high they would go away and others would come, and others, till a bargain was struck at last. After that, she could only think of death as the end. She knew that many handsome girls were secretly sold to Sultan Amurad and the Turkish chiefs over in Asia Minor or in Adrianople, and it was more than likely that she herself would fare no better, for the conquerors were lavish with their gold, whereas the Greeks were either half-ruined nobles or sordid merchants who counted every penny.

The men carried the litter smoothly and steadily, never slackening and never hastening their pace. The time seemed endless. Now and then she heard voices and many steps, with the clatter of horses' hoofs, which told her that she was in one of the more frequented streets, but most of the time she heard scarcely anything but the shuffling walk of the men in their heavy sandals and the firmer tread of Rustan's well-shod feet where the road was hard. She guessed that he was avoiding the great thoroughfares, probably because the people who thronged them even at that hour would have hindered the progress of the palanquin. ZoË knew as well as the dealer that there was nothing as yet in the transaction which need be hidden; possibly, if she were afterwards sold to the Turks, she would be taken across the Bosphorus secretly, for though there was no law against selling Christian girls to unbelievers the people of the city looked upon the traffic with something like horror, and an angry crowd might rescue the merchandise from the dealer's hands. ZoË did not expect that rare good fortune, for Rustan was not a man to run any risks in his business.

As she lay among her cushions, dreading the end of the journey, but gradually wearying of the future, her thoughts went back to the first cause of all her misfortunes, of Michael RhangabÉ's awful death, of all the suffering that had followed them. One man alone had wrought that evil and much more, one man, the reigning Emperor Andronicus. ZoË was not revengeful, not cruel, very far from bloodthirsty; but when she thought of him she felt that she would kill him if she could, and that it would only be justice. Suddenly a ray of something like hope flashed through her darkness. Nectaria had told her how beautiful she was; perhaps, being so much more valuable than most of the slaves that went to the market, she might be destined for the Emperor himself. It was just possible. She set her teeth and clenched her little hands in the dark. If that should be her fate, the usurper's days were numbered. She would free her country from its tyrant and be revenged for RhangabÉ's murder and for all the rest at one quick stroke, though she might be condemned to die within the hour. That was indeed something to hope for.

The litter stopped and she heard keys thrust into locks, and felt that the porters turned short to the left to enter a door. Her journey through the city was at an end.