e sultan.
This was the work to which the gang was set that morning, and it was not
long before the vigour with which Gervaise worked, and the strength he
displayed in moving the heavy stones, attracted the attention of the
overseers and of the head of the masons.

"That is a rare good fellow you have got there, that black with the
curious hair," the latter said. "What is the man? I never saw one like
him."

"He is a Christian," one of the overseers said. "He was smuggled into
the town and sold to Ben Ibyn the Berber, who, to conceal the matter,
dyed him black; but it got to the ears of the sultan, and he had him
taken from the Berber, and brought here; I have no doubt the merchant
has been squeezed rarely."

"Well, that is a good fellow to work," the other said. "He has just
moved a stone, single handed, that it would have taken half a dozen of
the others to lift. I wish you would put him regularly on this job; any
one will do to sweep the streets; but a fellow like that will be of real
use here, especially when the wall rises a bit higher."

"It makes no difference to me," the overseer said. "I will give orders
when I go down that he shall be always sent up with whichever gang comes
here."

The head mason, who was the chief official of the work, soon saw that
Gervaise not only possessed strength, but knowledge of the manner in
which the work should be done.

Accustomed as he had been to direct the slaves at work on the
fortifications at Rhodes, he had learned the best methods of moving
massive stones, and setting them in the places that they were to occupy.
At the end of the day the head mason told one of the slaves who spoke
Italian to inquire of Gervaise whether he had ever been employed on
such work before. Gervaise replied that he had been engaged in the
construction of large buildings.

"I thought so," the officer said to the overseer; "the way he uses his
lever shows that he knows what he is doing. Most of the slaves are worth
nothing; but I can see that this fellow will prove a treasure to us."

Gervaise returned to the prison well satisfied with his day's work. The
labour, hard though it was, was an absolute pleasure to him. There was,
moreover, nothing degrading in it, and while the overseers had plied
their whips freely on the backs of many of his companions, he had not
only escaped, but had, he felt, succeeded in pleasing his masters. The
next morning when the gangs were drawn up in the yard before