. 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.

The mobile features which had just smiled so radiantly expressed mortal
terror, and the pirate, to whom even the name "Niobe" was unfamiliar,
looked around him for the terrible danger threatening the innocent child,
from which the woman on the pedestal was protecting it with loving
devotion.