men who buy the dying?"

"Do you not know," he answered with a somber smile, "that after the
battle of Vannes there were more dead than living, and not an unwounded
Gaul? Upon these wounded men, in default of more able-bodied prey, the
slave-dealers who follow the Roman army fell like so many ravens upon
corpses."

There was no more room for doubt. I realized that I was a slave. I had
been bought. I would be sold again. The "horse-dealer," having finished
speaking to the keepers, approached the old man, and said to him in
Gallic, but with an accent that proved his foreign origin:

"My old Pierce-Skin--how has your neighbor come on? Has he at last
recovered from his stupor? Is he at last able to speak?"

"Ask him," snapped the old man, turning over on the straw. "He'll answer
you himself."

The "horse-dealer" thereupon walked over to my side. He seemed no longer
angry. His countenance, naturally jovial, was beaming. Putting his two
hands on his knees, he stooped down to me; grinned at me; and spoke to
me hurriedly, often putting questions which he answered himself, not
seeming to care whether I heard him or not.

"You have, then, recovered your spirits, my fine Bull? Yes? Ah, so much
the better! By Jupiter, it's a good sign. Now your appetite will return,
and it is returning, isn't it? Still better! Before eight days you will
be in fine feather. Those brutes of keepers, always in their cups,
scourged you, did they? Yes? I'm not a bit surprised--they never do
anything else. The wine of Gaul makes them stupid. To strike you! To
strike you! And that when you can hardly stand up; besides the fact that
in men of the Gallic race, choler is likely to produce bad results. But
you are no longer angry, are you? No! So much the better! It is I who
should be provoked at those tipsters. Suppose the fury raging in your
blood had stifled you! But, bah! those brutes care little for making me
lose twenty-five or thirty gold sous,[15] which you will presently be
worth to me, my fine Bull. But for greater safety I'll have you taken to
a shelter where you will be alone and better off than here. It was
occupied by a wounded fellow who died last night--a superb fellow.
That was a loss! Ah, commerce is not all gain. Come, follow me."

He set to work to unfasten my chain by a secret spring. I asked him why
he always called me "Bull." I would have preferred by far the keeper's
lash to the jovial loquacity of this trafficker in human flesh