keepers became irritated at hearing my moans, and
showered several cruel blows of the scourge, accompanied with oaths,
upon my shoulders. Forgetting the pain in the shame that I felt at the
thought of me, the son of Joel, being struck with the lash, I leaped to
my feet notwithstanding my weakness, intending to throw myself upon the
keeper. But my chain, sharply tightened by the jerk, checked me, and
made me trip and fall upon my knees. The keeper, enabled by the length
of his scourge to keep out of the prisoners' reach, thereupon redoubled
his blows, lashing me across the face, chest, and back. Other keepers
ran up, fell upon me, and slipped manacles of iron upon my wrists.

Oh, my son, my son! You, for whose eyes I write all this down, obedient
to the wishes of my father, never do yourself forget, and let also your
sons preserve the memory of this outrage, the first that our stock ever
underwent. Live, that you may avenge the outrage in due time. And if you
cannot, let your sons wreak vengeance upon the Romans therefore.

With my feet chained and my hands in irons, unable to move, I did not
wish to afford my tormentors the spectacle of impotent rage. I closed my
eyes and lay still, betraying neither anger nor grief, while the
keepers, provoked by my calmness, beat me furiously. Presently, however,
a strange voice having interposed and spoken a few angry words in the
Latin tongue, the blows ceased. I opened my eyes and three new
personages stood before me. One of them was speaking rapidly to the
keepers, gesticulating angrily, and pointing at me from time to time.
This man was short and stout; he had a very red face, white hair and
pointed grey beard. He wore a short robe of brown wool, buck-skin
stocks, and low leather boots; he was not dressed in the Roman fashion.
Of the two men who accompanied him, one, dressed in a long black robe,
had a grave and sinister mien. The other held a casket under his arm.
While I was gazing at these persons, my aged neighbor called my
attention with a rapid glance to the fat little man with the red face
and the white hair, who was conversing with the keepers, and said to me
with a look of anger and disgust:

"The horse-dealer; the horse-dealer!"

"What are you talking about?" I answered him, unable to understand what
he meant. "A horse-dealer?"

"That is what the Romans call the slave merchants."[14]

"How! They traffic in wounded men?" I asked the old man in surprise.
"Are there