creasing
satisfaction of the centurion.[28]

"Better and better," repeated my master. "You are proven as strong as
you are powerfully built, and as limber as both. It now remains to
exhibit the inoffensive gentleness of your nature. As to this last
proof, I am, in advance, certain of your success," saying which he again
bound my hands behind my back.

At first I did not understand what the dealer meant. But he took a
scourge from the hand of a keeper, and pointing with its handle to me,
spoke to the purchaser in a low voice. The latter made a gesture of
assent, and my master passed the scourge over to the centurion.

"The old fox, still suspicious, fears that I would not strike you hard
enough, friend Bull," my master explained to me. "Come, do not make a
slip. Do me this last honor, and gain me this last profit, by showing
that you endure chastisement patiently."

Hardly had he pronounced the words, when the cripple rained a shower of
blows on my shoulders and chest. I felt neither shame nor indignation,
only pain. I fell down on my knees in tears and begged for mercy.
Outside, the curious crowd, gathered at the door, roared with laughter.

The centurion, surprised at so much resignation in a Gaul, dropped the
whip, and looked at my master who by his gesture seemed to say:

"Did I deceive you?"

Thereupon, patting me with the flat of his hand on my lacerated back,
the same as one would pat an animal that pleased him, my master said to
me:

"If you are a bull for strength, you are a lamb for meekness. I expected
so. Now some questions as to your laborer's trade, and the sale is
concluded. The customer wishes to know in what place you were employed."

"In the tribe of Karnak," I answered, with a cowardly sigh, "there my
family and I cultivated the lands of our fathers."

The "horse-dealer" reported my answer to the cripple, who seemed both
surprised and pleased. He exchanged a few words with the dealer, who
continued:

"The customer asks where the lands and house of your fathers were
situated."

"Not far to the east of the rocks of Karnak, on the heights of Craig'h."

At this answer the Roman was so pleased that he seemed hardly to believe
what he heard, and the "horse-dealer" turned to me:

"That cripple beats all for distrustfulness. To be certain that I do not
deceive him, and that I have translated your words faithfully to him, he
demands that you trace before him on the sand, the position of the lan