I was subject to their will without weapons or means of escape.
Fearful I stood, as those four women looked me over. I wondered if I could expect pity from them. Sira the first wife was older than the others. Her face was impassive as she looked upon me. I turned from her with little consolation. The next was a contemptuous beauty who gazed at me as indifferently as if I had been a worm of the earth. The two younger ones tittered as though it were all an exciting joke.
It seemed an age that I stood waiting sentence. Each woman appeared willing for the others to decide. Finally Sira spoke up in a cold voice.
‘Of eunuchs we have plenty, but of camel tenders we have few and they are a worthless lot. Even this day I would visit my mother who is sick with the fever and there is no slave I would trust to lead my camel. Ask this slave can he lead a camel?’
My master thereupon questioned me. ‘What know you of camels?’
Striving to conceal my eagerness, I replied, ‘I can make them kneel, I can load them, I can lead them on long trips without tiring. If need be, I can repair their trappings.’
‘The slave speaks forward enough,’ observed my master. ‘If thou so desire, Sira, take this man for thy camel tender.’
So I was turned over to Sira and that day I led her camel upon a long journey to her sick mother. I took the occasion to thank her for her intercession and also to tell her that I was not a slave by birth, but the son of a freeman and an honorable saddle maker of Babylon. I also told her much of my story. Her—40—
