42
The next day they decided to sell the prisoners' goods and me, and they disposed of me to a stranger from a neighboring village, a baker by trade. He took possession of me, bought ten bushels of wheat, which he placed on my back, and drove me home to his own house over a hard road. When we arrived he led me into the mill, where I beheld a great crowd of beasts, my fellow-slaves, and a great number of mills, all turned by them, and everything was covered with flour. They left me there in idleness that day, seeing that I was a new slave, and had come over a hard road carrying a heavy burden. But on the morrow they covered my eyes with a bandage, harnessed me to the shaft of the mill, and then started me up. Although I knew how to work a mill from much experience, I feigned ignorance; but my hopes were vain, for a number of the millers seized clubs and surrounded me; and when I was not expecting it—for I could not see-they pounded me with one accord, and such was the effect of their blows that I suddenly began to whirl round like a top. And I learned by experiment that it will not do for a slave to wait for the master's hand before he does his work.
43
Well, I grew very thin and weak in body, till my master decided to sell me, and he disposed of me to a man who was a market-gardener by trade, for he had rented a garden to cultivate. This was our daily work: My master would load me with vegetables early in the morning, and take them to the market. Having disposed of them to the dealers, he would drive me back to the garden. Then he would fall to digging and planting and watering, while I stood idle. Still this life was terribly hard for me. In the first place, when winter came my master could not afford coverings for himself, and still less for me; and I trod barefoot through the slimy mud and over the hard, rough, frozen roads; and the only food for man and beast alike was lettuces, hard and bitter.
