to a slave boy, lonesome in a great city, struggling with all he had in him to find a way out of his humiliation?
“As the months went by I continued to add pennies to my purse. It began to have a comforting weight upon my belt. Work was proving to be my best friend Just as Megiddo had said. I was happy but Swasti was worried.
“‘Thy master, I fear to have him spend so much time at the gaming houses,’ she protested.
“I was overjoyed one day to meet my friend Megiddo upon the street. He was leading three donkeys loaded with vegetables to the market. ‘I am doing mighty well,’ he said. ‘My master does appreciate my good work for now I am a foreman. See, he does trust the marketing to me, and also he is sending for my family. Work is helping me to recover from my great trouble. Some day it will help me to buy my freedom and once more own a farm of my own.’
“Time went on and Nana-naid became more and more anxious for me to return from selling. He would be waiting when I returned and would eagerly count and divide our money. He would also urge me to seek further markets and increase my sales.
“Often I went outside the city gates to solicit the overseers of the slaves building the walls. I hated to return to the disagreeable sights but found the overseers liberal buyers. One day I was surprised to see Zabado waiting in line to fill his basket with bricks. He was gaunt and bent, and his back was covered with welts and sores from the whips of the overseers. I was sorry for him and handed him a cake which he crushed into his mouth like a hungry animal. Seeing the greedy look in his eyes, I ran before he could grab my tray.
“‘Why dost thou work so hard?’ Arad Gula said to me one day. Almost the same question thou asked of me today, dost thou remember? I told him what Megiddo had said about work and how it was proving to be my best friend. I showed him with pride my wallet of pennies and explained how I was saving them to buy my freedom.
“‘When thou art free, what wilt thou do?’ he inquired.
“‘Then,’ I answered, I intend to become a merchant.’
“At that, he confided in me. Something I had never suspected. ‘Thou knowest not that I, also, am a slave. I am in partnership with my master.’”
“Stop,” demanded Hadan Gula. “I will not listen to lies defaming my grandfather. He was no slave.” His eyes blazed in anger.
Sharru Nada remained calm. “I honor him for rising above his misfortune and becoming a leading citizen of Damascus. Art thou, his grandson, cast of the same mold? Art thou man enough to face true facts, or dost thou prefer to live under false illusions?”
Hadan Gula straightened in his saddle. In a voice suppressed with deep emotion he replied, “My grandfather was beloved by all. Countless were his good deeds. When the famine came did not his gold buy grain in Egypt and did not his caravan bring it to Damascus and distribute it to the people so none would starve? Now thou sayest he was but a despised slave in Babylon.”
“Had he remained a slave in Babylon, then he might well have been despised, but when, through his own efforts, he became a great man in Damascus, the Gods indeed condoned his misfortunes and honored him with their respect,” Sharru Nada replied.
“After telling me that he was a slave,” Sharru Nada continued, ‘he explained how anxious he had been to earn his freedom. Now that he had enough money to buy this he was much disturbed as to what he should do. He was no longer making good sales and feared to leave the support of his master.
“I protested his indecision: ‘Cling no longer to thy master. Get once again the feeling of being a free man. Act like a free man and succeed like one! Decide what thou desirest to accomplish and then work will aid thee to achieve it!’ He went on his way saying he was glad I had shamed him for his cowardice.
“One day I went outside the gates again, and was surprised to find a great crowd gathering there. When I asked a man for an explanation he replied: ‘Hast thou not heard? An escaped slave who murdered one of the King’s guards has been brought to justice and will this day be flogged to death for his crime. Even the King himself is to be here.’
“So dense was the crowd about the flogging post, I feared to go near lest my tray of honey cakes be upset. Therefore, I climbed up the unfinished wall to see over the heads of the people. I was fortunate in having a view of Nebuchadnezzar himself as he rode by in his golden chariot. Never had I beheld such grandeur, such robes and hangings of gold cloth and velvet.
“I could not see the flogging though I could hear the shrieks of the poor slave. I wandered how one so noble as our handsome King could endure to see such suffering, yet when I saw he was laughing and joking with his nobles, I knew he was cruel and understood why such inhuman tasks were demanded of the slaves building the walls.
“After the slave was dead, his body was hung upon a pole by a rope attached to his leg so all might see. As the crowd began to thin, I went close. On the hairy chest, I saw tattooed, two entwined serpents. It was Pirate. “The next time I met Arad Gula he was a changed man. Full of enthusiasm he greeted me: ‘Behold, the slave thou knewest is now a free man. There was magic in thy words. Already my sales and my profits are increasing. My wife is overjoyed. She was a free woman, the niece of my master. She much desires that we move to a strange city where no man shall know I was once a slave. Thus our children shall be above reproach for their father’s misfortune. Work has become my best helper. It has enabled me to recapture my confidence and my skill to sell.’
“I was overjoyed that I had been able even in a small way, to repay him for the encouragement he had given me.
“One evening Swasti came to me in deep distress: ‘Thy master is in trouble. I fear for him. Some months ago he lost much at the gaming tables. He pays not the farmer for his grain nor his honey. He pays not the money lender. They are angry and threaten him.’”
“Why should we worry over his folly. We are not his keepers,’ I replied thoughtlessly.
“‘Foolish youth, thou understandeth not. To the money lender didst he give thy title to secure a loan. Under the law he can claim thee and sell thee. I know not what to do. He is a good master. Why? Oh why, should such trouble come upon him?’
“Not were Swasti’s fears groundless. While I was doing the baking next morning, the money lender returned with a man he called Sasi. This man looked me over and said I would do.
“The money lender waited not for my master to return but told Swasti to tell him he had taken me. With only the robe on my back and the purse of pennies hanging safely from my belt, I was hurried away from the unfinished baking.
“I was whirled away from my dearest hopes as the hurricane snatches the tree from the forest and casts it into the surging sea. Again a gaming house and barley beer had caused me disaster.
“Sasi was a blunt, gruff man. As he led me across the city, I told him of the good work I had been doing for Nana-naid and said I hoped to do good work for him. His reply offered no encouragement:
“‘I like not this work. My master likes it not. The King has told him to send me to build a section of the Grand Canal. Master tells Sasi to buy more slaves, work hard and finish quick. Bah, how can any man finish a big job quick?’
“Picture a desert with not a tree, just low shrubs and a sun burning with such fury the water in our barrels became so hot we could scarcely drink it. Then picture rows of men, going down into the deep excavation and lugging heavy baskets of dirt up soft, dusty trails from daylight until dark. Picture food
