Saying that he quitted the support of his girl companion, took his wand of wood and gold, and traced great waves of outline in the air. “For two months I have worked upon my great scheme. I have found splendid rocks in the domain of Crates, at the Promontory of Astypolus. All these studies were finished, the foundation of my picture ready, the line of the figure in its place. All at once I find my way barred before me. I fail to find a head. If it was merely a question of a Hêrmes, an Apollo or Pan, all the citizens of Athens would be proud to pose before me. But to take for model a man whose face is shining with genius and to tie, or bind, him by the ankles, the hands, no, you can see that is not possible. One cannot dislocate his limbs like the limbs of a slave. We lack slaves who have the heads of freeborn Greeks. Ah, well, Philip brings us some like that, and I come to buy where Philip comes to sell.” I shuddered. “An Olynthian. One of the vanquished. But where do you intend to finish this picture?” “At Athens.” “Upon the soil of Athens your slave will be free.” “He will be--when I wish it, and not before.” “But then, if you treat your captive so, have you no fear whatever of what the laws will say?” “The laws?” questioned Parrhasius with a smile. “The laws are in the hollow of my hand, even as are the folds of this mantle that I now throw over my shoulder, behind me!” And with a magnificent movement he seemed at the same time to enwrap himself with purple and with the sun. CHAPTER III The market for the sale of the Olynthians now stretched before us. As far as one could see, and forming in a straight line six large parallel ways, platforms of planks were erected upon tressels at a height of about a yard from the ground. The population of an entire city was there exposed before the population of another city: the one as merchandise, the other as purchaser. Twenty-five thousand men, women and children, their hands bound behind the back, the ankles shackled with loose cords, waited, for the most part standing--waited the unknown master who was yet to come, purchase, and lead them to some, to them, unknown place on Grecian soil. One soldier guarded forty; servants in crowds circulated with the bread and water needed for the sustenance of such a host of slaves. A great and murmurous noise perpetually ascended to the sky. It was like the sound of a great feast.