“Why is the price so low?” I ask.

“She is sick,” said the Moor coolly:  “she cannot work—­perhaps she will not live.  Who will give more in such a case?  She is of kaid Abdeslam’s household, though he bought her a few weeks before his fall, and she must be sold.  But the dilal can give no warranty, for nobody knows her sickness.  She is one of the slaves who are bought by the dealers for the rock salt of El Djouf.”

Happily the woman seems too dull or too ill to feel her own position.  She moves as though in a dream—­a dream undisturbed, for the buyers have almost ceased to regard her.  Finally she is sold for forty-three dollars to a very old and infirm man.

“No slaves, no slaves,” says the Atlas Moor impatiently:  “and in the town they are slow to raise them.”  I want an explanation of this strange complaint.

“What do you mean when you say they are slow to raise them,” I ask.

“In Marrakesh now,” he explains, “dealers buy the healthiest slaves they can find, and raise as many children by them as is possible.  Then, so soon as the children are old enough to sell, they are sold, and when the mothers grow old and have no more children, they too are sold, but they do not fetch much then.”

This statement takes all words from me, but my informant sees nothing startling in the case, and continues gravely:  “From six years old they are sold to be companions, and from twelve they go to the hareems.  Prices are good—­too high indeed; fifty-four dollars I must have paid this afternoon to purchase one, and when Mulai Mohammed reigned the price would have been twenty, or less, and for that one would have bought fat slaves.  Where there is one caravan now, there were ten of old times.”

Only three slaves now, and they must go back to their masters to be sent to the market on another day, for the sun is below the horizon, the market almost empty, and the guards will be gathering at the city gates.  Two dilals make a last despairing promenade, while their companions are busy recording prices and other details in connection with the afternoon’s business.  The purchased slaves, the auctioneer’s gaudy clothing changed for their own, are being taken to the houses of their masters.  We who live within the city walls must hasten now, for the time of gate-closing is upon us, and one may not stay outside.

It has been a great day.  Many rich men have attended personally, or by their agents, to compete for the best favoured women of the household of the fallen kaid, and prices in one or two special cases ran beyond forty pounds (English money), so brisk was the bidding.