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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.
