"What are you doing here?" asked the small fellow. "What is it you seek?" "I seek the blood of a slave," he said, regarding me.
I put down my head.
Tupita sobbed.
Surely he had given himself up for lost. It was hard to understand otherwise the pride, the grandeur, with which he spoke. He had risked all, and lost all. He stood there with folded arms. For my blood he had dared even to follow so terrible a beast. This was no small measure of his hatred of me and his determination. He looked about himself with scorn. He disdained to conceal his intent or objective. He had not understood, however, it seemed, in his single-minded pursuit of his bloody goal, that there might be others of that kind about. They had taken him. I did not doubt but that they, too, in their way, were hunters.
"Kill it," said the largest of the beasts, their leader.
Tupita screamed in protest, but the nearest beast to the captive struck him from the side with the back of its closed paw. There was a sickening sound, and the captive" s head snapped to the side. The other beast reached down and lifted up the figure, and threw it on the store of meat beside the blanket. "No, no," wept Tupita, "no, no, no!"
"There may be others about," said the leader of the men. "Let us reconnoiter the area."
"Do you understand?" asked the small man of the largest beast.
The beast looked at him, and its long, dark tongue came out of the side of its mouth, and it licked at the bloody fur at the side of its jaw. Then it looked around, its ears lifted.
"He wants to look," said the small fellow, making a large, circular motion with his hand, encompassing the meadow. "He wants to look. There may be others." The beast then again fixed its gaze on the small fellow, and he stepped back, in trepidation.
"Yes," it said. "We will look."
"Spread out," said the small fellow to his cohorts, and the others. "We will return here."
I looked at Mirus, of Brundisium. The side of his head was bloody.
"It is your fault!" cried Tupita, turning her head, in her neck ropes, toward me.
"Forgive me, Tupita!" I wept.
"You are safe now!" she wept. "Rejoice! If I could get my hands on you I would kill you myself!"
"Please, Tupita!" I begged. "I, too, am in sorrow! He was kind to me!" "This is what you wanted!" she cried.
"No," I said. "Never, never!"
"It is you who have killed him!" she wept. "It was you who drove him to madness! It was you who change him, who made him some crazed beast, who made him thirst for blood! It is you who are responsible! It was you who did this to him!" "No!" I wept. "No!"
Then she began to weep uncontrollably, her head back.
"Forgive me, Tupita," I said. "Forgive me!"
"You killed him!" she sobbed.
"No! No! I said. Then, I, too, in my sorrow, wept. We could not, as men had put us, wipe our tears. They coursed down our cheeks. Their salty flow fell even upon, and ran down, our bodies. I looked upon the bloody, still figure, cast upon the bodies and the quarter of a tarsk. "Tupita!" I said.
She did not respond, so lost in her grief she was.
"Tupita," I whispered. "I do not think he is dead."
"What?" cried Tupita.
"Look," I said. "He is still bleeding."
"Oh, Master!" she cried, suddenly, frightened.
"He is very strong," I said. "I do not think he is dead."
"No!" she said. "He is alive! My master is alive! He lives!" she looked at me, wildly, in her neck ropes. She laughed, sobbing. Her tears now were tears of joy. Then suddenly she looked at me. She was very frightened. "Oh, Tuka," she said. "You are in terrible danger."
I tightened in the binding fiber, shuddering. "He may not recover consciousness before we are taken away," I said. "Perhaps the beasts may not notice he is alive. Perhaps he can make good his escape."
Suddenly Tela, to my left, made a frightened noise. "There," she said, suddenly. "There, beside the well!"
"What is it?" asked Mina.
I could not see anything. I tried to lift my head but, bound as I was, kneeling, tied by the neck at the rail, I could do very little. I sobbed with frustration. "What is it?" said Mina, insistently.
"You cannot see it now," said Tela. "I think it is behind the well." "What was it?" asked Mina.
"There!" cried Tela, frightened. "A sleen!"
Terror coursed through us.
"It is probably not on our scent," said Tupita. "Do not move!"
We could see it now, by the well, its head lifted above the grass.
It was looking at us.
"Do not move," said Tupita.
I did not know if we could move, we were so frightened even had we desired to do so.
The head of the sleen remained immobile for more than twenty seconds. Had we not seen it, had we not known where it was, we might not have noticed it, even though it was only a matter of yards away. It is incredible how still such things can hold themselves. Then, suddenly, it moved. It circled the well. Then, oddly enough, it put its frontpaws, of its six legs, up on the well, and thrust its head over the upper wall of the well, and then lowered its head, apparently peering within. It then withdrew its head from the opening of the well, and slipped back into the grass.
Mirus stirred, lying on the two bodies. He groaned.
"Oh, Master," moaned Tupita, almost silently, "do not awaken now. Do not make noise!"
"He has blood on him," said Cara. "It will come this way!"
"It must not come this way," said Tupita. "It might hurt the master." "What of us!" said Cara. There was a small sound from her wrist chains, where the links near the manacles had been bound together by the binding fiber. Surely the animal could hear that!
"We do not matter," said Tupita. "We are only slaves."
Cara moaned.
"Do not awaken, Master," whispered Tupita to Mirus. "Lie still." He, I think, though, could not hear her, or could not understand her.
Interestingly, though I think such a beast might easily detect the small sounds, even the whispers, we made, it did not seem to notice them. It seemed, rather, intent upon some other business.Mirus groaned, and lifted his head. He lifted his body, too, a little. He was a very strong man.
"Lie still, Master," whispered Tupita. "There is a sleen about." "It is on a scent," whispered Tela. "Look at it!"
the animal now seemed to be very excited. It was near the well, its snout to the ground. It circled the well twice, and then circled it again, increasing the size of the circle. I heard it making small, eager noises. Then it hurried in our direction for a moment, and then stopped, and then, again, began to move toward us.
Groggily Mirus, blood running down the side of his head, crawled toward the scabbard and blade, taken from him by one of the beasts, which lay near him. The blades, too, for that matter, of the two slain fellows were also in the vicinity, one still in its sheath, the other half drawn.
"Go away! Go away!" cried Tela to the sleen.
Its eyes were now very bright. It was a gray hunting sleen.
Mirus staggered unsteadily to his feet, discarding the scabbard. He nearly fell, but regained his feet. He held the hilt with two hands.
He came toward me, reeling, bleeding. I then realized it was his intention to strike me.
"There is a sleen behind you!" cried Tupita. "Turn around! Turn around!" "That is not a wild sleen!" cried Mina.
It wore a collar, a large, heavy, spiked collar.
Mirus reeled about. He stood then, sword drawn, between the beast and us. Tela put her head back and screamed, wildly, shrilly, helplessly/ The beast regarded us.
"I is Borko, the sleen of Hendow!" cried Tupita. "It has come to kill us!" it had come after us, pursuing us, doubtless, as runaway slaves!
I suddenly recalled the reference to an inquiry, or inquiries in Argentum, that on the part of my former master, Tyrrhenius. I had been sold shortly thereafter. I also remembered that I had walked barefoot on the Viktel Aria, at the stirrup of Aulus, and, too, had so trod the camp of Pietro Vacchi.
"No," said Mirus. "It is on one scent. It is after only one quarry." I saw the sleen view me.
"Master," I called out to Mirus. "Defend me!"
But he, both hands on the hilt of his sword, holding it at rest now, pointed downward, backed away. He stood between the beast and Tupita.