48
We Acquire Three New Members For Our Party, Two Of Whom Are Slave Girls
I kicked her. "I will take this one," I said.
The leader of the small people then untied the ankles of the blond girl and unbound the fastening that held her, by her vine collar, to the loop tied about the log.
"Stand up," he told her. She stood up. She still wore her gag. It had been removed only to feed and water her.
The leader of the talunas stood before me, a vine collar on her throat, her hands tied behind her back.
"Put your head down," I told her. She lowered her head.
I then went to the white male, who had been the captive of the talunas, released by the small people from his prison hut before they burned the taluna village.
He knelt in the clearing, in the chain of the talunas, shackles on his ankles and wrists, connected to a common chain depending from a heavy iron collar.
"You were with Shaba," I said.
"Yes," he said, "an oarsman."
"Do I not know you?" I asked.
"Yes," said he. "I am Turgus, who was of Port Kar. It was because of you I was banished from the city."
"The fault," I smiled, "seems rather yours, for it seems it was your design to do robbery upon me."
It had been he, with his confederate, Sasi, who had attempted to attack me in Port Kar, along the side of the canal leading to the pier of the Red Urt.
He shrugged. "I did not know you were of the Warriors," he said.
"How came you upon the river?" I asked.
"When banished from Port Kar," he said, "I must leave the city before sundown. I took passage on a ship to Bazi, as an oarsman. From Bazi I went to Schendi. In Schendi I was contacted by an agent of Shaba, who was secretly recruiting oarsmen for a venture in the interior. The pay promised to be good. I joined his expedition."
"Where now is Shaba?" I asked.
"Doubtless, by now," said he, "he had been destroyed. Our ships were subjected to almost constant attack and ambush. There were accidents, a wreck, and several capsizings. We lost supplies. We were attacked from the jungles. There was sickness."
"Shaba did not turn back?" I asked.
"He is dauntless," said the man. "He is a great leader."
I nodded. It was a judgment in which it was necessary to concur.
"How came you to be separated from him? I asked.
"Shaba, lying ill in a camp," he said, "gave permission that all who wished to leave might be free to do so."
"You left?" I said.
"Of course," he said. "It was madness to continue further on the river. I, and others, making rafts, set out to return to Ngao and Ushindi."
"Yes?" I said.
"We were attacked the first night," he said. "All in my party were killed save myself, who escaped. I wandered westward, paralleling the river." He cast a glance at the talunas, trussed kneeling by the log, their heads down, fastened to it, their necks helpless to the blow of the panga, should it descend. "I fell to these women," he said. He lifted his chained wrists. "They made me their work slave," he said.
"Surely they forced you to serve their pleasure, as well," I said.
"Sometimes they would beat me and mount me," he said.
"Unchain him. He is a male," I said.
Ayari, with a key taken from a pouch found in the hut of the taluna leader, unlocked the chains of Turgus, who had been from Port Kar.
"You are freeing me?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, "you are free to go."
"I would choose to remain," he said.
"Fight," I told him.
"What?" he asked.
"Strike at me," I said.
"But you have freed me," he said.
"Strike," I told. him.
He struck out at me and I blocked the blow and, striking him in the stomach and then across the side of the face, sent him grunting and sprawling to the debris of the jungle floor.
He sprang to his feet, angrily, and I struck him down again. He was strong. Four more times he rose to do combat, but then he could not again climb to his feet. He tried to do so, but fell back.
I then pulled him to his feet. "It is our intention to go upriver," I told him.
"That is madness," he said.
"You are free to go," I told him.
"I choose to remain," he said.
"Kisu and I," I said, indicating the former Mfalme of Ukungu, "are before you. You will take your orders from us. You will do what we tell you, and well."
Kisu lifted a spear, and shook it.
Turgus rubbed his jaw, and grinned. "You are before me, both of you," he said. "Have no fear. I will take my orders. and well."
"Insubordination," I said, "will be punished with death."
"I understand," said Turgus.
"We are not gentlemen like Shaba," I said.
Turgus smiled. "On the river," said he, "Shaba is not a gentleman either." On the river, he knew, and all knew, there must be strict discipline.
"We now well understand one another, do we not?" I asked.
"That we do," said he, "-Captain."
"Examine these women," I said, indicating the line of kneeling, trussed talunas. "Which among them pleases you most?"
'That one," said he, indicating the slender-legged, dark-haired girl who had been, as we had determined, second in command among the talunas. There was a menace in his voice.
"Perhaps you remember her well from your enslavement?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "I do well remember her."
"She is yours," I said.
The girl began to involuntarily shudder. "No," she begged, "please, do not give me to him!"
"You are his," I told her.
"He will kill me," she cried.
"If he wishes," I said.
"Please do not kill me," she cried to Turgus. "I will try to please you totally, and in all ways!"
He did not speak.
"I will be the most loving and lowly slave a man could ask," she wept. "Please, let me try to earn my life!"
He untied her ankles and freed her vine collar from the loop on the trunk of the tree. He threw her to her feet and pushed her head down, submissively. She then stood, hands tied behind her, beside the blond girl, the leader of the talunas.
I took two pair of slave bracelets from the foot of the taluna camp. Girls such as talunas keep such things about in case slave girls should fall into their hands. They are extremely cruel to slave girls, whom they regard as having betrayed their sex by surrendering as slaves to men. Actually, of course, it seems likely that their hatred of slave girls, which tends to be unreasoning and vicious, is due less to lofty sentiments than to their own intense jealousy of the joy and fulfillment of their imbonded sisters. The joyful slave girl, obedient to her master's wishes, is an affront and, more frighteningly, an unanswerable and dreadful threat to their most cherished illusions. Perhaps they wish to be themselves slaves. Why else should they hate them so?
I slipped the straps on the wrists of the blond girl a bit higher on her wrists. I then, below the straps, snapped her wrists into one of the pairs of slave bracelets from the loot of the taluna camp. I then untied the straps which had, hitherto, confined her wrists. Her hands, then, were still fastened behind her, but now in slave bracelets.
I loosened the gag from the mouth of the blond girl and let it fall, its wadding looped about it, before her throat.