"Perhaps," I said. I smiled. Let them compete with one another, to see who could please men more. Both Earth girls and Gorean girls, I knew, were marvelous. Both were women.
I then pulled the girl to her feet and stood her beside the berth.
"You have tied my hands behind my back," she said. "You have stood me naked before you. What are you going to do with me?"
I regarded her.
I removed the knife from where I had wedged it in the wood above the berth, to one side and to the right. I held it to her belly.
"Please do not kill me," she begged.
I thrust the knife in my belt.
She shook with relief.
"It is late," I said. "Go to the window."
In the darkness of the cabin, barefoot, stepping softly through the glass and bits of frame scattered on the floor, she went, as commanded, to the window. She stood facing it. I fetched the wadding of scarlet silk which I had earlier used to gag her and put it in my belt. I also fetched the remains of the scarlet sheet from which, standing beside her, I tore what I needed, and then discarded the rest.
"Do you intend to take me with you?" she asked.
I blindfolded her. She would be absolutely helpless in the water.
"Yes," I said. I thought someone might want her. She was a hot and lovely slave. Perhaps I could give her to Aemilianus.
"Listen," I said, suddenly. There was a step on the stairs leading down to the companionway.
"It is Reginald," she said, lifting her head. I did not doubt this. Slaves, like many domestic animals, can often recognize the step of their master.
"Reginald," she whispered, frightened. Her lip trembled. The step had approached down the companionway, and halted before the cabin door. I heard a heavy key thrust complacently into a lock on the outside of the door. It was late. Reginald had come to enjoy his slave. Gorean masters may or may not knock before entering compartments occupied by their slaves. The decision is theirs, as is the slave. If he knocks it is usually only to make his presence known to the slave, and the knock is commonly authoritative and rude, often startling her, even though she expects it, signaling her in no unclear or ambiguous fashion that she is to prepare herself, and well, to greet him, her master, which she does then in a position of docility and submission, usually kneeling and head down.
I heard the padlock, on its chain, fall to the side of the door. "Flee!" whispered the girl to me. Her head twisted in the blindfold. Her small wrists fought futilely the thongs that confined them.
I heard the door push inward, but, of course, it could not move, as I had secured it from the inside, with a lock and bar.
There was a silence.
I took the towing rope, attached to the board and packet, and looped it, and put it through the girl's collar. I passed the lower end of the loop about the board and packet.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Is this door locked?" inquired Reginald, not pleasantly from the other side of the door. I smiled. Clearly it was locked.
I pulled the rope tight on her collar.
"Open this door!" said Reginald. He struck the heavy wood with his fist.
The girl moaned. As she moved, the board, on its towing loop, cracked against her legs.
"Open this door!" commanded Reginald. He struck it twice, angrily, with his fist.
"Can you swim?" I inquired.
"No," she said, "and I am bound!"
"Open the door," commanded Reginald. Then he shouted, "Artemidorus! Surtus!"
The girl moaned in misery, unable to obey. I thrust her a step toward the window, holding her by the arm. I looked out I saw no small boats in the vicinity.
"Oh, no," moaned the girl, "please, no!"
I heard men joining Reginald, outside the cabin door.
"I cannot swim," she said.
"Good," I said.
"I am bound!" she protested.
"Excellent," I said.
I then took the wadding from my belt. "No!" she said. Then I pushed it, still heavy and damp, deep in her mouth. Then I secured it in place with a folded, twisted strip from the torn sheet I had decided that she would not now, for the time, be permitted to communicate with me. I would remove the gag from her later, if I chose, at my convenience.
"Luta!" called Reginald. "Are you in there?"
I tossed the board and packet, on its towing rope, outside the window. It caught against her collar. I lifted the helpless girl in my arms.
"Luta! Luta!" called Reginald, angrily. "Are you in there?"
"No one called Luta is in here," I called back, cheerily, through the door, "but there is one here who once was known by that name, one whom I have renamed 'Shirley, giving her, as seemed fitting, the name of an Earth girl."
The girl squirmed in my arms, writhing in misery, but could not free herself.
"Who are you? Who speaks?" demanded Reginald.
"I am taking your slave, who is quite good," I said, "and something else, too, which I have found of interest."
"Who speaks? Who speaks?" cried Reginald.
"Jason," said I, "Jason, of Victoria!" Then I climbed to the shattered window and, holding the girl, crouched there for a moment. She was uttering small, muffled sounds, whimpering piteously. Then I leapt into the water. As I leapt to the water I heard the men outside the cabin begin to hurl their shoulders against the wood.
Chapter 9 — I ACQUIRE ANOTHER GIRL; I RENEW AN ACQUAINTANCE WITH TWO OLD FRIENDS
"Who is there?" called the fellow from the gunnels of the _Tina_. "Speak, or we shall fire!"
"Jason," said I from the dark, cold water. "Jason of Victoria. Help me aboard!"
"It is Jason," said a voice. I recognized it as that of Callimachus. "Help him aboard!"
I was towing the girl by the hair, on her back, behind me, in the water. Attached to her collar, floating to one side, on its double rope, was the board and packet.
Hands reached down toward me. Two men, clinging to the gunnels, clambered down to assist me.
"What have we here?" asked one of the men.
"A female slave," I said, "and something else, which is of value."
The girl was lifted up, by her bound arms, by two men, and hauled over the bulwarks, the board and packet striking against the side of the ship, with her.
I climbed up, after her. In a moment I stood, shivering, on the deck of the _Tina_.
Callimachus seized me by the arms. "We had feared you were lost," he said.
"We must make ready to withdraw," I said. "We cannot withstand an attack in the morning."
"We were waiting for you," said Callimachus.
I bent down beside the girl and removed the board and packet, on its rope, from her collar. "Put this in the cabin of the captain," I said to a man.
"Yes, Jason," said he.
"What is it?" asked Callimachus.
"I shall explain later," I said.
"There seems light and consternation on the deck of the _Tamira_," said a man. To be sure, we could see ships' lanterns moving about on the _Tamira_, some two to three hundred yards across the water.
I smiled. I did not think Reginald would be quick to report his loss to the fleet commander.
"What have we here?" asked a man, lifting a lantern, indicating the girl, who was kneeling on the deck at our feet.
I jerked the blindfold down from her head, until it hung about her neck.
"A pretty one," said the man.
"Yes," said another.
The girl looked wildly about, frightened, a prize, among the enemies of her former master.
"You are in the presence of men, Woman," I said. "Put your head down, to their sea boots."
Immediately, kneeling, she put her head down to the deck.
"The _Tamira_ is coming about," said a man. "I think she means to attack."
"She must be very anxious to recover whatever it was which you took," said Callimachus.