In a few minutes as I had expected, I saw some pairs of slave girls, three pairs, each pair tied together by the neck, brutally driven, stumbling, crying out, from the palisade. A man of Tyros, with a whip, followed each pair. I noted that, as I would have supposed, and had been anticipating, that the girls driven forth now to gather wood, and were isolated in the slave line between Sheera and Grenna, both panther girls. The other two pairs, whimpering, were girls from Marlenus’ camp. All of these girls were terrified of the forest. None of hem, presumably, could survive alone in it. It was natural that the pairs had been arranged as they had, particularly that of Cara and Tina, given their location in the coffle. I needed Tina, and I preferred to have Cara, too, though, for my plan, another girl might do as well. If Cara had not been tied with Tina I should still have done what I did. I needed the pair which contained Tina. I had suspected, as long ago as Lydius, that that fantastic little wench might prove of great utility to my enterprises. I had not, however, expected to apply her as I now intended.
The men of Tyros, following the weeping girls with their whips, did not care to enter the forest.
“Gather wood, quickly, and return!” cried the fellow guarding Cara and Tina. “Do not drive us into the forest!” begged Cara. She knelt and put her head to his feet.
“Come with us,” wept Tina. “Please, Master!” she knelt before him, holding his ankle, her lips pressed to his foot.
For answer the slave lash fell twice.
Weeping, the two girls sprang to their feet and ran to the edge of the forest and, trying not to enter into its shadows, rapidly, weeping, began to break branches and gather wood.
“Hurry! Hurry!” called their guard.
He snapped the whip.
The two girls in bondage knew well the sound of the whip. They cried out with misery.
They had already been beaten, too, in the stockade. Their delicate flesh, like that of any slave girl, was terrified of the lash. The only woman, slave or free, who does not cringe before the lash is she who had not felt it. But, too, they feared the forest, the darkness, the animals. There were girls of civilized cities. The forest at night, with its sounds, its perils, the teeth and claws of its predators, was a nightmare of terror for them.
They carried two armloads of branches, and fell to their knees before the guard. “Let it be enough,” they wept.
They wished to return, and promptly, to the light of the animal fires. They looked up at him, pleading.
“Gather more wood, Girls,” said he to them.
“Yes, Master,” they said.
“And deeper in the forest,” said he.
“Please!’ they wept.
He lifted the whip.
“I obey!” cried Cara.
“I obey!” wept Tina.
From far off, in the forest, came the snarling of a panther.
The girls looked at one another.
The man gestured with the whip.
They fled to the darkness of the trees and began to break and gather wood. In a few minutes, each with an armload of sticks and branches, they emerged. They knelt before the figure in the yellow of Tyros who stood with the whip, waiting for them, on the beach.
“Is it enough?” begged Cara, looking down.
“It is quite enough,” I told them.
They looked up, startled.
“Be silent!” I warned them.
“You!” breathed Cara.
“Master,” whispered Tina, her eyes wide.
“Where is the guard?” asked Tina.
“He stumbled and fell,” I told them. “It seems he struck his head upon a stone.” I did not expect he would awaken for several hours.
“I see,” said Cara, smiling.
He had not expected danger from the seaward side of the beach. There were many large, flattish, rounded stones on the beach. He had encountered one. “There is great danger here for you, Master,” said Tina.:You had best flee.” I looked across the beach, some two hundred yards, to the palisade. I wiped sand from my right hand on the woolen tunic of Tyros.
Then I looked down at Tina.
“There are more than fifty men of Tyros here,” said Tina.
“There are fifty-five, excluding Sarus of Tyros, their leader,” I told her. She looked at me.
“It was you who followed us,” said Cara.
“You must flee,” whispered Tina, “there is danger here for you.”
“I think,” said Cara, smiling, “there is danger her, too, for those of Tyros.” I looked up at the moons.
It was near the twentieth hour, the Gorean midnight. I must hurry.
“Follow me,” I told the two slaves.
They leaped to their feet and, still tied together by the neck, in their tattered woolen tunics, followed me along the beach.
Behind us we heard men calling out the name of another man, doubtless that of the guard, his struck unexpectedly by the blow of a stone. Doubtless he would conjecture that the girls had managed to sneak behind him and strike him, thus making good their escape. There would be wonderment at that, of course, for the girls had been only girls of the civilized city, thought to be terrified of the forest night.
We saw torches far behind us, the search for the guard.
I lengthened my stride. The girls, tied together, stumbling, struggled to match my pace.
The wood we left behind us on the beach. The men of Tyros might use it for their fires, and their beacon.
I did not begrudge them its use. It would do them little good.
I looked up at the sun. it was near the tenth hour, the Gorean noon. I snapped off a large branch, extending from a fallen tree, with the flat of my foot.
I then dragged it down to the beach and threw it on the great pile of wood which I, and Cara and Tina, had accumulated.
I had freed them of the neck tether, and they had worked tirelessly, and with ardor. They had worked as might have free persons. It had not been necessary to use the whip, stolen from the guard, on them.
Their zeal puzzled me. They were only female slaves.
“We are ready,” I told them.
We surveyed the great construction of dried branches and gathered driftwood. We had done well.
We had trekked during the night and into the morning. Then we had not stopped to rest, but had begun to gather wood.
I surveyed our great accumulation of driftwood and branches. We had done well. Being slaves they had dared not inquire of me the intention of our efforts. I was not displeased that they had not done so. I had no wish to beat them. It would have cost me time.
The piles of branches and driftwood was some twenty pasangs south of the camp of the men of Tyros.
The girls smiled at me, they were weary.
“To the edge of the forest, Slaves,” I told them.
At the fringe of the forest, overlooking the sloping beach, covered with its stones, and, lower, with its sand. I found a strong, slender tree, with an outjutting branch some five feet from the ground, the branch facing away from the water.
“You will have the first watch,” I told Tina. “You are to alert me to the presence of a sail or sails on the horizon.” “Yes, Master,” said Tina.
I shoved her back against the tree.
“Put your arms over your head,” I told her. “Now bend your elbows.” I tied each wrist separately, tightly, again the tree, lopping the binding fiber about the tree twice, and twice over the outjutting branch. She stood, thus, facing the sea, her wrists tied back, against each side of the tree. With another length of binding fiber I jerked her belly back against the tree, tying it there, tightly.