He pressed his lips to hers. And I saw her arms, as though eagerly, encircle his back.
The men laughed.
Few of them noticed, a log, some yards out in the water, move against the tide, out toward the dark shapes off shore.
My business on the Rhoda would not take long.
Within half of an Ahn I had left her again, lowering myself over the side. Again the men of Tyros on the beach, did not notice the log, perhaps from some island or jutting point, washing into shore, some yards from them.
Tina was now kneeling at the side of the leader of the men of Tyros. She was holding his leg with her hands, breathing deeply, her dark hair loosed over her shoulders, pressing her cheek against his thigh. She was looking up at him. “Did Tina please you?” she asked.
“How did you find her?” asked the leader of his men.
There were shouts of pleasure. Again Tina looked up, piteously, at the leader. “We shall take you with us, Slave,” said the leader.
Tina’s eyes shone. “Thank you, Maser!” she breathed.
“Your duties will be heavy,” he told her. “You will please us when it is our wish, and when it is not our wish, you will prepare food for slaves, which you will serve to them.” “Very well, Master,” said Tina.
“Do you regard yourself as fortunate?” asked the leader.
“Of course, Master,” said Tina.
“You served us with great zeal,” he said.
“Yes, Maser,” she said.
“We would have taken you with us,” said he, “even if you had not served us as pleasantly as you did.” “You tricked me!” she cried.
“Do you know who my captain is?” he inquired.
“No,” she said, apprehensively.
“It is Sarus of Tyros,” he said.
“No!’ she cried out in horror.
“Yes,” he laughed. “And you will be returned to him in one or two days.” She tried to leap to her feet and flee, but he caught her by the hair, and threw her to one of his men.
“Bind the slave,” he said.
Tina was thrown to her stomach in the sand, and bound hand and foot. She was then held by the arms before their leader.
“You are a runaway slave,” he said. “I do not envy you.”
She shuddered.
“Is this the first time you have attempted to escape?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,’ she whispered.
“Perhaps, then,” said he, “ you will not be hamstrung. Perhaps they you will be only lashed.” Tina moaned.
“Look forward to your lashing,” he said.
Tina regarded him with horror.
“Throw her in the boat,” he said.
The bound slave was thrown rudely into the boat.
“To the ship,” said the leader.
Several of the men thrust the longboat back out into the water. Then they, with the leader, lifted themselves into the boat.
As the longboat pulled away, moving back toward the Rhoda and Tesephone, it passed a log, floating in the water, drifting back to shore.
I saw the single lantern on the longboat growing smaller in the distance. I was not dissatisfied.
I slipped ashore, thrusting the log onto the sand, some two hundred yards away, among large rocks, concealed from the light of the beacon.
Tina had one night, perhaps two, to do her work.
From the shadows of the forest I observed the lanterns. The longboat reached the Rhoda. Its lantern was then extinguished. Then the two lanterns, too, both on the Rhoda, the Tesephone, dark, lying off her starboard bow, were extinguished. Tonight both ships would withdraw a pasang or two from shore. There they would lie to until morning. It would not be wise to coast a strange shore at night. Further I had heard they did not expect to make contact with Sarus for another day or two. Accordingly they were not hurried. Besides, I expect tonight there would be some cause for celebrating on the two ships, and that they might be drawn together by lines. They had been long at sea, not putting into land, save for supplies and water, and that in lonely places. It was long that the men of the Rhoda and Tesephone had been at sea. How long was it since they had held the naked, perfumed, collared, responding body of a female slave in their arms? Since the rough port of Laura? Since semi-civilized Lydius, at the mouth of the Laurius? How long would it have been since they had witnessed the swaying body of a chained girl in a paga tavern, perhaps even Ilene in the tavern of Hesius in Laura, or, say, one of the luscious, collared slaves of culturally mixed Lydius, at the mouth of the Laurius, perhaps one of the beauties of the Lydian tavern keeper, Sarpedon, perhaps the wench called Tana, once Elizabeth Caldwell of Earth, now only a belled paga slave. The men would be desperate to hold the softness of a naked woman in their arms, to feel her touch, the caress of her lips and tongue, to hear her cry out their manhood and her femaleness in a single wild cry of pleasure. The men had been long at sea. I had thrown Tina among them.
She knew what she must do.
19 The Stockade of Sarus of Tyros
“Who goes there?” challenged the guard.
I stood in the darkness, on the beach, clad in the yellow of Tyros. His spear, held in two hands, faced me.
“I am your enemy,” I told him. “Summon Sarus. I would speak with him.” “Do not move!’ he said.
“If I move,” I told him, “it will be to kill you. Summon Sarus. I would speak with him.” The guard took a step backward.
“Sarus!” he cried. “Sarus!”
We stood some hundred yards from the palisade erected by the men of Tyros, south of it, on the beach.
From where I stood I could feel the heat of Sarus’ great beacon.
It was now the night following that on which I had, by my will, forced Tina to deliver herself to the men of the Rhoda and Tesephone.
I saw men of Tyros pouring from the palisade, and, too, some of the women of Hura.
Many of them took up positions about the palisade; others scouted the beach to the north, and the nearby forest edges. They were wary. It was wise for them to be so.
I could see a group of five men, one with a torch, making their way toward me across the beach.
The palisade was no longer a rude semicircle, fronted by animal fires. It had now, in the preceding day, been closed. There was even a rough gate, hung on rope hinges, which was now open.
The group of five men picked their way across the stones toward me. They carried weapons. Sarus was among them. Men now streamed past me, to scout the beach to the south.
Today, concealed in the forest, I had seen men cutting more logs. These they trimmed, and dragged to the sand between the stockade and the shore. Obviously Sarus was growing impatient for the Rhoda and Tesephone. Perhaps he thought them overdue. As the men had worked on these logs, fastening them into rafts, slaves, Marlenus and the others, male and female, had been forced to stand between the rafts and the forests.
There was little opportunity to use the great bow, either against the stockade or to prevent the building of the rafts. I could have slain some men cutting in the forest, but little would have been accomplished. I would have informed them that they again stood in danger, which I did not wish them to know. Further, they might then have shielded their work with slaves, or, perhaps, used selected wood from the front of the palisade. The sea and the beach, with their openness, gave them protection. They could shield themselves, either with wood or slaves, from the forest. The most of them, though I could have made some kills, were now substantially safe from the great bow. I could not pin them inside the stockade without exposing myself, and doing so from the beach or shore, and then, of course, they might depart from the stockade secretly from the rear. I did not wish to expose myself on the beach, permitting them the cover of the forest. It would be too easy for them, after a time, to bring me within the range of their steel-leaved crossbows.
It had been my intention to permit Sarus to reach the sea.
I had anticipated, however, that he would make camp and wait for the appointed rendezvous with the Rhoda and Tesephone.