The panther girls with the switches looked about themselves fearfully. They struck the girls in the coffle less frequently now. They only wished to hurry, to leave the forest, as soon as possible, to escape. As yet, they knew, none of the arrows had felled one of their number. Yet they did not seem reassured. They suspected perhaps, in terror, that another fate might be theirs.
Mira, the lieutenant of Hura, stirred again, turning from her left to her right side. Her head was on her arms. Her blond hair was unbound. She wore her skins. Her legs, particularly the right one, was drawn up.
There had been few fires in the camp. The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura had feared the light. There had been only two guards, and they were quite close to the camp. I had slipped between them. It was important that they suspect nothing.
In the day, through the morning and long afternoon, from cover, I had struck, again and again.
Answering quarrels from crossbows, meaningless, sometimes fell among the branches and leaves. They had no target.
In desperation, to my pleasure, some fifteen men of Tyros entered the forest. In all, throughout the day, the great bow had spoken forty-one times, and forty-one men of Tyros now lay scattered along the trail and in the forest, feed for prowling sleen.
I lay behind Mira in the darkness. Her back was to me. She lay on her right side, her head on her right arm. She twisted in her sleep. She was restless. I was patient.
She rolled over on her back, and extended her legs, her head turned from side to side. Then her head was still. She was now mine.
I knelt across her body, one leg on either side of her, pinning her, confining her movements.
Her eyes suddenly, startled, opened. She saw me. In terror, a reflex action, uncontrollable, her mouth, lips wild, opened. I thrust the heavy wadding deep in her mouth. She could utter not the smallest sound. As my right hand did this the loop of panther skin, twisted in its center, fell from my hand across her face. Swiftly, the twisted part deeply between her teeth, I knotted it with a warrior’s tightness behind the back of her neck. The wadding would not slip. I then turned her on her stomach and bound her wrists behind her back. Then I bent to her ankles, crossed them, and tied them together.
“Do not struggle,” I told her.
She felt the blade of the knife at her throat. Her eyes wild over her gag, she nodded her understanding.
“Do you understand what you are to do?” demanded Vinca.
“I can’t!” wept Mira. “I can’t!” Tears stained her cheeks from beneath the blindfold. I had fastened on her before bringing her to this predesignated clearing.
She could not see who it was who spoke to her. She knew only that she knelt, stripped, blindfolded and bound, before a harsh female interrogator, one whose uncompromising strictures and imperious tomes could only be interpreted as those of a leader of a large and important band of panther women.
Also, to her left and right, moving about, from time to time, were the other two paga slaves, those beside Vinca. Mira could have no way of knowing how many were present at her interrogation nor if those present were merely a delegation or smaller group drawn from a larger band. Indeed, she knew little more than that she was being severely addressed by one woman, and that there were others about. Ilene I had left with the other prisoners, chaining her, belly to a tree, by slave bracelets. Mira, kneeling blindfolded, interrogated, did not even know if I were still present.
Vinca, the red-haired girl, did her job well. From time to time, when not satisfied with an answer, or, sometimes, for no apparent reason at all, she would, unexpectedly, strike the blindfolded, bound, cowering Mira with the switch. Mira never knew when she would be struck. She wept. She would sometimes flinch from blows that had not even fallen.
“Please do not hit me again,” wept Mira.
“Very well,” said Vinca.
Mira lifter her head and, gasping, straightened her body.
Then suddenly the switch would fall again, with lashing ferocity.
Mira put down her head again, shuddering. I observed the fingers of her small, crossed, bound hands. I did not think it would take long now from Vinca to break her.
“Do you understand what you are to do?” demanded Vinca.
“I cannot!” wept Mira. “It is too dangerous! If I were found out, they would kill me! I cannot do it! I cannot do it!” I motioned to Vinca. No more blows fell.
“Very well,” said Vinca.
There was a long silence.
Mira lifted her head, unbelievingly. The ordeal was over. “Are you finished with me?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Vinca.
Mira’s head fell forward on her breast. Then she took a deep breath. She lifted her head.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.
“You will find out,” said Vinca. Then Vinca gestured to the two other paga slaves, my girls, in the skins of panthers. They unbound Mira’s ankles and pulled her, still blindfolded, to her feet. One on each arm they conducted her through the forest until they came to a place we had agreed upon, in which we had places four stakes. I followed silently.
Mira was put on her back and her two ankles were bound, widely apart, to two stakes.
Then her wrists were unbound from behind her and they, too, were bound widely apart, to two stakes.
“What are you doing with me?” begged Mira.
“We are staking you out for sleen,” said Vinca.
“No! No!” cried Mira.
The last knot was fastened, she was secured. “Please no!” cried Mira. I handed the sleen knife to Vinca. Mira, blindfolded, felt the blade on her thigh. “No!” she cried.
Vinca handed the blade back to me, which I cleaned and replaced in my sheath. Mira, staked out, blindfolded, felt a woman’s strong hand take the blood from her thigh and smear it across her belly and about her body.
“Please!” wept Mira. “I am a woman!”
“I, too, “ said Vinca, “ am a woman.”
“Spare me!” cried Mira. “Keep me as your slave!”
“I do not want you,” said Vinca.
“Sell me to a man!” she cried. “I will make him a docile slave, a dutiful, obedient and beautiful slave!” “Are you a natural slave?” asked Vinca.
“Yes,” cried Mira, “yes! Sell me! Sell me!”
“Do you beg to be a slave?” she asked.
“Yes,” wept Mira, “yes!”
“Untie her,” said Vinca.
Weeping, still blindfolded, Mira was untied and thrown before me on her knees. “Submit,” said Vinca, sternly.
Before me Mira performed the gesture of submission. I held her crossed wrists. “I submit myself, Master,” she said.
She was now my slave.
I nodded to Vinca.
Mira was thrown back on the grass.
“Let the slave,” said Vinca, “be now staked out for sleen.”
“No!’ cried Mira. “No!”
Swiftly Mira, blindfolded, found herself bound as before to the stakes, if anything more securely. Only now she lay there a bound slave.
“Leave her for the sleen,” said Vinca.
“Command me!’ cried Mira. “I will do anything for you! Anything! A slave begs to be commanded!” “It is too late,” said Vinca.
“I beg to serve you!” she wept. “I beg to serve you!”
“It is too late,” said Vinca.
“No!” cried Mira.
“Gag her,” said Vinca.
Again I thrust the heavy wadding of fur deep in Mira’s mouth, and tied it securely in place with the strip, twisted, of panther skin.
We then withdrew, leaving the slave Mira lashed helplessly between the stakes. We waited.
As we expected, it did not take long. Soon, prowling about in the brush, some yards away, was a sleen, drawn by the smell of fresh blood, her own, smeared on Mira’s slave body.