“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.
“If you fall asleep,” I told her, “I will cut your throat.”
She looked at me. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.
I thrust some strips of tabuk meat from my walled into her mouth.
“Eat,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I also gave her some water from the guard’s canteen.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
I looked at Cara.
“It will not be necessary to bind me,” said Cara.
“Lie on your stomach,” I told her, “and cross your wrists, behind your back, and your ankles.” “Yes, Master,” she said.
I also secured her by the neck, by means of a thong, to a nearby tree. I turned her over. “Open your mouth,” I told her.
She did so.
I thrust some strips of tabuk meat into her mouth.
“Eat,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
When she was finished, I lifted her in my left arm, giving her to drink from the canteen.
“Thank you, Master,” she whispered.
I recalled how she had looked in the compartments of Samos, so long ago, when he and I had addressed our attentions to the board of the game, and while Rim, then a slave, chained, had watched.
I looked at Tina, tied, back against the tree, my slave. How long ago it seemed she had cut my purse in a street along the wharves of Lydius.
Both had been swept up, helpless slaves, both beautiful, in the harsh games of men.
But it was unimportant. They were only slaves.
I fed from the tabuk strips in my wallet, looking out to sea, and then drank from the canteen of the guard.
I was weary.
I returned to where Cara lay bound. She was helpless, and beautiful. She was slave. Already she was asleep.
I lay down on the leaves to rest.
I looked up at the branches, and the leaves and then I, too, almost immediately fell asleep.