"You cannot have her," said Boots.
"WE have been hunting her for some time," said Chino. "She is our legitimate prey. It is all quite legal. We are honest fellows. We are entitled to her. Now please do not interfere. Come no, little vulo, put your head in this noose."
"Desist!" cried Boots.
"What is wrong now?" asked Chino.
"Apparently," said Boots, "you are under the delusion that this is a free woman, one that my simply be picked up, like a larma in a field, for whatever purposes you might please."
"Of course," said Chino.
"She is not a free woman," said Boots.
"What!" cried Chino.
"Observe her pretty neck," said Boots.
"It is collared!" cried Chino.
"Yes!" said Boots.
"She is a slave!" said Chino.
"Yes," said Boots.
"Ah, well, an unclaimed slave is almost as good as a free woman," said Chino, reaching forth again with the noose.
"Stop!" cried Boots.
"What now?" inquired Chino.
"Yes, what now?" inquired Lecchio.
"This woman is both claimed and collared," said Boots.
"What!" cried Chino.
"What?" asked Lecchio.
"Are you thieves?" asked Boots.
"No!" cried Chino.
"No?" asked Lecchio.
"No!" cried Chino.
"No!" said Lecchio, righteously.
"Then desist, scoundrels," said Boots, "for this woman is my property!"
"Is it true?" asked Chino.
"Yes, Masters," she said, "it is true. I am his property. He is my master. He owns me. I belong to him, legally and completely, in all ways, fully!"
"There are, of course, two of us," said Chino, menacingly.
"I do not fear you!" said Boots. "Be off, you scurvy scamps, lest I feed you to your own sleen!"
"I did not know we had any sleen," said Lecchio to Chino.
"Be gone, scamps, scoundrels, rogues!" cried Boots, with a vast, wild threatening gesture. Immediately Chino and Lecchio, in apparent terror, scampered away.
"You have saved me!" cried the Brigella.
"Yes," said Boots.
"I wear your collar," she said. "I am now yours, truly, you know."
"Why, yes," said Boots, interested. "That is true, isn't it?"
"Yes, Master," she said.
"And then anything may be commanded of you," mused Boots, "absolutely anything, anything whatsoever, and you must obey, instantly and perfectly."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Assume," said he, "standing, partly crouching, the position of a free woman, zealous to conceal her beauty."
"Yes, Master," she said. There was much laughter as she, the already-so-much-exposed slave, assumed this coy, silly position, one often associated with timid, scandalized, shocked, surprised free women. Indeed, it was the same as that which she had often assumed earlier in the farce, when she had supposedly been such a free female.
"Now, for the merest instant," said Boots, "move your hands away, and then replace them, instantly, immediately, as they were."
She complied. If one had not been watching closely, one might have missed the action.
"Yes, yes!" cried Boots ecstatically. "Oh, bliss! Bliss! That is it! That is it!"
"What?" she asked.
"A peep!" cried Boots. "A marvelous peep!"
"That is all?" she asked.
"Yes!" he cried, joyfully.
"Give me then," she cried, suddenly, "the wondrous magic veil!"
"Alas," cried Boots. "I cannot. It would be incorrect to do so."
"How so?" she asked.
"What I negotiated for, as you may recall," said Boots, "was a peep at the beauty of a free woman, not a peep at the beauty of a mere slave."
"Oh, oh!" she said, in misery.
"If that were all one wished," said Boots, "one could go to the nearest market, to see girls naked in their chains." That was true, I supposed. That is how girls are normally displayed in such markets, incidentally, that and in cages.
"But I am the same woman!" she protested.
"That is not really true," said Boots, "for you are now a slave." That sort of thing, incidentally, in its way, is true. A woman collared is quite different from a woman uncollared. The collar works a wondrous transformation in a woman, psychologically, sexually and humanly. She is then vulnerable; she must then obey. She is no longer the same. She has then no choice but to be a total female. She becomes a thousand times more interesting, exciting and desirable.
"Even though I am a slave, Master," she said, "yet do I strongly desire it. I have been through so much! Please let me have it!"
"My benevolence may perhaps yet prove my undoing," said Boots, reaching into his pack.
"I begin already," said the Brigella to the audience, "to sense that slaves may have ways and wiles wherewith to achieve their ends which are denied to free women."
"I have it here," said Boots, supposedly withdrawing it from his pack, "but you, of course, now that you are a slave, will not be able to see it."
"To be perfectly honest with you, Master," she said, "for I am your slave and no longer dare lie to you, I could not see it before either."
"No!" cried Boots.
"Yes," she said, putting down her head, "it is true."
"It is perfectly fitting then," he said, "Slave, that you are now in your collar."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Even though you are a slave, yet still do you desire the wondrous veil?" he asked.
"Yes, Master!" she said. "Now," she said to the audience, "I am at last to have my way. You see, in the end, it is I who win. What does it matter that I am a slave? I am to obtain the wondrous veil."
Boots seemed to be folding up the veil, neatly.
"How clever I am," said the Brigella to the audience. "My patience is now to be rewarded. How simple are men! How easy it is to obtain my way with the wiles of a slave! I did not know that before. The wondrous veil is now to be mine! Thus it is that I, with my beauty, can conquer men!"
"Here," said Boots.
She, still on her knees, rising from her heels, reached eagerly for the veil. "Oh!" she cried, in disappointment, for Boots, at the last moment, had jerked it back.
"I forgot," said Boots.
"What is wrong?" she asked.
"I cannot give you the veil," he said.
"Why not?" she wailed.
"You are a slave," said Boots. "You can own nothing. It is you who are owned."
"Oh!" she cried, in misery.
"Back on your heels," he snapped. "Spread your knees! Hands on thighs! Back straight! Chin up!"
"Oh, oh," she moaned, but swiftly complied. "He reminds me well that I am a slave," she said to the audience. "I had thought to conquer men but instead I find that it is I who am h elpless, that it is I who am conquered, and totally."
At this moment Chino and Lecchio reappeared, now with their peddler's packs.
"Beware, Master," cried the girl. "The feed hunters have returned!"
"Greetings, Boys," said Boots.
"Greetings," said Chino and Lecchio to Boots.
"Do you know these men, Master?" asked the girl, not daring to rise from her knees.
"I mistook you for feed hunters earlier," said Boots to the new arrivals. "I see now that you are my old buddies, with whom I have been traveling these roads for weeks."
"The collar is locked on my neck!" said the girl to the audience, struggling with the collar. "It is truly on me. I cannot remove it!"
"A pretty vulo," said Chino, scrutinizing the girl.
"A juicy pudding," said Lecchio.
"I am now only a slave!" cried the girl to the audience.
"I am now going to toss the wondrous veil up into the air," said Boots. "Let it blow away on the winds, traveling to I know not where." He then tossed it up, lightly, into the air.
"Master!" protested the girl.
"There it goes!" said Boots.
"Master!" said the girl.
"It was in such a fashion that I received it," said Boots. "Surely it is only right that I should let it fly away, back into the clouds and winds, perhaps even back to Anango."