I heard a shout from the center of the camp. The hunters were now in pursuit.
"Do not be afraid, Donna," I said to her. "You will not be beaten or much beaten. You will not truly have to serve. These are only peasant boys and will not know one end of a slave girl from the other."
Then I fled from her side, through the spaces between the dark huts.
I hoped that what I had said to Donna was true. I was sure that the peasant boys, indeed, would not know much of the handling of slave girls. Doubtless they would lack the patience and skill to get all from a girl. I did not think, for example, that they would know how to force me into the slave girl's humiliating submission ecstasy. On the other hand, I regarded them. with genuine fear. They could well hurt me. I remembered their roughness and the way they had, with brutal exactness, appraised my flesh. I was so much smaller and weaker than they, and their lust would be on them. They could well be terribly brutal with me. I was to them, after all, only an animal. They might hurt me. They might throw me about among them. They might beat me with ropes if I were not pleasing to them.
I heard a young man running by. I shrank back in the shadows, crouching among the pilings of a hut.
I did not want them to catch me. I was locked within the palisade. There was no place to hide!
I heard a girl scream, far to my right. They had taken one of us. I did not know whom.
I did not want a rope put on my throat. I did not want to be dragged to the circle of the torch, a caught girl.
Two young men came by, with torches. I hid back, among the pilings.
Shortly after they had passed, the sleen in a pen, some fifty yards off, began to squeal and hiss. They ran toward the pen. Something had disturbed the sleen. Perhaps it was a girl.
Two more young men were approaching, one holding aloft a torch. Again I shrank back among the pilings, holding my breath. They passed.
I saw them stop beside a hut several yards away. The one lifted the torch. It illuminated what appeared to be a pile of canvas. They stood there, one on each side of the pile, it almost at their feet. Cruelly they stood there, not moving. Donna would know that their footsteps had approached. They had not departed. She must, surely, fearfully suspect that her position was known. Yet she did not know for certain. How miserable she must have felt, huddling beneath the canvas, how tense and terrified, how apprehensive. Cruelly they stood as they were, not moving, for almost a minute. She could hear the crackle of the torch. Did they know where she was? Were they playing with the beauty, tormenting her? Longer yet did they stand there, and then, exchanging glances, one of them, with a sudden, loud cry, pounced on the pile of canvas. Shrieking with misery Donna was lifted, by one ankle and an arm, high into the air, over the head of the boy who had seized her. He held her over his head. She struggled, held from the ground, high, helpless, her lovely limbs without leverage. "Capture!" cried the boy. "Capture!" cried another lad, coming from the direction of the sleen pen, where the sleen, shortly before, had hissed and squealed, revealing their agitation. He held Lehna before him, his left hand on her left arm, his right hand on her right wrist, forcing her right arm high, painfully, behind her back. He pushed her before him, so held. Her gown had been pulled down about her hips. She grimaced with pain, her head back.
"Please, Master!" she wept. Lehna was a larger woman than I. She was strong among us girls. Slave Beads lived in terror of her. But in the arms of a male, even a lusty boy, she was slight and helpless, small, to them only another pretty slave girl in their power. I bit my lip. Men were our masters. With the boy who had captured Lehna came four others, two with torches. The boy who had captured Donna had now thrown her, belly down, across his left shoulder. Her head hung down behind his back. His left arm, heavy, brawny, locked her in place. "Let us see your catch," said one of the newly arrived boys. "Tie her ankles," said the lad who held Donna over his shoulder. One of the other boys, who carried a ten-foot length of rope, with one end of the rope, crossed and tied together Donna's ankles, while she was still held on the shoulder of her captor. "Who is your master of the night?" inquired Lehna's captor of Lehna. He thrust her right wrist higher behind her back. "You! You, Master!" she cried. "You are my master of the night!" "Ankle leash her," said the lad who held Lehna. Another lad tied a tether on her left ankle. The ankle leash is cruel. It provides effective control of a girl. There is much that can be done with such a leash, particularly in the control of a skillful master. Most obviously, in an instant the girl may be thrown to his feet in a variety of positions, over which he exercises choice. The lad who had captured Donna, now that her ankles were tied, heaved her with a laugh over his shoulder. She landed in the dirt behind him. She broke her fall, as best she could, with her hands. The long end of the rope which bound her ankles trailed her over his shoulder. Her captor took the end of the rope from the lad who had bound her and, holding it about a foot from her fastened ankles, pulled her feet some six inches into the air. She was lying on her stomach. "There is my catch," he said. Then he said to Donna, "Roll over." She rolled onto her back, her tied feet now held about a foot off the ground by the rope. "There, my friends," beamed her captor, "is my catch!" "A beauty!" said one of the boys. "Yes, a beauty!" said her captor. He was proud of Donna. I did not blame him. She was indeed beautiful. Donna was a marvelous catch. "I want her!" said one of the lads. "First capture rights are mine," said the lad who had caught Donna, "but I am generous, and will share my prize with all of you!" There was hearty acclaim among the lads upon the receipt of his welcome intelligence. Donna squirmed, but was helpless on her back, her feet bound, held in the air by the captor's tether. "What of my prize?" demanded another lad, he who had caught Lehna by the sleen pen. He now held her ankle leash, and stepped back, bowing and displaying the half-stripped Lehna with an expansive gesture. She, too, I was forced to admit, was a superb prize. Such boys did not have such girls everyday. She was a warrior's belonging. "How can we tell if she is pretty?" asked one of the boys. "Thusly!" said one, tearing away the bit of gown about Lehna's hips. There was laughter. She was very beautiful. "But she is standing!" protested the first lad. "Belly or back?" asked Lehna's captor. "Both!" cried more than one lad. Expertly, with the ankle leash, the lad displayed Lehna's beauty in the luscious modes of horizontality. Some Goreans say that a woman's beauty can only be fairly judged when she lies at a man's feet. More than one of the lads cried out with pleasure and slapped his thigh. Donna then screamed as the boys turned to her. Her gown, too, was torn off. Her ankles were still tied. "To the circle of the torch!" cried a lad. "On your feet, Wench!" said the lad who had captured Lehna. She scrambled to her feet, covered with dirt. "Three have yet to be caught," said a lad. I knew one girl had been caught early; I had heard a scream some time ago; I did not know who she was; now I knew that Lehna and Donna were in the power of the pursuers; if only three remained to be caught, then one other girl, somewhere, had also been captured. I did not know who she was either. "Let us take these to the circle of the torch," said one of the lads, "and bind them securely, then hunt the others." The captors hesitated. "You can put your marks on these in charcoal," said one of the boys, indicating Donna and Lehna. "All right," said one of the captors. "Agreed!" said the other. Lehna was led away on her ankle leash, fastened on her left ankle, and by her right wrist, too, it held in the hand of one of the boys. Donna's captor, to her misery, dragged her behind him through the dirt on the tether which fastened her ankles together. I saw the group, pursuers and fair captives, helpless in their charge, disappear down the street.