“Please, no!” she cried.
“How,” asked the pit master, “is a female prisoner who is a free woman to address her jailer?”
“As ‘sir’!” she cried.
“You seem, hitherto, to have omitted that courtesy,” he observed.
“’Sir,’ ‘sir,’ sir’!” she wept.
“You must understand,” he said, “that in this place you are mine.”
“Yes, sir!” she wept.
“Hold to the bars,” he said.
Desperately, weeping, she clung to them. I gathered that she might have experienced something of this sort before.
He jerked the cord and it sprang the latch, and the bottom plate of the cage, she screaming with terror, I, too, crying out in terror, dropped down, on its hinge. She slipped partly through the opening, and then scrambled back within the cage, clinging to the bars, her feet trying to find some purchase there.
The cloth she had held floated down to the water.
Instantly I heard a rushing, a stirring in the water, a turmoil there, and the ripping of cloth, and an angry squealing.
I could not see what was there.
The free woman was screaming.
I almost fainted.
The pit master then went to a wheel set in the wall and, turning it, bit by bit, foot by foot, lowered the cage toward the water.
“Sir, sir!” screamed the free woman, as the cage, foot by foot, descended.
“Show the slave the pool,” said the pit master.
“Up, slave, to the wall,” said the brunette with the torch.
I rose up. I could hardly stand, so frightened I was. I did not want to approach the wall too closely. I was afraid of falling. My hands were bound behind me. What if I should lose my balance? How could I protect myself?
“Closer!” said the brunette slave.
I came closer to the wall, looked, gasped, cried out in terror, and shrank back.
The free woman was hysterical in the cage.
“Look!” commanded the brunette slave.
I came forward, again, and looked. In the water, swirling about, were several dark, sleek shapes. I had never seen anything like them. They seemed like some form of rodent, but they were far too large. They were not like the six-legged creatures. I had seen before, that on the ledge, that on the surface of the tower.
“Urts,” said the female slave with the torch.
I saw some of these things now, their fur wet, their ears back against the sides of their heads, leaping upward, trying to reach the cage.
Then the cage stopped descending.
The free woman tried to draw herself higher into the cage.
I could see in the torchlight, a moment before it broke the surface, one of the beasts, swimming rapidly upward from it, erupting from it, and I saw its full body, shedding water, its neck extended, its jaws open, its forepaws down against its body, streamlining its shape, its hind legs extended, it leaping upward, then yards above the surface of the torn, dark pool, and then it seemed to pause in the air, and then, snarling, just short of the cage, it dropped back into the pool. Water splashed up. It drenched the cage, the feet of the free woman. I felt it even on my body, where I stood. Other beasts, too, now essayed the leap. They, gathering force, swimming swiftly in ever widening, preparatory circles just under the water, would plunge down, yards from the cage, and then ascend rapidly, spearing upward, snapping, from the water. Then, in rage, in frustration, they would drop back in the water. Closer and closer they came. The brunette slave held the torch back that its flame might not be extinguished by the drenching water. One of the beasts caught a bottom circling bar of iron in its teeth. It swung for a moment from the cage. Its forepaws fought for purchase at the cage, but the claws scratched futilely on the dangling solid gate, forcing it back on its hinges. The free woman screamed. It snapped at the free woman, in this action losing its hold on the cage. Again she screamed, the thing just below her. Then, snarling and squealing, it fell back into the water. Its jaws had been no more than inches from the feet of the free woman. Another beast leaped upward, falling just short of her, its snout actually within the opened cage. Some beasts did not leap upward but remained patiently, tensely quiescent in the wide circle in the water, a circle ranging about the cage. They lay there, almost flat in the water, mostly submerged.
One could see their nostrils, their eyes, the top of their glistening heads, the ears back against the sides of the heads. Their bodies were oriented in such a way as to face the center of the circle. The free woman could climb no higher in the cage. She clung within it, sobbing and hysterical, like a small, wet, trembling, terrified bird. Up leapt another of the beasts and it caught a hem of her ragged robes in its teeth and tore a strip from them, which it bore with it back to the dark pool. Again she screamed. I could now see a flash of calf within her robes. It was not a poorly turned calf. I thought she might be acceptable as a slave. Again and again she screamed. Then the pit master, slowly, reversed the wheel and, bit by bit, raised the cage, until it was level with the wall. The free woman clung within it, her feet drawn up. The pit master left the wheel and took the cord. He snapped it up, and the cage floor, flung up, snapped into place. To be sure, so little as another tug, like the first, would once again release it.
“Release the bars,” he said to the free woman. “Stand on the floor of the cage, in its center, your hands closely at your sides.”
Trembling, she obeyed.
I saw the cord taut between the hand of the pit master and the latch.
The slightest tug on the cord would spring the latch, dropping the floor of the cage, which was its gate, plunging her helplessly to the cold, dark waters below, to the jaws of the waiting beasts.
“You are never again,” said he, “to impede, or attempt to impede, the operation of the latch.”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
“The cage must be such,” said he, “that at any time, perhaps even when you sleep, the latch may be released. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sire,” she said, weakly.
How helpless she was! How vulnerable must be one in such a confinement!
“Understand, too,” said he, “that the cage is designed for naked, shackled, shaved-headed slave girls.”
The nudity of the imprisoned slave, I supposed, aside from the usual purposes of such, such as to protect clothing from being soiled, to help her keep in mind that she is a slave, and such, as to prevent the possible use of clothing to secure the latch. The shaved-headedness of the, aside from the usual purpose of such, which is punishment, would doubtless be to prevent the attempt on their part to secure the gate by means of their hair. Shaved-headedness, of course, is not always a punishment. It is sometimes done for hygienic purposes, as on slave ships, and for safety purposes, as in factories. Too, a girl’s head may be shaved simply to obtain the hair, which may then be sold. For example, our shorn hair may be sold to jobbers who deal with the manufacturers of artillery and siege equipment. Our “pelting,” as it is sometimes referred to in the trade, is apparently considerably superior to hempen strands for use as catapult cordage. Slave girls, it might be mentioned, normally have long hair, as it is very beautiful, and much may be done with it, both cosmetically, so to speak, and in the furs. Too, we may even be bound with it. The shackling in such a cage, of course, aside from its common purposes, such as showing that the female is a slave, enhancing her beauty, and such, would make it difficult or impossible for her to prevent her slipping through the opening of the cage. This would particularly be the case if her hands were shackled behind her and her angles were shackled closely together.
“I am kept in a slave cage?” she said.
“Yes,” said he.
“I am a free woman,” she said. “I protest!”
“Your protest is noted, and overruled,” he said.
“May I removed my arms from my sides?” she asked.