"Lady Tende, daughter of Aibu, high chief of Ukungu," said Mwoga, "is being conveyed in honor to the ceremony of companionship, to be mated to his majesty, Bila Huruma."

"She is being sold to seal a bargain," said Kisu. "How could she be more a slave?"

Tende's face remained expressionless.

"Of her own free will," said Mwoga, "the Lady Tende hastens to become Ubara to Bila Huruma."

"One of more than two hundred Ubaras!" scoffed Kisu.

"She acts of her own free will," averred Mwoga.

"Excellent," said Kisu. "She sells herself!" he said. "Well done, Slave Girl!" he commended.

"She is to be honored in companionship," said Mwoga.

"I have seen Bila Huruma," said Kisu. "No woman could be other than a slave to him. And I have seen luscious slaves, black, and white, and oriental, in his palace, girls who know truly how to please a man, and desire to do so. Bila Huruma has his pick of hot-blooded, trained, enslaved beauties. If you do not wish to remain barren and lonely in your court you will learn to compete with them. You will learn to crawl to his feet and beg to serve him with the unqualified and delicious abandon of a trained slave."

Still Tende's face did not change expression.

"And you will do so, Tende," said Kisu, "for you are in your heart, as I can see in your eyes, a true slave."

Tende lifted her hand, her right hand, with the whip, on its loop, fastened to her wrist. She moved her hand indolently. Her two slaves, tense, frightened, desisted from fanning her.

Tende rose gracefully to her feet and descended from the cushions and dais, to stand at the edge of the platform, over Kisu.

"Have you nothing to say, my dear Tende, beautiful daughter of the traitor, Aibu?" inquired Kisu.

She struck him once with the whip, across the face. He had shut his eyes that he not be blinded.

"I do not speak to commoners," she said. She then returned to her position, her face again expressionless, and looking straight ahead.

She lifted her hand, indolently, and again her two slaves began, gently, to fan her.

Kisu opened his eyes, a diagonal streak of blood across his face. His fists were clenched.

"Continue on," said Mwoga to one of the askaris on the platform.

The fellow called out sharply to the chained slaves drawing the platform, pointing ahead with his spear. They then began to wade forward, drawing the canoes, with the platform of state affixed athwart them.

We watched the platform, with its passengers, and canopy, moving west.

I looked at Kisu. I did not think, now, I would have long to wait.

"Dig," said a nearby askari.

With a feeling of satisfaction, and pleasure, I then thrust the shovel deep into the mud at my feet.

We sat in the long cage, bolted on the extended raft. I ran my finger under the collar, to move it a bit from my neck. I could smell the marshes about.

With a movement of chain, he crawled toward me in the darkness. With my fingernail I scratched a bit of rust from the chain on my collar. Far off, across the marsh, we could hear the noises of jungle birds, the howling of tiny, long-limbed primates. It was about an Ahn after the late evening rain, somewhere about the twentieth Ahn. The sky was still overcast, providing a suitable darkness for the work which must soon be at hand.

"I must speak with you," he said, in halting Gorean.

"I did not know you could speak Gorean," I said, looking ahead in the darkness.

"When a child," he said, "I once ran away. I lived for two years in Schendi, then returned to Ukungu."

"I did not think a mere village would content you," I said. "It was a long and dangerous journey for a child."

"I returned to Ukungu," he said.

"Perhaps that is why you are such a patriot of Ukungu," I said, "because once you fled from it."

"I must speak with you," he said.

"Perhaps I do not speak with members of the nobility," I said.

"Forgive me," he said. "I was a fool."

"You have learned, then," I said, "from Bila Huruma, who will speak to all men."

"How else can one listen?" he asked. "How else can one understand others?"

"Beggers speak to beggers, and to Ubars," I said.

"It is a saying of Schendi," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you speak Ushindi?" he asked.

"A little," I said.

"Can you understand me?" he asked, speaking in the dialect of the court of Bila Huruma.

"Yes," I said. Gorean was not easy for him. Ushindi, I was sure, was no easier for me. Ayari, to my right, knew Ushindi well enough to transpose easily into the related Ngao dialect spoken in the Ukungu district, but I did not. "If I cannot understand you, I will tell you," I said. I had little doubt but what, between his Gorean and my understanding of the Ushindi dialect spoken at the court of Bila Huruma, we could communicate.

"I will try to speak Gorean," he said. "That, at least, is not the language of Bila Huruma."

"There are other things in its favor as well," I said. "It is a complex, efficient language with a large vocabulary."

"Ukungu," he said, "is the most beautiful language in all the world."

"That may well be," I said, "but I cannot speak it." I, personally, would have thought that English or Gorean would have been the most beautiful language in all the world. I had met individuals, however, who thought the same of French and German, and Spanish, and Chinese and Japanese. The only common denominator in these discussions seemed to be that each of the informants was a native speaker of the language in question. How chauvinistic we are with respect to our languages. This chauvinism can sometimes be so serious as to blind certain individuals to the natural superiority of English, or, perhaps, Gorean. Or perhaps French, or German. or Spanish, or Chinese, or Japanese, or, say, Bassa or Hindi.

"I will try to speak Gorean," he said.

"Very well," I said, generously. I breathed more easily.

"I want to escape," he said. "I must escape."

"Very well," I said. "Let us do so."

"But how?" he asked…

"The means," I said, "have long lain at our disposal. It is only that I have lacked the cooperation necessary to capitalize on them."

I turned to Ayari. "Pass the word down the chain," I said, "in both directions, in various languages, that we shall escape tonight."

"How do you propose to do this?" asked Ayari.

"Discharge your duties, my friendly interpreter," I said. "You will see shortly."

"What if some fear to escape?" asked Ayari.

"They will then be torn alive out of the chain," I told him.

"I am not sure I am in favor of this," said Ayari.

"Do you wish to be the first?" I asked him.

"Not me," said Ayari. "I am busy. I have things to do. I am passing the word down the chain."

"How can we escaper asked Kisu.

I reached out and measured the chain at his collar, and slipped my hands down the chain until, about five feet later, it lifted to the collar of the next man. I pushed them closely together, to drop the chain, in a loop, to the log floor of the extended raft. By feeling I dropped the loop between the ends of two logs and drew it back, about two feet in from the end of the log it was now looped beneath. The bottom of the loop was then under water and about one log. I put one end of the chain in the hands of the powerful Kisu and took the other end in my own hands.

"I see," said Kisu, "but this is an inefficient tool."

"You could ask the askaris for a better," I suggested.

We then began, smoothly and firmly, exerting heavy, even pressures, to draw the chain back and forth under the log. In moments, using this crude saw, or cuffing tool, we had cut through the bark of the log and had begun, rhythmically, to gash and splinter the harder wood beneath. The spacing and twisting of the links, in the motion of the metal, served well in lieu of teeth. There was an occasional squeak of the metal on the wet wood but the work, for the most part, was accomplished silently, the sound being concealed under the surface of the water. It was a mistake on the part of the askaris to have left us in neck chains in a cage mounted on a log platform. We ceased work, once, when a canoe of askaris, on watch, paddled by.