After a quarter of an Ann Kisu laid aside his paddle. He put Tende to her back, crouching beside her. He untied her hands.

She looked up at him.

"It is right, is it not," he asked, "to enslave a rightful and natural slave?"

"Yes, Master," she said.

He then, gently, removed her clothing.

"You are beautiful," he said.

"A girl is pleased, if Master is pleased," she said.

"It is too bad you are only a slave," he said.

"Yes Master," she said.

I then removed the white shells and cord from the throat and left ankle of the blond-haired barbarian, and snapped the two cords in half. I then retied shells on her throat and left ankle. The two remaining pieces of cord, with their shells, I gave to Kisu. He then tied them on the throat and left ankle of Tende.

"You have ornamented me as a slave, Master," said Tende.

"It is fitting, Slave," said Kisu.

"Yes, Master," she said.

She then saw her clothing, with the exception of a silken strip, a foot in width and some five feet in length, ripped from an undergarment, dropped overboard into the marsh. Kisu carefully folded the silken strip into small squares and slipped it between his waist and his loincloth's twisted-cloth belt. It could serve her as a brief, wrap-around skirt, similar to those of the other girls, if he later saw fit to clothe her.

"Your slave lies naked before you, Master," said Tende.

"I have always desired you, Tende," he said.

She lifted her arms to him.

"You are a slave, aren't you, Tende?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. She put her arms down. She looked up at him.

"Since I was a little girl," she said, "I wanted to be your slave. But I never thought you would be strong enough to make me your slave."

"In Ukungu," he said, "it was not possible." He looked down at her, his hands hard on her arms. "Here," he said, "it is possible."

"Here," she said, "it is reality." Then she winced, for his hands, in his desire, tightened more upon her anus. "oh," she said, "you're hurting me."

"Be silent, Slave," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

He looked at her, fiercely. She could not meet his eyes. I think she had not known before that a man could so desire her. She had not before been a slave.

"I name you Tende," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said, now wearing that name like a collar, it having been put upon her as a slave name.

"To whom do you belong?" he asked.

"You, Master," she said.

"Do you think you will have an easy slavery with me?" he asked.

"No, Master," she said.

"You are right," he said. "Your slavery will be a full slavery.

"I desire no other," she said, turning her head to face him. I could smell the heat of her. "Are you now going to claim me, as your slave?" she asked. They seemed oblivious of the others in the canoe. Yet had they not been, it would have made no difference, for the girl was only a slave.

"I claim you, Tende," said he, "as my slave."

"Are you going to take the rights of the Master?" she asked.

"When, and as I please," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "Oh!" she said, forced down, roughly, in the canoe.

"I claim you, Tende, daughter of my hated enemy, Aibu," he said, "as my slave, and now, for the first time, I assert over you the full and uncompromising rights of my mastery."

"Yes, Master," she said. "Yes, Master."

Ayari and I, and the two bare-breasted, lovely white slaves, property girls, each of us now with a paddle, not speaking, propelled the long canoe quietly eastward.

25

We Reach The Sill; I Am Not Pleased With A Slave

"Look," said Ayari, in the bow of the long canoe, pointing forward.

"At last," said Kisu, in the stern, resting his paddle.

The two white slaves, kneeling one behind the other, before me, lifted their paddles from the water, laying them across the sides of our narrow vessel.

Behind me, directly, before Kisu, Tende withdrew her paddle, too, from the water. Kisu kept her in the canoe immediately before him. He wanted her within his reach. She knew herself constantly under his scrutiny. She dared not shirk, no more than the other slaves, in the heavy work set her. More than once Kisu had struck her across the shoulders with his broad-bladed, ornately carved paddle when she, weary, arms aching, had faltered in the rhythm of the stroke.

We had come to the sill, that place where the marsh gives way to the waters of Ngao.

Kisu and I slipped into the water and, wading, slipping in the mud, thrust and hauled the canoe forward.

Then the marsh reeds parted and I saw, before us, sparkling in the sun, broad and shining, the waters of Lake Ngao.

"How beautiful it is," breathed the blond-haired barbarian, in English.

It had taken us fifteen days to reach the sill.

We had lived by spear fishing, and drinking the fresh water of the marsh.

The sun shone on the wide, placid waters.

Shaba, I recalled, had been the first of civilized men, or outlanders, to have seen this sight.

"It is beautiful," I thought to myself. Unfortunate, I thought, that the first civilized person to have seen this sight had been the treacherous Shaba.

"Ukungu," said Kisu, "lies to the northeast, on the coast." Ukungu was a country of coast villages, speaking the same or similar dialects. It was now claimed as a part of the expanding empire of Bila Huruma.

"You are no longer welcome there," I said to Kisu.

"True," said he.

"Is it your intention to return," I asked, "in an attempt to foment rebellion?"

"That is not a portion of my current plan," he said.

"What is your current plan?" I asked;

"I shall speak to you of it later," he said.

"I am seeking one called Shaba," I said, "one with whom I have business to conclude. My task takes me to the Ua."

"I, too," smiled Kisu, "am on my way to the Ua River."

"That is a part of your plan?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "it is a part of my plan."

"I myself," I said, "may perhaps find it necessary to enter upon the Ua River itself."

"I, too, may find that necessary," he said.

"The country of the Ua, I suspect," I said, "is a perilous country."

"I am counting on that," said Kisu.

"Is that, too," tasked, "in accord with the plan you guard so secretively?"

"It is," grinned Kisu.

"Are you familiar with the Ua?" I asked.

"No," said Kisu. "I have never seen it."

I steadied the canoe. It floated free now, fully, at the outer edge of the Ngao waters.

"Let us be on our way," I said.

Kisu, the water now again to his thighs, reached into the canoe. He took a narrow, short length of leather and bound Tende's wrists, tightly, behind her body. He then, similarly, crossing them and lashing them together, secured the girl's ankles.

"Why does my Master bind me?" she asked, kneeling helplessly in the canoe.

"I do not expect to see canoes of Ukungu," said Kisu, "but if we do, you will, thus bound, perhaps not be tempted to leap into the water and swim to safety."

"Yes, Master," she said, putting her head down.

"These other slaves, too," I said, "might be tempted to seek an easier slavery within the collar of the empire."

"Let us then discourage them, too, from foolish thoughts of escape," said Kisu.

I then bound the other two girls as Kisu had bound Tende. We then, with two long lengths of leather, fastened them, all three, together, one strap putting them in throat coffle, the other in left-ankle coffle.

"Do not tie me with white slaves, Master," begged Tende, but Kisu laughed at her, and it was done to her.

Kisu and I re-entered the canoe and took up our paddles. We then set forth, paddling calmly, on the broad, shining waters of Ngao.