"Are you now ready," I asked, "to beg to earn your clothing?"

"I cannot do that," she said, horrified. I saw that the slave girl in her was again thrust back. Again the iron door of her prison, like a heavy hatch, was flung shut over her and the bolt thrust shut The slave, lying on the narrow stairs, leading from her dungeon, wept. She pressed her small fingers against the damp wall to her left, and against the heavy iron door, bolted shut, obdurate above her, which confined her. The lovely slave lying on the narrow, damp steps, hidden beneath the iron door, shut out again from the sun, cried in the lonely, quiet darkness, her existence once again denied.

"Very well," I said. "Remain naked."

"Very well," she said. "I shall."

"You have had the opportunity to beg to earn clothing," I told her. "You refused it. It is possible that that opportunity may not be again offered."

She looked at me, frightened.

"Sleep now," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then went to sit by the small fire. I would watch for a time, and then awaken Kisu. In this fashion, he then taking the watch, I would have some sleep before dawn.

I was interested in the fauna of the river and the rain forest. I recalled, sunning themselves on exposed roots near the river, tiny fish. They were bulbous eyed and about six inches long, with tiny flipperlike lateral fins. They had both lungs and gills. Their capacity to leave the water, in certain small streams, during dry seasons, enables them to seek other streams, still flowing, or pools. This property also, of course, makes it possible for them to elude marine predators and, on the land, to return to the water in case of danger. Normally they remain quite close to the water. Sometimes they even sun themselves on the backs of resting or napping tharlarion. Should the tharlarion submerge the tiny fish often submerges with it, staying close to it, but away from its jaws. Its proximity to the tharlarion affords it, interestingly, an effective protection against most of its natural predators, in particular the black eel, which will not approach the sinuous reptiles. Similarly the tiny fish can thrive on the scraps from the ravaging jaws of the feeding tharlarion. They will even drive one another away from their local tharlarion, fighting in contests of intraspecific aggression, over the plated territory of the monster's back. The remora fish and the shark have what seem to be, in some respects, a similar relationship. These tiny fish, incidentally, are called gints.

I poked the fire.

I wondered if I should give the blond-haired barbarian an opportunity again to beg to perform, that she might earn a bit of cloth and a handful of beads. I would make that decision later.

"Kisu," I said. "Wake up. Take the watch."

He stirred himself and I lay down. I thought about the river, and was soon asleep.

30

We Make Further Progress Upon The River

"Do not permit the canoe to be swept away!" screamed Kisu, straining to be heard over the rushing water.

We had been two weeks upon the Ua. We had come to another of its cataracts.

It is impossible to paddle against these currents as the river, descending rapidly, plunges in torrents among a jungle of rocks.

I and Kisu. and the blond-haired barbarian and Tende, waded beside the canoe, thrusting it ahead of us. On the shore, each with a rope, one extending from the bow, one from the stern, stumbled Ayari and Alice. Ayari held the bow rope and Alice the rope extending from the stern. We could port the canoe but only with great difficulty. It was an eight-man raiders' canoe.

"Do not lose your footing, Naked Slave!" cried Tende to the blond-haired barbarian.

"Yes, Mistress," she cried, over the water, struggling to remain upright.

We had made Tende first girl. She had been, after all, the former mistress of the two white slaves.

They would obey her with perfection. If they did not we would beat them. If Tende, for her part, did not do well as first girl Kisu and I had agreed that Alice should have the opportunity. Tende, we were sure, fearing to be at the mercy of one of her former slaves, would strive to be a good first girl.

Tende and Alice had taken to calling the blond-haired barbarian 'Naked Slave'. She had, among us, no other name. We had not given her one. Calling the blond-haired barbarian by that descriptive and accurate appellation made clear the distinction between her and the others. She was low girl. We all used her to fetch and carry, and perform the most servile of our tasks. The blond-haired barbarian would weep at night, but we paid her no attention, unless it be to order her to silence.

"Hold the lines!" called Kisu.

Ayari and Alice kept the lines taut.

"Push!" called Kisu.

We, wading, half blinded with water, thrust the canoe forward.

We Stop To Trade; The Admissions Of A Slave

"Trade! Trade! Friends! Friends!" they called.

"Do not take me in there, unclothed, Master," begged the blond-haired barbarian.

We had pulled the canoe up on the shore. I tied the blond-haired barbarian's hands behind her and put a rope on her neck, the loose end of which I threw to Alice. It would be more seemly, we had conjectured, if she, as she was not clothed as the other girls, was led in, like a stripped, recently captured slave. It might tend to allay suspicion that. she was not in favor. If that were known the bidding might be fierce upon her, the villagers being eager to capitalize on her dissatisfaction with her and acquire her as a cheap piece of trade goods, perhaps for transmittal into the interior. As it was, if she had been newly roped, we might not be willing to sell her, not yet having had an opportunity to truly determine whether or not she might have promise.

"How is it that you are coming from the west on the river with her?" asked a man who knew snatches of Ushindi.

I did not understand his question.

The blond-haired barbarian shuddered with misery, seeing the honesty of the men's eyes upon. her.

"Is she a taluna?" asked a man.

I did not understand his question.

The blond-haired barbarian moaned in misery as the men s hands were upon her, some of them intimately. "Look," said a man crouching beside her, holding her leg, indicating her brand. This excited interest. They had never seen a brand on a woman before. Mice's brand was covered by her brief skirt of red bark cloth. Unnoticed she drew the skirt down an inch or so on her thigh, to better conceal her own slave mark. The blond-haired barbarian twisted in the grasp of the men. Her small hands pulled at the tightly looped, knotted strap that bound them behind her back. It was just as well, I realized, that we had tied her as we had. If she had tried to push away the villagers, or prevent them from touching her, they might have wanted her hands cut off. She cried out with anguish. I made a sign and we advanced, Alice pulling the blond-haired barbarian forward, away from the men.

We entered the gate of the village.

"Trade," I called. "Friends! Friends!"

Ayari was a remarkable man.

I doubt that anyone in the village knew more than a few dozen words of Ushindi, but Ayari, with his Ushindi, his gestures, his quick wit and a stick, with which he drew in the dust of the village, not only conducted his trading in a brisk and genial fashion but managed to gather valuable information as well.

"Shaba was here," said Ayari.

"When?" I asked.

"The chief says only 'long ago'," said Ayari. "Some of his men were ill. He stayed here a week."

"That explains," I said, "how it is that some here know some words of Ushindi."