"It was not the time permitted for screaming," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. "Forgive me," I begged, "Master."

There were eight slave platforms in the hold, each with six tiers. These platforms were separated by narrow aisles; also they did not adjoin the sides of the hold, thus allowing a passage between them and the wall of the hold on both the left and right side of the ship. On each tier of each platform there were five girls. There were, thus, two hundred and forty girls in the hold. A cunning mesh and cage arrangement is incorporated into the platforms. The slatted wood of the tiers, on which the girls lay, permits cage mesh to pass unimpeded from the roof of the sixth tier to the bottom of the first tier. The mesh is cleated to the wood of each tier. Each girl, in effect, has her own meshed cage, separate from that of the others. Thus, if an urt manages to enter one area he has at his mercy only one captive, not five. The top of the sixth tier and the bottom slats of the first tier are sheathed in tin, to prevent being gnawed by urts. Mesh, too, heavy and sturdy, closes off the ends of the slave cubicles formed. In the mesh at the ends of the cubicle formed, both the end at the girl's feet and that at her head, there is a tiny gate. The girl may be placed in the cage, or removed from it, from either end. She normally inches her way into the cubicle from the top end and one slaver, from the bottom, secures her ankles in their irons, then shutting that gate, and another secures her wrists in their irons, then shutting that gate. Each girl thus has to herself a small, rectangular cage area, surrounded on four sides by mesh, on the bottom by the slatted wood of the tier, and on the top by the wood of the tier above her, unless she is on the sixth tier, and then she has above her, of course, the ceiling of her cubicle, the bottom of the platform roof. She is chained in such a way as to preclude movement which might tear at the mesh or break it, thus making possible the entry of urts, which might eat at her, lowering her price, and to preclude her tearing hysterically with her hands and fingernails at her own body, bloodying herself, perhaps scarring herself, again lowering her price, in her attempt to obtain relief from the bites and itching consequent upon the infestation and depredation of the numerous, almost constantly active ship lice. The first tier is raised from the floor of the hold by some eighteen inches, providing a crawl space. The open spaces between the tin-sheathed, wood slats on the first tier are covered, from the bottom, by cleated mesh, which prevents urts from entering from the bottom. The crawl space between the floor of the hold and the first tier is cleaned once a day. Each girl, all in all, has a space private to her slavery of some twenty-five inches in width, by some eighteen inches in height, by some six feet five inches in length. In this space she is chained helplessly. Of the six tiers in my platform, I was on the fourth.

I heard the man loosen the small gate behind my head. I did not know why he did this.

"Master?" I asked.

He let the gate then swing down on its hinges, and lie against its bolts.

He did not snap it shut.

"Master?" I asked, frightened.

He turned away. I heard him on the ramp.

"Master!" I screamed, terrified. "I will be silent! I will be silent!" I turned my head wildly, trying to look back. "Please, Master!" I begged. "Please! I will be silent, Master!"

The sharp, furred, cold snout of an urt could now, as the gate lay against its bolts, thrust between the gate and the side of the cage. The animal might now swiftly, furtively, slither into the cage which I, helplessly chained, must then share with it.

"Master!" I screamed. I was terrified of urts. "Master, please," I screamed. "I will be silent! I will be silent!"

I heard him pause on the ramp. He turned and returned to my cage.

"I will be silent, Master," I whispered, terrified. "I will be silent, Master," I whispered. "Please, Master."

He snapped shut the tiny gate, and left. In a few moments the hatch closed and we were again in total darkness. The ship shifted in the water, and I could hear the waves against the hull. In a few minutes, the man gone, I heard the urt, it or another, moving about on the wood between the meshes. I gritted my teeth so that I would not cry out from the misery of the lice. I drew my feet and hands, in their chains, as near the center of my space as I could. I made no sound.

The vertical gate of the cage space, that gate behind my head, was thrown open and hooked back. I put my head back.

"Master," I said. But I could not speak for the spike of the bota was thrust between my teeth, and I must drink.

When the spike was withdrawn I again tried to speak. "Master," I begged. But his heavy hand thrust bread in my mouth, crusts of Sa-Tarna bread, wadding it in.

Then he went to the next cage, and the next, similarly watering and feeding their occupants.

I knew he would return, to finish the feeding, with another draft of water, a spoon of salt and a slice of the bitter tospit. Bit by bit, flake by flake, dampened, struggling, trying not to choke, I swallowed the crusts with which my mouth had been crammed.

I heard him again then behind my head. Almost never did I get to see the male at whose mercy I was chained.

The bota's spike was again forced into my mouth. I drank. When the spike was pulled away, I whispered, quickly, "Please, Master, may a slave speak?"

"Yes," he said.

"Remove me from the cage," I begged. "Let me go on deck. I will do anything!"

"You are a slave," he said. "You must do anything anyway."

"Yes, Master," I said, miserably. It was true. A slave had no bargaining power. All that she could possibly give was free to the master at his slightest glance or word.

"Open your mouth," he said.

"Select me out," I begged, "when next a girl is pulled from the cage for the sport of the sailors."

"No, me!" said the girl next to me.

"I am a pleasure slave," I said.

"I, too, Master," said the girl next to me, on my left.

I felt the spoon beside my mouth and I opened my mouth, and the salt was thrown into my mouth.

"You each," he said, "in your turn, will have half an Ahn on the deck."

"Thank you, Master," I said. The slice of tospit was thrust in my mouth. The cage gate behind me was snapped shut. I bit into the tospit. It was bitter, but juicy. It was relished by my body. I made each drop last as long as I could. I had not finished it even when the feeding was done and the hatch closed, shutting us again in the darkness of the hold of the slave ship.

I threw back my head, reveling in the wind and sunlight. I could not believe the freshness of the air, the winds of Thassa, the brightness of the sky.

This morning I had been removed from the cage, a tether put about my left ankle, given a rag and pan, and set to clean the crawl space beneath the slave platforms. Four times had I vomited and fainted but each time, by the tether, I was drawn from beneath the platform and revived, and set again about my work. I was struck twice with the whip. With four other girls, later, with buckets, I emptied the bilge, which lies below and at the center of the floor of the hold, under a removable wooden grille.

We had then been permitted to ascend to the deck, to empty the wastes and seepage. After this we had been permitted to clean ourselves as we could, with sea water and brushes. The deck is kept clean by the girls in the deck cages. The girls in the deck cages are permitted to keep their hair. The hair of the below-deck girls, mercifully, is shaved off; indeed, our body hair, too, was shaved off, completely. These precautions prevent, to a great extent, the nesting of ship lice. After we were cleaned we were leashed and exercised for a few minutes on the deck. Then each of us, for the remainder of our time on deck, the precious half of an Ahn, was chained in a kneeling position, our hands before our bodies.