"Their bodies, too," said Kisu, "showed no signs of lashings or bruises. Presumably, then, they were not fresh captures."
I nodded. Sometimes a free woman must be taught that she is now subject to discipline. Some women refuse to believe it until the whip is on them.
"Other clues, too," I said, "suggest that they are not what they seem. Consider the girl at the post. Her hands are not fastened over her head, which would lift and accentuate the beauty of her breasts. You must understand that a post is often used to display a girl, not merely to secure her. As it is, we do not even know if her hands are truly fastened behind her or not. We simply cannot see. Too, captors in the forests, natives of these jungles, would not be likely to have chains to secure their captures."
"Please help me!" called the girl, plaintively.
"How long have you been at the post?" I called to her.
"For two days," she wept. 'Take pity on me! Help me,please!"
"Have you any doubt now?" I asked. "Consider her condition. It is prime. Does she truly seem to have been at the post for two days?"
"No, Master," said Janice.
"Too," I said, "had she been at the post overnight is it not likely that tharlarion would have discovered her and eaten her from the chains?"
"Yes, Master," said Janice.
"I am, too, made uncomfortable by the thickness of the brush and trees in these areas, both before and now. They seem fit to conceal the numbers of an ambuscade."
"Perhaps we should hurry on," said Tende, looking about.
"Take up your paddles," said Kisu. "Continue on."
"Please, stop!" begged the girl in chains. "Do not leave a poor woman here to die!"
"But can we truly leave her?" asked Janice.
"Yes," said Kisu.
"Yes," I said.
Janice moaned.
"Paddle," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said.
As our canoe moved away we looked back. "After them!" cried the girl. She slipped from her chains and bent to the grass beside her, seizing up a light spear. From the, brush about her appeared numbers of girls similarly. clad and armed. We saw canoes being thrust into the water.
"Perhaps now you will paddle with a better will," I said.
"Yes, Master!" said Janice.
There were now some eight canoes behind us. In each canoe there were five or six girls. In the prow of the first canoe was the blond girl who had seemed to be chained at the post. In the prow of the second was the slender-legged, dark-haired girl whom we had seen earlier. She still had the dangling ropes knotted on her wrists.
"Will they overtake us?" cried Alice.
"It is unlikely," I said. "In no canoe there are there more than six paddlers. In this canoe, too, there are six paddlers, and three of these are men."
In less than a quarter of an Ahn we had considerably lengthened our lead on our pursuers;
"Do you not recall, Janice," I asked, "in one of the villages long ago, one of the men inquired if you were a taluna?"
"Yes," she said.
"Those behind us," I said, "are talunas."
In half an Ahn the canoes of the pursuers had fallen far back. In a few Ehn more they ceased the pursuit.
"I am exhausted, Master," said Alice.
Janice and Tende, too, could no longer keep the stroke. They gasped for breath. They could scarcely lift their arms. "The paddle is like iron in my grasp," said Janice. Tende sobbed. "Forgive me, Master," she begged Kisu. Her paddle struck the side of the canoe. She almost lost it in the water. Then she put her head down, gasping. "Forgive me, Master," she begged.
"Rest," said Kisu to her.
"Rest," I said to Janice and Alice.
The girls, then, sick with the misery of their labor, placed their paddles in the canoe. Alice and Janice threw up into the water. Then, trembling and gasping, the girls lay down in the canoe.
Ayari, Kisu and I continued to paddle.
44
The Small Men; Our Camp Has Been Attacked
"Join me!" she laughed, splashing in the water.
It was a lagoon, opening off the river, some hundred yards away. I stood on the shore, with one of the raider's spears in my hand. There seemed no tharlarion or danger about, but it would not hurt to maintain a vigilance in such a respect.
She was very lovely, bathing in the water.
We were not now with the main group. We had separated off, as we did upon occasion, to hunt. Also, it is sometimes pleasant, you must understand, to be alone with a delightful slave.
"Clean yourself well, Slave," I called to her, "that you may be more pleasing to my senses."
"Yes, Master," she laughed. "What of you?" she called.
"It is you who are the slave," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I thought I heard a rustling in the forest behind me. It did not sound like the passage of a man or animal. It seemed more like a wind, moving among leaves. Yet there seemed to be no wind.
I turned and walked a few yards into the forest. I did not now hear the sound. It had been caused, I assumed, by an unusual current of air.
Suddenly the girl, from the lagoon, uttered a scream. Immediately I spun about and ran to the edge of the trees.
"Come to shore!" I called to her.
At the far end of the lagoon, where its channel leads to the river, I saw what had alarmed the girl. It was a large fish. Its glistening back and dorsal fin were half out of the water, where it slithered over the sill of the channel and into the lagoon.
"Come to shore!" I said. "Hurry!"
I saw the large fish, one of the bulging-eyed fish we had seen earlier, a gigantic gint, or like a gigantic gint, it now having slipped over the channel's sill, disappear under the water.
"Hurry!" I called to her.
Wildly she was splashing toward the shore. She looked back once. She screamed again. Its four-spined dorsal fin could be seen now, the fish skimming beneath the water, cutting rapidly towards her.
"Hurry!" I called.
Sobbing, gasping, she plunged splashing through the shallow water and clambered onto the mud and grass of the bank.
"How horrible it was!" she cried.
Then she screamed wildly. The fish, on its stout, fleshy pectoral fins, was following her out of the water. She turned about and fled screaming into the jungle. With the butt of the spear I pushed against its snout. The bulging eyes regarded me. The large mouth now gulped air. It then, clumsily, climbed onto the bank. I stepped back and it, on its pectoral fins, and lifting itself, too, by its heavy tail, clambered out of the water and approached me. I pushed against its snout again with the butt of the spear. It snapped at the spear. Its bulging eyes regarded me. I stepped back. It lunged forward, snapping. I fended it away. I then retreated backward, into the trees. It followed me to the line of trees, and then stopped. I did not think it would wish to go too far from the water. After a moment or so it began to back away. Then, tail first, it slid back into the water of the lagoon. I went to the water's edge. There I saw it beneath the surface, its gills opening and closing. Then it turned about and, with a slow movement of its tail, moved away. Ayari and Kisu referred to such fish as gints. I accepted their judgment on the matter. They are not to be confused, however, that is certain, with their tiny brethren of the west.
"Help me!" I heard, it was the voice of Janice. I moved rapidly toward the sound of her voice. Some fifty yards into the jungle I stopped. There, ringing a depression, were more than a dozen small men. They wore loincloths with vine belts. From loops on the belts hung knives and small implements. They carried spears and nets. I do not think any of them were more than five feet in height. I doubt that any of them weighed more than eighty pounds. Their features were negroid but their skins were more coppery than dark brown or black. They did not seem to be one of the black races, which are usually tall, long-limbed and supple, but their racial affinities seemed clearly to be more aligned with one or more of those groups than any others.
"Help me!" I heard Janice cry.
I looked at the small men. They did not seem threatening. "Tal," said one of them.