The Chieftan

“His name is ‘Dog,’ “said Pulendius.

“What is your name?” asked Ortog of the gladiator.

“I am called ‘Dog,’ milord,” he said.

“Do you think I do not know your house?” asked Ortog.

“I am Dog, of the school of Pulendius,” said the gladiator.

“Do not kill him immediately,” whispered Pulendius to the gladiator. “Carry him for a bit, for the crowd.”

This remark was overheard by Ortog, and his eyes glistened wildly, just for an instant.

He looked about himself, at the enclosing steel walls of the ship.

At that moment the ship swerved and people on the tiers cried out, surprised. More than one lost his balance, and fell against others. Those standing on the sand, Pulendius, and the gladiator, and Ortog, almost lost their balance. The girl, Janina, she in the keb, chained at the pipe, was thrown to her left, and only kept from falling further by the handcuffs, the chain of which, fastened in place through the ring, pulled against the pipe. Then, again, the ship steadied itself.

The second officer rose briefly to his feet. “It is all right,” he said. “These are adjustments in our course. There is no reason to be alarmed.”

The crowd then, somewhat uneasily, returned its attention to the sand.

“Our peoples,” said Ortog to the gladiator, “have been hereditary enemies for ten thousand years.”

“I am Dog, of the festung village of Sim Giadini,” said the gladiator.

After the first moment of crossing steel, no more than four or five touches, sensitive, exploratory, the gladiator stepped back. “Choose another weapon,” he said.

“I am Ortog, prince of the Drisriaks, king of the Ortungs, of the Alemanni.”

“Choose another weapon,” advised the gladiator.

“Die, dog of an Otung!” cried the Ortung, and hurled himself at the gladiator, who stepped to one side and did not slip his blade into the side of the barbarian, who went past him.

The barbarian fell to his knees in the sand.

He turned about, on his knees, in fury. “You dare to humiliate one who is a prince and king?” he cried.

“Forgive me, milord,” said the gladiator.

The barbarian again charged the gladiator, who, again, evaded the charge. Such a charge might have been comprehensible with the mighty long sword, two-handled, like a weighty bolt of edged lightning, sweeping aside all before it, but it was not practical with the shorter blade.

The gladiator looked to Pulendius.

The disgust of Pulendius was evident.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius.

The barbarian once again engaged, but his every thrust was parried away harmlessly. He might have been trying to pierce a fence of steel.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius.

The barbarian thrust again, but the gladiator had drawn the thrust, by seeming to provide his opponent an opening, and Ortog extended his thrust, overextending it, the gladiator fading back. It was a mistake one more practiced with such a weapon would not have made. The gladiator’s blade, behind his guard, was against the side of his neck.

Both men stood very still.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius.

The gladiator then stepped away from the barbarian.

The barbarian then again, this time in mindless fury, rushed toward the gladiator and then, suddenly, was sprawled in the sand, on his back. The heel of the gladiator’s bootlike sandal crushed down on his wrist, and the sword left his hand, lost to the side, half buried in the sand, and then he lay there, sweating, gasping, in the sand, on his back, at the gladiator’s feet. The gladiator’s sword was at his heart.

“You are an Otung of Otungs,” said the barbarian, looking up at the gladiator, in awe.

“I am Dog, of the festung village of Sim Giadini,” said the gladiator.

“Strike,” said the barbarian.

“Kill him,” said Pulendius.

The gladiator looked up to the tiers.

“Let him live!” called a man in the tiers.

“Kill him,” cried many of the women.

“Kill him!” cried the woman in the pantsuit.

“Kill him!” called the salesgirl.

“Strike!” commanded the barbarian.

But the gladiator stepped away from the figure in the sand, and lowered his weapon.

“Kill him!” said Pulendius.

“No,” said the gladiator.

“Why not?” asked Pulendius.

“He was much beaten,” said the gladiator, “he is weak, he does not know the weapon.”

“Do not let one of lesser blood kill me!” said the barbarian.

The gladiator did not understand this remark.

“Fellow,” said the young naval officer.

“Milord?” said the gladiator.

“I am surprised you did not kill him,” said the officer.

“Surely, milord,” said the gladiator, “only a king may kill a king.”

“He is a barbarian,” said the officer.

“But a king,” said the gladiator.

The young naval officer picked up the keys which lay on the surface of the wooden rim circling the sand, and tossed them, on their cord, to the gladiator.

“You are victorious,” he said.

“My thanks, milord,” said the gladiator.

He looked down at the slave, who, kneeling in the keb, it twisted about her body, was looking up at him, excitedly.

“Look at her,” said the woman in the pantsuit. “She is like a pretty little animal.”

“In heat,” said the minor officer beside her.

“Yes,” said the woman in the pantsuit.

The officer of the court trembled within the “same garb,” within the “frame-and-curtain.”

A woman in heat, one with sexual needs, how fearful seemed such a thought!

“Please unchain me, Master,” said the slave to the gladiator, “that I may render my obeisance!”

The gladiator threw the keys, on their cord, to one of the sailors, who then bent to undo the locks, that on the collar, those on the cuffs, that the slave might be loosed from the pipe.

The barbarian rose unsteadily to his feet, near the center of the sand. He did not pick up his sword, which still lay in the sand, half buried.

Freed of her restraints, the cuffs, the collar and chain, the slave crawled to the feet of the

gladiator, and then, kneeling before him, looked up at him. She then put down her head and began to lick and kiss his feet.

“Who would permit a woman to do such a thing to him?” asked a woman.

“Such as he!” said another.

“And might command it!” said another.

“One who is a master!” said another, thrilled.

The gladiator did not seem surprised at the action of the slave.

The officer of the court conjectured, to her chagrin, that this might not be the first time a woman had been thusly at his feet. She suspected then that slaves might be kept, secretly, in the schools.

“Look at her,” said a woman nearby. “It is true. She is in heat.”

“She had better be,” said a man.

The officer of the court felt faint.