A few feet from the raft, rolling lifeless in the water, was a grotesque marine saurian, fishlike but reptilian, more than twenty feet in length.
I saw the fins of sharks near it, and saw their snouts pressing it, and then beginning to tear at it.
I was conscious of the feet of a man near me. He stood. There was still fog on Thassa.
He took me by the arms and, turning me roughly, threw me on my back, on the heavy beams of that gigantic, raft-like structure, before him. I wore a bit of wet, yellow rep-cloth; it was thin; it clung about me, revealing me as though I were naked. I lifted one knee; I lay on my back, helpless, at his feet. I opened my eyes.
'Master!' I cried. I struggled to my knees before him, my heart flooded with elation. 'I love you!' I cried. I put my head to his feet, covering them with kisses and tears. I shook with emotion. 'Master! Master!' I wept. 'I love you! I love you!'
He pulled me to my feet. 'She-sleen,' he said, quietly, and with menace.
He released me. I shrank back from him. 'Master?' I said. Then, suddenly, I was terrified. 'Oh, no, Master!' I said. 'I love you.'
He looked to the sharks which moved about the body of the inert, buoyant saurian. Others, too, smaller, restless, white-finned, moved about the raft.
'No, Master,' I cried, 'I love you! I love you, Master!'
He strode toward me and seized me by the back of my neck and an ankle. He lifted me high over his head.
'No, Master!' I wept.
He strode to the side of the raft.
I could do nothing. He could throw me to the sharks in an instant.
'No,' he said, angrily. 'This is too easy for a warrior's vengeance.' He threw me to his feet on the boards.
He looked about. There was a ring on the wreckage, where it sloped higher out of the water. He dragged me to this ring and tore open my rep-cloth tunic. He knelt across my body and, with strips from the rep-cloth, tied my hands over my head and fastened them to the ring. I lay on my back before him, my head higher than my feet, my body at an angle of some five or ten degrees. With his foot he kicked aside the rep-cloth which he had torn open. In his belt there was a bloodied knife, that with which he had slain the marine saurian.
He drew forth the knife and looked at me.
'I love you, Master,' I whispered.
'I shall cut you to bits,' he said, 'and throw you, little by little, to the sharks.'
He could do with me what he chose. I was his.
He drew back the knife, the blade in his hand, behind his head. I closed my eyes.
It struck in the wood, sinking four inches deep, beside me. I opened my eyes. I shuddered.
He was looking down at me. 'I have you now,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
He dropped to one knee, crouching beside me. He jerked the tag on my collar. He read it aloud, 'Send me to the Lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers.' He laughed.
'You, a lady's serving slave,' he grinned.
Then he lifted my flanks from the wood, and then thrust me back, holding me to the wood. I closed my eyes, almost fainting from his touch.
He released me. He stood up, looking down at me.
'I love you, Master,' I said.
He kicked me, viciously, and I cried out. 'Lying slave girl!' he said.
He crouched again beside me and jerked the knife free from the wood. I felt its point at my throat.
Then he thrust the knife again into the wood, a foot from me. He looked down at me. 'No,' he said, 'the sharks, the knife, are too good for you.'
I felt his left hand at my throat. He could crush it easily.
I shuddered.
Then his hand moved from my throat to touch my right breast, musingly. 'No,' he said, 'the sharks, the knife, are too good for you.'
'Have pity on a poor slave,' I begged. But I saw in his eyes that he would have no pity on me.
I felt his right hand on my body.
'I have pursued you,' he said. 'Those at the Chatka and Curla were kind enough to tell me that you had been shipped on the Jewel of Jad. We seized a small, oared galley. We joined with those of Port Kar. In the engagement I sought you. It was not easy. Captives were persuaded to speak. Survivors from the Jewel of Jad were picked up by the ramship, Luciana of Telnus. We sought her. We found her. In the engagement the galley was destroyed. My men swam to a ship of Port Kar. I yet did hunt for you.'
'Your hunt has been successful, Master,' I said. 'You have caught me.'
'Yes,' he said, 'the vicious, little lying slave, the little she-sleen and collared traitress, is now caught.' He looked down at me. 'She lies now before me, naked and bound, at my mercy.'
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'Slut,' said he.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
He turned my head from side to side. 'Even your ears are pierced,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said. There were tears in my eyes.
'The vengeance of a warrior,' said he, 'you will learn, little slut of a slave, is not a light thing.'
'I am yours, Master,' I said. I looked up at him, in the fog. I felt the raftlike structure shifting beneath us. I was bound at his mercy, my bit of tunic torn aside, on a particle of wreckage on a great sea. 'I am yours, Master,' I whispered. 'Do with me as you will.'
His left hand held me. His right hand moved at my body. His teeth and lips pressed suddenly, savagely, against the side of my throat, over the collar.
'I love you, Clitus Vitellius!' I cried.
He struck me, savagely, for I, a slave, had spoken his name.
Then he continued his depredations on my body. In moments, to the sky and sea, and to his manhood, helplessly, I cried myself his.
23
The Raft
I lay in the arms of Clitus Vitellius, my master, under the bright stars of Gor, under the white moons and the black sky, on the rough wood, in the midst of that great, lonely sea. I heard the water lap at the wreckage on which we lay. He had freed me of the ring, that my hands, under his directives, might pleasure him.
I put my head on the leanness of his belly, and my arms about him. He held my head in his hands. He lay upon his back.
'Do not think you are my love slave,' said he. 'You are only a lying slave, my prisoner, a captured traitress I will have my way with.'
'I know, Master,' I said, pressing my lips to him. He had been very cruel to me. He had punished me much.
'If I were you,' said he, 'I would be terrified.'
I kissed him.
'You do not seem to be terrified,' he said.
'I have always feared you, Master,' I said, 'your temper, your strength, your will. But I love you, too.'
He seized me by the arms and flung me to my back on the wood. He looked down upon me, holding me. He was very rough.
