'But you have freed me,' he said.
'Strike,' I told. him.
He struck out at me and I blocked the blow and, striking him in the stomach and then across the side of the face, sent him grunting and sprawling to the debris of the jungle floor.
He sprang to his feet, angrily, and I struck him down again. He was strong. Four more times he rose to do combat, but then he could not again climb to his feet. He tried to do so, but fell back.
I then pulled him to his feet. 'It is our intention to go upriver,' I told him.
'That is madness,' he said.
'You are free to go,' I told him.
'I choose to remain,' he said.
'Kisu and I,' I said, indicating the former Mfalme of Ukungu, 'are before you. You will take your orders from us. You will do what we tell you, and well.'
Kisu lifted a spear, and shook it.
Turgus rubbed his jaw, and grinned. 'You are before me, both of you,' he said. 'Have no fear. I will take my orders. and well.'
'Insubordination,' I said, 'will be punished with death.'
'I understand,' said Turgus.
'We are not gentlemen like Shaba,' I said.
Turgus smiled. 'On the river,' said he, 'Shaba is not a gentleman either.' On the river, he knew, and all knew, there must be strict discipline.
'We now well understand one another, do we not?' I asked.
'That we do,' said he, '-Captain.'
'Examine these women,' I said, indicating the line of kneeling, trussed talunas. 'Which among them pleases you most?'
'That one,' said he, indicating the slender-legged, dark-haired girl who had been, as we had determined, second in command among the talunas. There was a menace in his voice.
'Perhaps you remember her well from your enslavement?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said. 'I do well remember her.'
'She is yours,' I said.
The girl began to involuntarily shudder. 'No,' she begged, 'please, do not give me to him!'
'You are his,' I told her.
'He will kill me,' she cried.
'If he wishes,' I said.
'Please do not kill me,' she cried to Turgus. 'I will try to please you totally, and in all ways!'
He did not speak.
'I will be the most loving and lowly slave a man could ask,' she wept. 'Please, let me try to earn my life!'
He untied her ankles and freed her vine collar from the loop on the trunk of the tree. He threw her to her feet and pushed her head down, submissively. She then stood, hands tied behind her, beside the blond girl, the leader of the talunas.
I took two pair of slave bracelets from the foot of the taluna camp. Girls such as talunas keep such things about in case slave girls should fall into their hands. They are extremely cruel to slave girls, whom they regard as having betrayed their sex by surrendering as slaves to men. Actually, of course, it seems likely that their hatred of slave girls, which tends to be unreasoning and vicious, is due less to lofty sentiments than to their own intense jealousy of the joy and fulfillment of their imbonded sisters. The joyful slave girl, obedient to her master's wishes, is an affront and, more frighteningly, an unanswerable and dreadful threat to their most cherished illusions. Perhaps they wish to be themselves slaves. Why else should they hate them so?
I slipped the straps on the wrists of the blond girl a bit higher on her wrists. I then, below the straps, snapped her wrists into one of the pairs of slave bracelets from the loot of the taluna camp. I then untied the straps which had, hitherto, confined her wrists. Her hands, then, were still fastened behind her, but now in slave bracelets.
I loosened the gag from the mouth of the blond girl and let it fall, its wadding looped about it, before her throat.
She threw up on the jungle floor. The wadding smelled. She threw back her head, gasping for air. I cleaned her mouth with a handful of leaves.
'Do you wish to be a slave girl?' I asked her.
'No,' she said. 'No!'
'Very well,' I said. I threw the other pair of slave bracelets to Turgus. He snapped them on the dark-haired girl and then, as I had, freed her wrists of the earlier binding, which had been, in her case, a length of vine rope from the small people.
She looked at him, puzzled.
'Do you wish to be a slave girl?' he asked.
'No,' she said, 'no, no!'
'Very well,' he said.
I grasped the hand of the leader of the small people in friendship. 'I wish you well,' I said. 'I wish you well,' he said.
Then I and Kisu, followed by Turgus, and by Janice, Alice and Tende, turned about to leave the clearing. We would return to our hidden canoe, beached near the river, near which we had concealed many of our supplies.
'What shall we do with these?' called the leader of the small people. We turned about He indicated the line of miserable, trussed talunas.
'Whatever you wish,' I told him, 'they are yours.'
'What of those?' he asked. He indicated the blond girl who had been the leader of the talunas and the dark- haired girl, who had been her second in command. They stood, their hands braceleted behind them, confused, in the clearing.
'They were ours,' I said. 'We let them go. Let them go.'
'Very well,' he said.
Kisu and I, and Turgus, and our girls, Alice, Janice and Tende, then left the clearing.
'Unlock our bracelets,' begged the blond girl. She and the dark-haired girl had followed us to the edge of the river.
Kisu and I, and Ayari, were sliding our canoe, from which we had removed its camouflage, toward the water. The girls, Janice, Alice and Tende, with the paddles and supplies, accompanied us.
Then we were at the edge of the water.
'Please,' begged the blond girl. She turned, that her wrists, enclosed snugly in the linked, steel bracelets, might be exposed to me. 'Please unlock our bracelets,' she begged. 'Please, please!' begged, too, the dark-haired girl.
Kisu and Ayari thrust the canoe into the water. Janice, Alice and Tende, wading, placed the paddles and supplies in the canoe, and then, entering the narrow vessel, assumed their places.
'Please free us,' begged the blond girl.
'They are only slave bracelets,' I said. 'Free yourselves.'
'We cannot do so,' said the blond girl. 'We are women, and have only women's strength.'
I shrugged.
'Please,' she begged again.
'Did you think, noble free women,' I asked, 'that you might do fully as you wished, that no penalties would be inflicted upon you?'
'You cannot leave us here!' she wept. She looked behind her, fearfully, at the jungle.
Turgus and I waded to the canoe, which Kisu and Ayari held steady in the water.
'Please,' begged the blond girl. 'You cannot leave us here!'
I turned to face her. 'You have lost,' I told her. I turned away.
