'Yes,' I said.
'Why did you not rape me tonight, Master?' she asked. 'Am I not pleasing to you?'
'Later, perhaps,' I said.
'You're training me, aren't you. Master?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
33
What We Saw From The Height Of The Falls; Tende Dances; We Enter Again Upon The River; I Anticipate The Surrender Of The Blond-Haired Barbarian
We thrust the canoe upward, Kisu and I at the stern, Ayari and the girls hauling on ropes at the forequarter. It tipped up and then settled downward, and we thrust and hauled it, laden, to the level.
The sound of the falls, to our left, plunging some four hundred feet to the waters below, was deafening.
It is difficult to convey the splendor of the Ua's scenery to those who have not seen it. There is the mightiness of the river, like a great road, twisting and turning, occasionally broken with green islands, sometimes sluggish, sometimes shattered by rapids and cataracts, sometimes interrupted by flooding cascades of water, sometimes a few feet in height and sometimes towering upwards hundreds of feet, and then there is the jungle, its immensity and wildlife, and the vast sky above it.
'I am pleased,' said Kisu, happily, wiping the sweat from his brow.
'Why?' I asked.
'Come here,' he said.
'Be careful!' I said to him. He was wading out into the water.
'Come here!' he called.
I waded after him, some forty or fifty feet out into the current. It was only to our knees there.
'Look!' he said, pointing.
From the height of the falls we could see for pasangs behind us downriver. It was not only a spectacular but also a marvelous coign of vantage.
'I knew it would be so!' he cried, slapping his thigh in pleasure.
I looked, the hair on the back of my neck rising.
'Tende! Tende!' called Kisu. 'Come here, now!'
The girl, moving carefully, waded to where we stood. Kisu seized her by the back of the neck and faced her downriver. 'See, my pretty slave?' he asked.
'Yes, my master,' she said, frightened.
'It is he,' said Kisu. 'He is coming for you!'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Hurry now to the shore,' he said. 'Build a fire, prepare food, Slave.'
'Yes, Master,' she said, commanded, hurrying from us to address herself to her tasks.
I looked into the distance, downriver, half shutting my eyes against the glare from the water.
Downriver, several pasangs away, small but unmistakable, moving in our direction, was a fleet of canoes and river vessels. There must have been in the neighborhood of a hundred, oared river galleys, the balance of the fleet which had been prepared for Shaba's originally projected penetration of the Ua, and perhaps again as many canoes. If there were crews of fifty on the galleys and from five to ten men in a canoe, the force behind us must have ranged somewhere between five and six thousand men.
'It is Bila Huruma!' shouted Kisu in triumph.
'So this is why you accompanied me on the Ua?' I asked.
'I would have come with you anyway, to help you, for you are my friend,' said Kisu. 'But our ways, happily, led us the same direction. Is that not a splendid coincidence?'
'Yes, splendid,' I smiled.
'You see now what was my plan?' he asked.
'Your mysterious plan?' I grinned.
'Yes,' he said, happily.
'I thought this might be it,' I said. 'But I think you may have miscalculated.'
'I could not in battle beat Bila Huruma,' said Kisu. 'His askaris were superior to my villagers. But now, as I have stolen Tende, his projected companion, I have lured him into the jungle. I need now only lead him on and on, until he is slain in the jungle, or until, bereft of men and supplies, I need only turn back and meet him, as man to man, as warrior to warrior.'
I looked at him.
'Thus,' said Kisu, 'in destroying Bila Huruma, I will destroy the empire.'
'It is an intelligent and bold plan,' I said, 'but I think you may have miscalculated.'
'How is that?' asked Kisu.
'Do you truly think that Bila Huruma,' I asked, 'who owns or is companion to perhaps hundreds of women would pursue you into the jungle at great risk to himself and his empire to get back one girl, a girl whom he doubtless realizes has by now been reduced to slavery, and has thus been rendered politically worthless, and a girl who was never more to him to begin with than a convenience in a minor political situation on the Ngao coast?'
'Yes,' said Kisu… 'It will be a matter of principle for him.'
'It might be a matter of principle for you,' I said, 'but I doubt that it would be a matter of principle for Bila Huruma. There are principles and there are principles. For a man such as Bila Huruma I conjecture that the principle of preserving his empire would take precedence over matters of minor personal concern.'
'But Bila Huruma is on the river,' said Kisu.
'Probably,' I said.
'Thus,' said Kisu, 'you are wrong.'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'Do you think he follows you?' asked Kisu.
'No,' I said, 'I am unimportant to him.'
'Thus,' said Kisu, 'it is I whom he follows.'
'Perhaps,' I said. 'Perhaps you are right.'
Kisu then turned and, happily, waded back to the shore.
'Remove your garment,' said Kisu to Tende.
'Yes, Master,' she said. 'Follow me,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'You others may come, too,' he said.
Wading, we followed Kisu and Tende out toward the center of the river. There was there, overlooking the falls, a large, flat rock. We climbed onto the rock. From its surface we could see downriver, and, pasangs back, the flotilla of canoes and galleys of the Ubar, Bila Huruma.
'What are you going to do with me, Master?' asked Tende.
'I am going to dance you naked,' he said. He thrust her forward on the rock, facing downriver.
Tende stood there, trembling, dressed only in her slave beads.
'Bila Huruma!' called Kisu. 'I am Kisu!' He pointed at the girl. 'This is the woman, Tende, who was to have been your companion! I took her from you! I made her my slave!'
Bila Huruma, of course, if he were with the flotilla, as we conjectured, could not have heard Kisu. The distance was too great. Too, had he been within fifty yards he probably could not have heard him, because of the roar of the falls. Moreover, so far away was the flotilla, I had little doubt but what we could not be seen from its position. We could see the flotilla largely because of the size of its galleys and the number of its vessels, both canoes and galleys. The canoes were almost invisible from where we stood. Had there been but a single canoe it
