I heard a fire maker strike in the darkness. There was a shower of sparks and then a tiny flame.
Taphris squealed in terror, squirming helplessly under me.
Then Kenneth had lit the torch and held it. Taphris, on her back in the dirt, naked, blinking against the light, her hands bound behind her, looked up in terror at the stern figure of her Mistress.
'Discovered slaves!' cried the Mistress.
'Forgive me, Mistress!' cried Taphris.
'The tunnel is often used as a trysting place for slaves,' said Kenneth.
'Disgusting!' cried the Mistress.
'Forgive me, Mistress,' begged Taphris. 'Forgive me, Mistress!' She struggled to her knees in the dirt and put her head down to her Mistress' feet.
'I should put a pin through your ankles, Taphris,' cried the Mistress, 'and hang you up by the heels from a Tur tree, smeared with your own blood, for the jards!'
'Did you hear all, Mistress?' begged Taphris.
'All!' said the Mistress, savagely.
Taphris, with a moan, threw herself to her belly in the dirt before her mistress. 'Mercy,' she begged, 'mercy, please.'
'Sell her!' screamed the Mistress. 'Sell her!'
'On your feet, Taphris,' said Kenneth, 'head down, in leading position.' He bent down to retrieve her slave rag. I drew on my tunic.
Taphris stood, bent over, her knees bent, too, her head at the hip of Kenneth.
'I am your slave, Master,' she whispered to me, tears in her eyes.
'You will be the slave of any man who makes himself your full master,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Sell her as a pot girl,' said the Mistress.
'But she is now an ignited slave,' said Kenneth, smiling.
'Are you an ignited slave?' asked the Mistress.
'Yes, Mistress,' sobbed Taphris.
'Very well,' said the Mistress, 'when she is placed naked on a block and sold to the highest bidder let it be in a market which sells pleasure slaves.'
'Yes, Lady Florence,' said Kenneth.
'Thank you, Mistress,' said Taphris.
The Mistress turned away from her, angrily. 'Slut!' she said.
'Yes, Mistress,' said Taphris.
Kenneth then thrust Taphris' slave rag in her mouth. She was to hold it there. She was not to speak, of course, until it was removed.
'Take her away,' said the Lady Florence.
Kenneth then led Taphris down the tunnel, his left band fixed in her-hair, his right hand holding aloft the torch.
The Lady Florence looked about the tunnel, and at the retreating figure of Kenneth. She then looked at me. I stood there, regarding her, my arms folded. She then turned about and hurried after Kenneth, and the light of the torch.
24 ANOTHER GIRL IN THE TUNNEL
I stood again in the absolute darkness of the tunnel, the central tunnel of that network of tunnels under the lands of the Mistress, by means of which various buildings, such as storage sheds, the incubation shed, certain of the stables, and the nursery, are connected.
'Go to the tunnel at the fifteenth Ahn,' had said Kenneth. 'Wait in the central tunnel, near its juncture with the side tunnel leading to Storage Shed Four.'
'Yes, Master,' I had said, puzzled. It was there, yesterday, at that very spot, that Taphris had ordered me to meet her in clandestine rendezvous. It was there that we had been discovered slaves, caught by the Mistress. 'The tunnel is often used as a trysting place for slaves,' had said Kenneth. 'Disgusting!' had cried the Mistress. Taphris, naked, and chained in a slave sack, was now on her way to a market in Vonda.
'May I ask, Master,' I inquired, 'as to why I am to go to the tunnel at the fifteenth Ahn?'
'Because you are told to do so,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
He smiled. 'There is a `new slave,'' he said. 'She is to be sent to you in the tunnel.'
'But would the Mistress approve?' I asked.
'She has ordered it,' he said.
'That is interesting,' I said. 'Generally the Mistress has ordered women kept from me.'
'She now sends you one,' said Kenneth.
'Yes, Master,' I had said.
I now stood quietly in the tunnel, waiting. I thought it must now be the fifteenth Ahn.
I then heard the footsteps approaching me. They were light, quick footsteps, feminine, not the stride of a man. Interestingly from the sound of the footsteps on the central board, as they touched it, I detected that she was wearing slippers.
'I am here,' I said, in the darkness.
'Oh!' she said, and stopped, not more than a yard or two from me.
I let her stand there for a moment. She said nothing.
'Are you naked?' I asked.
'I wear a light slave gown,' she said.
'Remove it,' I said. I heard light silk dropped to the dirt. 'Are you now naked?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'No, you are not,' I said. 'You are wearing slippers.'
'Yes,' she said.
'Remove them,' I said. I heard the two slippers kicked softly to the side.
'Are you now absolutely naked?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'Kneel,' I said.
'Kneel?' she asked.
'Must a command be repeated?' I asked.
'No,' she said. I heard her kneel.
'Are you now kneeling?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said. 'I am now kneeling.' I had wished to hear from her own lips this confession that she had now adopted this posture of submission before me.
'Crawl to me on your knees,' I said.
She hesitated. But then she did so.
'Kiss my feet,' I said. She gasped, but then, putting forth her hands, finding me, did so.
'Straighten up,' I told her. She did so.
I put forth my hands and felt her head, and her shoulders. Briefly I put my two hands in her hair, that she might know I could control her by means of it, should I choose to do so. Then I stepped back a foot or so from her.
'Lie down, on your back,' I told her. I threw my tunic to the side.
'Are you now lying down?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
