'Orgus!' I heard. 'Orgus!'
I did not break my stride.
'We are ready to depart!' called a voice. 'Orgus!'
'Is that you, Orgus?' cried a voice.
At this point I released the girl's hair and seized her right hand with my left hand, and broke into a run for the stables. I had no doubt but what, in an instant, there would be swift pursuit of me and my fair prisoner.
'After them!' I heard.
I half dragged the girl behind me. I held her right hand, of course, for she was right-handed, and with my left, for I, too, was right-handed. Her most efficient and skilled hand was thus the prisoner of my grip, making her more mine, whereas, of course, my own most efficient, skilled hand, also the right, was freed for use. This same principle is generally used, it might be mentioned, for single-wrist leashes.
I looked back. Four men were now running towards us. 'Hurry!' I cried to the girl.
We fled before our pursuers, she stumbling and gasping.
I reached the door of the nursery and kicked it open, thrusting her in front of me through the door. I joined her within and flung shut the door and threw down the bar, barring it.
A moment later I heard the hilts of short swords pounding on the door.
'We are caught!' she wept.
'You are caught, not I,' I told her. I looked about. I took two snout straps, those of the sort used to secure the jaws of newly hatched tharlarion. She looked at me. One of the snout straps I thrust, coiled, behind my belt. With the other I tied her wrists together before her body, leaving enough strap to lead her by, as a wrist leash. 'By me,' I told her. She gasped. There was pounding on the door.
I hurried to the trap door in the floor, that through which newly-hatched tharlarion, through the shelter of the tunnels, are brought from the incubation shed to the nursery.
Window glass shattered inward, to the side. 'Stop!' we heard.
I, dragging the Lady Florence by the wrist leash, hurried down the smoothly sloping dirt ramp leading to the tunnel.
Behind us we heard men forcing oven the door. We heard another breaking through the glass and wood at the window.
'Hurry, Prisoner!' I cried.
'Prisoner!' she cried.
But some fifty yards into the darkness of the tunnel I halted. As I had expected the men did not follow us blindly into the darkness. We might be presumed to know the tunnels. They would not. And I was armed, for now the steel of Orgus, the brigand, hung at my left shoulder.
'Bring torches!' I heard someone cry.
Chuckling I dragged the Lady Florence by her wrist leash through the darkness.
'I am not your prisoner!' she said.
I turned about. 'Oh,' she said, stumbling into me in the darkness. I lifted her from her feet and sat her against one side of the tunnel. I crossed her ankles. 'What are you doing?' she whispered. 'I am going to tie your ankles,' I told her. 'I shall use the free end of the leash strap. I shall take the strap up then to your wrists, so that the knot will be where you can reach it neither with your fingers or teeth.'
'No, no!' she said.
'Why not?' I asked.
'They will capture me,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'Do not leave me here,' she said.
'Who wants a woman who is too stupid to know that she is a prisoner,' I said.
'Do not leave me here,' she begged.
'You will be left here as a trussed, female fool,' I said, 'to be a prisoner for others, others who presumably will be less particular about the intelligence of their captives.'
'I am not stupid,' she said, struggling futilely. 'I am not a fool. I am not unintelligent!'
I stood up.
'Do not leave me here,' she begged.
I turned away.
'I know that I am your prisoner,' she wept.
I hesitated.
'Captor!' she cried.
'Yes,' I said.
'Please do not leave me here,' she begged. 'Take your prisoner with you.'
'Are you a prisoner?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'Whose?' I asked.
'Yours, yours!' she said.
'Is it true?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said. 'You know it is true, you beast,' she said.
'And you knew it before, as well, did you not?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said, angrily, 'I knew it before.'
'But only now have you admitted it,' I said.
'Yes,' she said, angrily, 'only now have I admitted it.'
I laughed.
'Do you laugh at your prisoner?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
She cried out in rage.
I turned away again.
'Please do not leave me here,' she begged. 'Take your prisoner with you.'
I turned, again, to face her. I heard her squirm, piteously, in the darkness.
'Do you beg it?' I asked.
'Yes, my captor,' she said.
'Very well,' I said. I whipped loose the strap from her ankles. I jerked her gasping to her feet and pulled her behind me. She ran behind me, gasping, uneasily, her wrists in my tether, her bare feet soft in the loose dirt of the tunnel.
We ran for something like a minute, and then we stopped.
'Why have we stopped?' she asked.
'Do you remember this place?' I asked.
'It is dark,' she said.
'It is where you once caught two slaves rutting in the darkness,' I said, 'and where you once, kindly, sent me a 'new slave' to content my needs.'
'Let us hurry on,' she said. My hands were on her arms. Then, suddenly, I thrust her arms up, and back, so that her bound wrists were now over her head. 'No,' she said, 'you beast!'
'Are you not my prisoner?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'I think that I shall amuse myself with my prisoner,' I said.
'No,' she said.
'I shall assert the rights of the Gorean captor over his beautiful female prisoner,' I said.
'Beast, beast!' she said. I forced her down. Then she was on her back in the dirt. She squirmed. 'You are mad,' she said. 'They are in the tunnel now. Their torches are coming! Oh! Oh!' She lowered her arms, with their bound wrists, putting them about my neck. She kissed at me, helplessly. I pulled her to her feet. I dragged her beside me in the darkness. 'I hear them ahead!' shouted a voice. I heard the clank of weapons. We sped on, the girl, naked, my former mistress, running and stumbling beside me. No longer did I conduct her by the wrist leash. It trailed behind her. I had felt how her body had clasped me in the darkness. I now held her by the hair. I now ran
