speak, her voice must be recognized, through the door, as coming from the vicinity of the berth.
She knelt there, clutching the scarlet sheet. I did not speak.
Again came the pounding. 'Luta,' called a voice. 'Luta!'
'Respond to the false name,' I told the girl.
'Yes, Master,' she called.
'Are you naked, and in the berth?' called the voice.
'Yes, Master,' she called.
'Are you all right?' he asked, through the door.
I drew the knife from my belt and thrust its point a quarter of an inch into her sweet, rounded belly. She looked down at it, wincing.
'Yes, Master,' she called.
'Who is it?' I whispered.
'Artemidorus,' she whispered, 'first officer.'
'Are you certain that you are all right?' asked the officer, through the door.
I placed my left hand behind the small of her back, so that she could not pull back from the point of the knife. A plunging slash, she knew, might disembowel her.
'Yes, Master,' she called.
'Are you keeping yourself hot for your master?' laughed the voice, roughly.
'Yes, Master!' she called. 'Is the battle nearly over?' We could hear the occasional sounds of fighting outside, from some hundreds of yards off, across the water.
'Curiosity is not becoming in a Kajira,' laughed the fellow.
'Yes, Master. Forgive me, Master,' she said.
'Keep yourself hot,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I then heard him laugh again, and then turn about and climb five stairs, which must have led to the main deck, from a short companionway.
'The battle must be nearly over,' she said.
'Why do you think so?' I asked.
'My readiness for the master was being checked,' she said.
'It is fortunate that he did not choose to check it by hand,' I said.
'Yes,' she said, shuddering. She looked down at the knife.
I was curious to know how the battle outside waged. I removed my hand from the small of her back, and the knife from its ready and threatening location at her belly. She respired in relief. I placed the knife in my belt again. I saw that her lower belly, so sweetly rounded, was beautiful.
'Lie down,' I told her.
She lay on her back, and by the brass rings, some two inches in diameter, and by the leather thongs, near her shoulders, and at the bottom sides of the berth, tied her upon it.
I looked down upon her. She was beautiful, and secured.
I then went to the shattered window at the rear of the cabin. I did not make my surveillance obvious.
'May I inquire as to the situation, Master?' she asked.
'No,' I told her.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
Through a gap in the pirate fleet, I could see that the beleaguered, desperate ships of the defenders fought on, stoutly.
I was convinced that they, still active, pennons still flying on their stem-castle lines, could hold out until nightfall. Yet I did not think they could withstand the concerted attacks of the pirate fleets for another day. How nobly, and well, they had fought. I was bitter. I looked back to the berth. There, tied upon it, helpless, was she who had been the woman of a pirate captain, she who had been the woman of one of my enemies. I then looked again out the window. In the water, among the larger ships, were small boats, manned by pirates. Considering them I became furious. These were being used to hunt for survivors, luckless fellows, struggling in the water, fishing for them with attentive leisure, with arrows, and with spear and knife. They would also make it difficult to return to the _Tina_. I glanced to the table, to the packet, now in its oil-cloth envelope, which lay there. It had immense value, if only it could be exploited. I looked again, out the window, at the ships of the pirate fleet, and at the defenders, and then I returned to the table, and sat before it.
'Master,' said the girl.
I did not respond to her.
'Forgive me, Master,' she whispered.
That the defenders had lasted this long was a function largely of two factors, first, of the crowding of the pirate fleet which made it difficult for them to bring their rams and shearing blades into play, and, secondly, the unusually large numbers, and skill, of the soldiers of Ar who had been transported in the holds of the ships of Ar's Station, making boarding hazardous and costly.
The tactics which seemed to me obvious in such a situation the Voskjard had not yet employed.
I suspected then he might not be with his own fleet, that it might be under the command of a lesser man.
Carefully, with the sealing wax, I closed the oil-cloth envelope. I then folded it over, into a rectangular packet, and, with some binding fiber, cut from a coil of such fiber, looped at the bottom of the berth, tied it in this shape. I noticed that the girl was watching me. Accordingly, not speaking, I tore a broad strip from the scarlet sheet and, folding it five times, encircling her head with it, tied it tightly behind the back of her head, blindfolding her with it.
'Forgive me, Master,' she whimpered.
I then broke loose a board from the wall, a shelf, some two feet in length, with spike holes in it, to accommodate projections such as that on the silver candle bowl on the table. With binding fiber I tied the packet to this board. Then, with more binding fiber, I improvised a towing loop for the board. This board, then, with its towing loop, and its cargo, the packet in the sealed, oil-cloth envelope, I placed near the window.
It was at this time that I heard the signal horns of the pirate fleet. The orders, I thought, had been too long delayed. I looked out the window. As I had thought, the pirate fleet was now drawing back. The self-frustrating futility of their attack, obstinate and unimaginative, had, at long last, apparently been brought home to its commander. The pirate ships now, sent forward judiciously, singly or doubly, supported as need be, no longer crowded together in useless attempts at boarding, could now bring their rams and shearing blades into play against the cornered, pathetically outnumbered barks of the defenders. But it was now quite late in the afternoon. Doubtless this attack would be postponed until morning, that the slaughter might lose nothing of its effect, some survivors perhaps being enabled, in small boats or in the water, to slip away under the cover of darkness.
I turned and slowly walked back to the side of the berth, on which the voluptuous slave was blindfolded and bound.
I looked down upon her. She knew I stood beside her. She trembled. Her sweet wrists and slim ankles moved in the leather bonds which, tied to the brass slave rings, confined them.
I removed the folded, scarlet strip of the sheet which had covered the upper part of her head, and cast it to one side.
She looked up at me, frightened. She shrank deeper, back in the berth. She had been the woman of Reginald, one of the captains of the Voskjard.
'Please, Master,' she whispered, 'do not hurt me.'
She had been a woman of the enemy.
'Please, Master,' she begged, 'show me mercy.'
How beautiful she was in her collar, close-fitting, and of gleaming, engraved steel, which she could not remove. How beautiful women are in collars. It is no wonder men enjoy putting them in them. How beautiful is the collar itself, and yet how insignificant is the beauty of the collar compared to the beauty and profundity of its meaning, that the woman is owned.
'You are well tied, Slave,' I told her. 'You are absolutely helpless.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
