One of the red savages was now walking over to the kailiauk robe beneath whichlay Margaret.
The red youth now rose from the side of the red-haired girl, adjusting hisbreechclout. He then indicated that she should roll onto her stomach, which shedid. He then slapped her twice, commending her. Her hands clutched at the grass.
He then sauntered away.
I walked over to her. 'It seems I have served my purpose,' she whispered,angrily, in English.
'One of your purposes,' I said, 'for the time being.' I spoke to her in English.
She rose to her hands and knees, and looked up at me. She put down her head,reddening. She looked up again, angrily, and then, again, put down her head,blushing. 'Why did you make me yield?' she asked.
'You wanted to,' I said. 'And, besides, as a slave, you must yield.'
She did not speak.
'Are you angry?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'I heard you cry out, and whimper with pleasure,' I said.
'It is true,' she said. 'I did want to yield. How terrible I must be.'
'Such feelings,' I said, 'such desires to yield, are not only permitted of theslave, but required of her.'
'Required?' she said.
'Yes,' I said. 'Do not confuse yourself with a free woman. You are quitedifferent from her.'
'And as a slave,' she said, 'I had to yield. I had no choice, did I?'
'No,' I said. 'The slave must yield, and fully.'
'How can you respect me?' she asked.
'Assume the belly position, and kiss my feet, Slave,' I said.
She did so.
'What now was your question?' I asked.
'How-how can you respect me?' she asked, half choking.
'I do not,' I told her. 'Do you know why?'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Why?' I asked.
'Because I am a slave,' she said.
'True,' I said.
'How strong are the men of this world,' she said, wonderingly. 'How they own,and dominate us. How, before them, can we be anything but women?'
'Your question about respect was stupid,' I said. 'Perhaps you should belashed.'
'Please do not lash me, Master,' she said.
I turned to leave. 'Master,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'Tonight,' she said, 'I beg to be taken from the coffle for your pleasure.'
'Tonight,' I said, 'I think I may be more in the mood for Lois or Inez, orperhaps Priscilla. We shall see. And tonight, in the coffle, you will be bound,hand and foot. Perhaps that will teach you to ask stupid questions.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I then went over to the kailiauk hide where one of the Dust Legs was standing.
Grunt had joined him there. Grunt seemed reluctant to lift the hide.
'Hou,' I said to the Dust Leg.
'Hou,' said he to me.
'Ieska!' called one of the Dust Legs, rising to his feet, where the men had beensitting. This was another of the names by which Grunt was known in the Barrens.
It literally is one who speaks well. Less literally, it is used as a generalexpression for an interpreter.
Grunt excused himself and went to see what the man wanted. He was the fellow whohad been looking at the hatchet. The fellow was holding up three fingers, andthen he pointed to the dark-haired girl kneeling by the kaiila.
In an instant she had been summoned, and she hurried to him, as she could, withher head down, following the sound of his voice. When she reached her master andGrunt her master put his hand under her chin and thrust up her head. She lookedabout, startled, wildly, now permitted to regard surroundings. She saw the otherkaiila, the men, Grunt, myself, the girls in the coffle. Then she was strippedand knelt naked, before Grunt. He had her rise and turn slowly, her back arched,her hands behind the back of her head, before him. Then he again knelt her.
'Tarl,' called Grunt to me. I went to him, and he tossed me his whip. 'See ifshe whips well,' he said.
The girl looked up at me, frightened.
'On your hands and knees,' I told her.
She assumed this posture.
Much can be told of the responsiveness of a girl by how she moves beneath thewhip.
I would give her three lashes. After all I was not whipping her, but testingher.
I would not strike her with my full strength, but, on the other hand, she mustknow clearly that she had been struck.
How else could the test prove significant?
She cried out, thrown to her belly by the first stroke. I then administered thesecond stroke. She cried out in misery and turned to her side, pulling up herlegs. I then struck her a third time and she cried out again, sobbing, andpulled up her legs even more.
I thought she moved well beneath the whip. She obviously felt it, keenly.
'On your hands and knees,' said Grunt. He then, as she shuddered, felt her, sherecently impressed with the might of men over her, she freshly lashed.
'Good,' said Grunt.
She became Grunt's for three hatchets. She was, after all, only a white femaleslave and they were fine hatchets.
'Ieska! Wopeton!' called the fellow by the kailiauk hide.
We left the dark-haired girl on the grass, where she had been lashed, and thenpurchased.
The Dust Leg requested that the kailiauk hide be thrown aside. Grunt, a shrewdfellow, appeared to demur, and, indeed, even invited the fellow to examine theother girls on the coffle. The fellow, however, scarcely cast a glance at them,but they shrank back, under even so cursory an examination, fearing to belong toa red master. He did look for a longer moment at the red-haired girl but Gruntsaid something to him, and he turned from her again to speculate on what mightlie concealed beneath the kailiauk hide. Grunt apparently did not wish torelease the red-haired girl in a common sale. He had, it seemed, anotherdisposition in mind for her. I remembered he had speculated that he would getfive hides of the yellow kailiauk for her. No, she had not been brought along,marched into the Barrens, as a mere beast of burden. He had something else inmind for her.
One or two of the other Dust Legs now came over to where lay the kailiauk hide,concealing Margaret, the stripped English girl. The first Dust Leg was nowshowing signs of impatience. He was no fool. It was clear to him that Grunt, ifhe truly, seriously, wished to hide a girl, would presumably cache her, boundand gagged, out of sight, perhaps in a slit trench a pasang or so away. As itwas, the kailiauk hide was presumably a device to arouse the interest of apossible buyer. The Dust Leg doubtless realized this. Further, he doubtlessrealized that his interest, in spite of the obviousness of this stratagem, waspiqued. I could not blame him, accordingly, for feeling some irritation orresentment. I hoped Grunt knew what be was doing. He had already, in his trickwith Ulla and Lenna, in my opinion, been treading on dangerous ground. Suddenlythe Dust Leg, Grunt speaking to him, broke out in laughter. It took me a momentor so to understand what was happening, but, in an Ehn, it became quite clear.
The Dust Leg, if interested, was to bid, sight unseen, on what lay beneath thekailiauk hide. The whole thing was, in effect, a joke and a gamble. The matternow put in a clearer light, the Dust Leg, and his fellows, were delighted. Hetried to walk about and peep beneath the hide and Grunt, with great apparentearnestness and seriousness, hurried about, tugging down the hide at the edges.
Red savages, on whole, are fond of jokes and gambles. Their jokes, to be sure,might sometimes seem a bit eccentric or rude to more civilized folk. A favoritejoke, for example, is to tell a young man that his kaiila offer to
