'Yes,' said Carrot.
'I am a woman,' said Radish to Cabbage.
'Yes,' said Cabbage.
At last Radish stood before me. 'I am a woman,' she wept.
'That is easy to see,' I said.
Seibar then, by the arm, led her to an open place in the lodge.
Suddenly she broke loose from him and turned about, almost falling. She pulled futilely at the straps. 'I am not a woman!'
Seibar, slowly, began to wrap leather straps about his right hand, that he might have them firmly in his grip. The ends of these straps, of which there were five, dangled then from his fist, some two feet or so in length. He approached Radish. She regarded him in terror. He swung the straps slowly before her eyes. She regarded them, almost as though mesmerized.
'I lied,' she said. 'I am a woman. I am truly a woman!'
'Kneel,' he said.
Radish lost no time in falling to her knees.
'You ahve been arrogant and pretentious,' he said.
'She has had people put out of the compound,' said a man.
'She wanted us to bind our guests and turn them over to Yellow Knives,' said another man.
'She has pretended to be a man!' said another man.
'She has betrayed her sex,' said another man.
'No,' said Radish. 'No!'
'And you have tried to weaken, to reduce and destroy true manhood,' said Seibar.
'No,' she cried. 'No!'
'Men are now no longer tolerant of this,' said Seibar. 'They have had enough.'
'I mean no harm!' cried Radish.
'We are rising,' said a man.
'Yes!' said another. 'Yes!' said another. 'Yes!' said another.
Radish looked wildly about. Then, again, she looked at Seibar.
'We are choosing, you see, my dear Radish,' said Seibar, 'to reassert our natural soverengnty. The experiment in perversion, falsehood and disease is done. Now, again, we will be men.'
'Seibar!' she wept.
'Yes!' cried the men.
'Surely you have feared that this migh one day happen,' he said.
She looked at him, wildly.
'Put your head to the dust,' he said.
She did so. She trembled. 'I am a woman1' she cried. 'I am a woman!'
'And one who has not been pleasing,' said Seibar.
Then he lashed her, and well.
Then, in a few moments, she lay on her side at his feet, bound, sobbing, marked, disciplined.
At a sign from Seibar Carrot and Cabbage lifed her to her feet. They held her in place. She looked out at Seibar, though her hair and the tears in her eyes. She could not stand.
'Put her out,' said Seibar, 'as she did others.'
'No,' she wept. 'No!'
'Do not fear,' said Seibar. 'I will have them remove your bonds once you are hurled beyond the gate. You will then have the same opportunities for survival which you have accorded others.'
'Seibar, please, no!' she wept.
'Only then will the gate be closed against you,' he said.
'Please, no!' she wept. She strugled, hysterically. 'Let me kneel!' she begged Carrot and Cabbage.
At a sign from Seibar they permitted her to fall to her knees.
'I beg to be shown mercy,' she said.
'The same mercy which you have shown others?' asked Seibar.
'No,' she wept, 'true mercy!'
'Why should it be shown to you,' he said, 'as it was not to them?'
'We shall open the gate,' said a man.
'Beloved Mira,' cried Radish, looking at Mira, wildly, 'what shall I do?'
Mira shrank back, startled. 'I am only a slave,' she said, 'You are a free woman.'
'What shall I do?' she begged, terrified.
'You have but one slim chance,' said Mira.
'Speak,' begged Radish.
'The onely avenue of escape which lies open before you,' said Mira, 'is too debasing and degrading. I dare not even mention it to you.'
'Speak, speak!' begged Radish.
'Sue to be his slave,' said Mira. 'As a wholly submitted woman, one he owns, he may be disposed to show you mercy.'
'I do not know what to do,' wept Radish.
'If you are a free woman,' said Mira, 'go nobly forth into the Barrens, there to perish of hunger or thrist, or of animales or exposure. If you are a slave, sue to be his slave.'
'I do not know what to do!' she wept.
'Do what is in your heart,' said Mira.
'Beg mercy for me, plead for me, intercede for me!' begged Radish.
Mira came and knelt before Seibar, her head down. 'Have mercy upon us, Master,' she said. 'We are only women, one bond and one free. We know your strength. We know what you can do. We do not dispute your sovereignty. We beg for mercy, if only for a time. We beg for knidness, if only for a moment.'
'Your slave speaks eloquently,' said Seibar.
'She has experienced the might of men, and knows what they can do,' I said.
The women in the leather shackles, then, wiht her wrists bound before her body, suddenly sobbed, and shook with ungovernable, overwhelming emotion. The movement, like a shudder, had been unrestrained, uncontrollable. Something deep and profound had obviously occurred within her. 'Yes,' she whispered to herself. 'Yes!'
She put her head down and, unbidden, tenderly, submissively, softly, began to kiss the feet of Seibar.
'Look up,' said Seibar.
She lifted her head. Her eyes were moist. They were incredibly soft and tender. I think that never before had she seen Seibar like that.
'And doubtless you, too, subscrive to the discourse of the slave,' said Seibar, indicating Mira.
'With but one exception, yes,' said the leather-bound woman.
'Oh?' asked Seibar.
'She is mistaken in one detail,' she said.
'What is that?' asked Seibar.
'She said that there were two women who knelt before you, one bond and one free. In this sshe was in error. There were two women who knelt before you, but one was not bond and one free. Both were bond.'
Mira, tears in her eyes, suddenly seized the woman bound beside her, and kissed her.
I took Mira by the hair and threw her to the side.
'Yes,' said the leather-bound woman looking up at Seibar. 'I am bond.'
'Beware of the words you speak,' said Seibar. This was true. Such words, in themselves, in the appropriate context, effected enslavement. Intention, and such, is immaterial, for one might always maintain that one had not meant them, or such. The words themselves, in the appropriate context, are suffcient. Whether one means them or not one becomes, in their utterance, instantly, categorically and without recourse, fully and legally a slave, soemthing with which masters are then entitled to do with as they please. Such words are not to be spoken lightly. They are as meaningful as the collar, as significant as the brand.
