Iwoso's sack.
Iwoso began to utter desperate noises, moving her head, the gag packed in her mouth.
'You would like to speak, would you not, Lady Iwoso?' I asked.
She moved her head affirmatively, desperately.
'If I remove your gag,' I asked, 'would you promise to be quiet?'
She nodded, vigorously.
'I could, of course, hold a kife point at your throat,' I said. 'and at the slightest sing of trickery or refractoriness plunge it into your throat.'
She turned pale.
'Under such conditions would you still care to speak?' I asked.
She nodded.
My hands moved toward the gag. then I stopped. 'I dare not remove the gag,' I said. 'You are an extremely intelligent and cleaver woman. You would doubtless trick me somehow.'
She shook her head negatively, reassuringly.
'Perhaps I should remove your gag,' I mused.
She nodded.
'No,' I said. 'I must not do so. Indeed, I have been warned, even before we left our camp, against doing so. Masters fear I would be tricked. Thus you must, at least for a time, continue to wear it.'
Iwoso looked at me for a moment in fury, and then put her head back in helpless frustration.
'I am sorry,' I said.
Iwoso looked at me, puzzled.
'I can understand your feelings,' I told her. 'How offensive it is that you, a loftly free woman, are tied naked in a sack, as though you might be a mere slave, as though there might be no difference between you and the Kaiila slave girl who lies beside you.'
Iwoso's mind, I had little doubt, that quick, clever mind, was working feverishly.
Then she looked at me with soft, mild reproach. She nodded her head, pathetically.
'I am sorry, Lady Iwoso,' I said. then I began to loop the rope carefully, from its center, that the ends of which were attached to the handles of the girls' sacks.
Iwoso, then, began to whimper timidly, piteously, trying to attract my attention.
I looked down at her.
Her eyes were soft, and pleading, and seemingly submissive and humble. She moved her head, lifting her mouth, with its heavy, sodden packing and its tight straps, towards me.
'Do you wish to speak to me?' I asked.
She shook her head negatively.
'That is good,' I said.
She whimpered, piteiously, again lifting her head toward me, the gag bound so tightly, so effectively, in her mouth.
'Do you want me to remove the gag?' I asked.
She shook her head again, small, piteous momvements, negatively.
'What, then?' I asked.
She whimpered, lifting her head again to me.
'It is uncomfortable, isn't it?' I asked.
She nodded vigorously.
'Red savages,' I said, 'sometimes treat women too fiercely, do they not?'
Iwoso nodded her agreement.
'I suppose,' I said, 'that it would do no harm if I loosened it a little.'
Iwoso whimpered, gratefully.
Bloketu then lifted her head, piteously, whimpering pleadingly. 'Be silent, slave slut,' I said to her. 'You are not a free woman. You will continue to wear your gag in its full effectiveness, as a slave.'
Bloketu lay back, tears running out of her eyes.
I then unknotted the gag behind the back of Iwoso's neck. I loosened the straps with my finger and then, putting my finger in her mouth, loosened the packing as well. Then, as though fearing I had been too lenient, I retightened the straps, closely, but not as tightly as they had been earlier. I then fastened the straps together behind her neck with a simple over-and-under knot. This would hold for a time because of the tightness of it and the strap friction. It would not hold, however, for very long, particularly if tested. I then pretended to secure that knot with a second knkot, to prevent slippage. I did not, of course, actually do so. The stressing and jerking of the straps, which Iwoso could feel through the back of her neck, was the result, merely, of my looping part of one strap about the other and then jerking against it, the secont strap end, of course, falling free as soon as I released it, leaving only the first knot in place, the simple over-and-under, or overhand knot. The security knot, as far as Iwoso could tell, was in place.
Bloketu lay on her back, sobbing.
'Is that better?' I asked Iwoso.
She whimpered, pleadingly.
'I dare not make it any looser,' I said.
She whimpered, more pleadingly.
'I can always,' I said, 'make it tighter.'
She shook her head, negatively.
'It is better, isn't it?' I asked.
She nodded her head.
'Perhaps I should make it tight again, as it was,' I said.
She shook her head negatively, pleadingly.
'Are you grateful?' I asked.
She nodded her head.
I then looked away from her and returned my attention to the coiling of the rope. Inwardly I smiled. Did she really think that a woman such as she, luscious slave meat, would be truly accorded any consideration whatsoever?
I then, taking the rope with me, exited through the cut in the back of the lodge. I unhobbled the kaiila waiting there. It had a high-pommeled saddle on its back. It was to be ridden to the hunt nor to war. I looped the rope about the pommel of the saddle, dropping a few coils of it to either side, it then, on either side, descending to the ground and trailing back into the lodge. I threw a robe over my head and shoulders. I then mounted. Then, not hurrying, the robe muchly about me, I moved the kaiila away from the lodge, drawing from the lodge, through the cut it its back, my means of the rawhide ropes attached to their handles, the two sacks.
I heard Iwoso making tiny, desperate noises. I think, then, she was truly frightened. I think then she fully realized, perhaps for the first time, that it might acually be possible for us to take her, with all the consequences which might then accrue to her in virtue of this, from the Yellow-Knife camp.
But I was, as yet, in no hurry to leave.
Without haste, muchly concealed in the robe. I moved the kaiila out inot the browd, empty lane between the Yellow Knife lodges, amost a busy, triumphal way. In such a lane sometimes young swains, on kaiilaback, in their paint and finery, parade before damsels; in such a lane sometimes are kaiila races held; and in such a lane, sometimes, slave girls, for humliation or punishment, or sport, are dragged back and forth in sacks.
I felt the tension in the ropes, on either side of the kaiila, as I entered into the long lane, some two hundred yards in length, the sacks, their weight negligible for the strength of the kaiila, being drawn lightly behind.
As I rode slowly along I looked back. The heads of the girls were off the ground, held off the ground, when we were in motion, by the construction of the sack with its handles, and the draw of the rope. Iwoso was uttering tiny, deserate noises. They were muffled and almost inaudible. They reminded me of the squeakings of an urt in terror. I did not think they could be heard more than a few feet away. Surely ot in the lodges on each side of that broad thoughfare. A domestic sleen did emerge from between the lodges, its ears pricked up, but when it saw what was ensuing, it turned away, paying us no more attention. Such sights and sounds were not unfamiliar to it.
