'No!' cried Mirus.
'Do you think, in your condition, you can adequately defend her?' asked Hendow. 'I will defend her to the death!' cried Mirus.
'Do you think she is a free woman?' asked Hendow. 'She is only a slave.' 'She is worth more to me than ten thousand free women!' cried Mirus. 'A slave slut?' asked Hendow, scornfully. 'A woman who may be purchased from a slave block?'
'Yes!' cried Mirus.
'Stand aside,' said Hendow.
'Have pity on her!' cried Mirus. He could barely hold the sword. I feared he might collapse at any moment.
'Show mercy, Master!' I begged, Hendow.
'You are losing blood, old friend,' said Hendow. 'I do not think you will long be able to stand. Perhaps then, while you have the strength, you will wish to attack.'
'By the love you bear me,' said Mirus, weakly, 'do not kill her.' 'You would kill this slave, would you not?' inquired Hendow.
'Yes,' said Mirus.
'But you do not wish Tupita to die?' he asked.
'No,' said Mirus.
'Perhaps then,' said Hendow, smiling, 'we might negotiate.'
Mirus looked at him, unsteadily, wildly.
'It is too late!' wept Tupita. 'Look!'
We looked up, to see, encircling us now, some yards away, men. There were five of them. With them, too, were the beasts.
Borko growled, menacingly.
'There is a sleen,' said the bearded man, he who was the leader of the men who had come to pick us up. 'It is unfortunate we do not have spears with us.' The small fellow, he who had been dealing with the leader, hung back. His two cohorts were somewhat in advance of him. Both were rough, grim-looking men, armed with blades. I thought them, though, perhaps less to be feared than the leader and the man with him. He had left, I recalled, with two. Two of the beasts came forward. They snarled, as Borko snarled. I realized, suddenly, they did not fear even a thing as terrible as a sleen. Armed only with their own teeth and jaws they regarded themselves as superior to it.
'What are those things,' asked Hendow.
'Where is Licinius?' asked the bearded man.
'They are certainly big fellows,' said Hendow. 'I, too, would not mind having a spear.'
'Your sword is bloody,' said the bearded man.
'Perhaps then I met Licinius,' said Hendow.
'You should have fled,' said Mirus.
'No,' said Hendow.
'Beware of him,' said the bearded man. 'I think he may be skilled.' 'Come closer,' said Hendow. 'Examine the blood on the blade. Perhaps you will recognize it.'
Borko crouched low, his front shoulders a bit higher than his head. He growled. 'I free you, Borko, old friend,' said Hendow. 'Go. Return to the wild. Go. You are free!'
But the beast remained where it was, beside its master.
'As you will,' said Hendow. 'The choice is yours, my friend.'
'We are lost,' said Mirus. 'I cannot help you.'
'Stand near me, behind me,' said Hendow.
But Mirus sank to one knee, where he was. I did not understand how it was that he could remain even so. He must have been a man of incredible strength. 'You are surely ugly fellows,' said Hendow to the two beasts. They were coming forward very warily. 'Ho, lads,' called Hendow. 'Do not send your pet urts before you. Come forth boldly yourselves. Show that you are men!'
'Do not respond to his taunts!' said the bearded man. 'The blood of Licinius warms you to caution!'
'Clever lads!' laughed Hendow.
'Watch out for the sleen!' cried the small fellow to the beasts. 'They are dangerous!'
The lips of one of the beasts, it very near now, only some fifteen feet away, drew back, about its fangs. It seemed an expression, oddly enough, of amusement. Then I recollected these things were rational.
'Run, Master! I said. 'Run!'
But Hendow did not move. His whole body seemed as alert, as alive, as ready and as vital as that of Borko. He would not, of course, leave Mirus. Too, of course, he could not outrun the beasts. I had seen them move. I sobbed.
'Beware the beasts, Master,' I said. 'They are rational. They can think. They can speak!'
'So,' said Hendow, 'you still have a lying tongue in that pretty little head of yours. Perhaps you remember the last time you lied to me?'
I moaned. I had been whipped. Then I must perforce kiss the whip. Then I had been put to my knees, my head down, my hands clasped behind the back of my neck, and, in that common slave position, raped. 'I am not lying, Master,' I said. 'You there, you big ugly brute,' called Hendow to the leader of the beasts, which stood back a bit. 'She is lying, isn' t she?'
Its lips drew back. 'Of course,' it said.
'I thought so,' said Hendow.
I felt confused and frightened, but, too, elated, for I thought I understood then, by his response to the beast, that he had believed me, even when I had made what must have seemed so strange a claim. But then, in a moment, I realized that their capacity at least to understand human speech had surely been suggested by the small fellow' s admonition, and by the one beast' s response. I realized then that Hendow had used me, in his way, to distract the beasts, and to play with them. He had used me, a slave girl, in his strategy. How superior he was to me! How right it was that I should in the order of nature be only the slave of such a man!
'You fellows are some sort of urts, are you not?' asked Hendow.
The leader of the beasts rose up to his full height. The fur seemed to leap up about its head and shoulders, crackling. Its eyes blazed. Tela screamed. Its ears, oddly, then, lay back, flattened against the sides of its head. So, too, were Borko' s. This, I supposed, was a readiness response, making them less vulnerable, less likely to be torn or bitten.
'I have never seen urts so large!' called Hendow.
'We are of the People!' said the leader of the beasts.
'Amazing,' said Hendow to the small fellow, whom, he took it, rightly, was in association with the beasts. 'How do you make them talk?'
'Do not let him anger you!' called the small fellow to the beasts. 'Can you not see? He is tricking you!'
But I think they were not prepared to listen to him. Their attention was on Hendow. I moaned, bound at the rail, helpless. I moved my wrists. How helplessly they were held in place, so perfectly behind me, by the binding fiber! I could not begin to free myself!'
'It is a marvelous trick,' called Hendow to the small fellow. 'Do it again! Make them seem to speak!'
The leader of the beasts, then, in fury, and in some inhuman, snarling, barbarous, fierce tongue, something like the roar of a lion, the hiss of a sleen, the snarl of a panther, yet clearly, frighteningly, an articulated stream of sound, some form of modulated utterance, communicated with its fellows. He then pointed to Hendow. In these moments, of course, the sleen was forgotten. It, however, had never taken its eyes off the nearest of the beasts. The first beast charged at Hendow but never reached him. Borko sprang for its throat, seized it in his jaws, and clung to that great body, his back four legs tearing and ripping at its belly. The other beast leaped to the aid of its fellow, but Hendow struck it on the back of its neck with his sword. It did not penetrate. It was stopped by thick vertebrae, but blood drenched its back. It spun about to seize Hendow, but he thrust at it with his sword. The blade entered its body by six inches, but the beast stood there, then, slowed, stopped, regarding him. It did not fall. Hendow stepped back. I think only then did he fully comprehend the nature of the beasts, their power, strength, their energy, how difficult it might be to kill or disable such a thing. The two fellows of the small man
