I did not respond.
'For what it is worth,' he said, 'you have served longer than any other lure girl I have used in this area.'
I nodded, swallowing hard.
'You have made more captures than any other,' he said.
'Thank you, Master,' I said.
'You are now, however, I think,' he said, 'becoming a bit too well known in Argentum.'
'As master say,' I said. I had no idea, of course, as to whether or not such a thing was true. I did suppose I had been seen about the streets, here and there. This may have raised suspicions.
'Too,' he said, 'there have been inquiries.'
I looked at him, apprehensively.
'Sometimes,' he said, 'I think a lure girl should be less beautiful, less striking, perhaps, than you. you are perhaps the sort who is too easily remembered.'
I said nothing.
'Accordingly,' he said, 'I think it is now time to dispose of you.' 'Master?' I asked, frightened.
'Do not fear,' he said, smiling. 'I have no intention of losing my investment in you.'
'Then Master will sell me?' I begged.
'You have already been sold,' he said.
I looked at him, astonished.
'I have received for you five silver tarsks, and one tarsk bit,' he smiled. 'I paid five silver tarsks for you, as you may recall. Thus I have made a profit on you.'
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'hood her,' he said.
One of his men then put a gag in my mouth, attached to a slave hood, fastened it in place, and then pulled the hood down over my head, and buckled it shut about my neck. I felt a collar put about my neck and locked. The collar I had originally worn then, that of Tyrrhenius of Argentum, was removed from my neck. I then knelt there, gagged and hooded, my hands bound behind me. I was trembling.
'Take her to her new master,' he said.
23 The Work Camp
'Look!' cried a fellow, elatedly. 'look!'
'The fifth slut!' cried another. 'Look!'
'It is she!' cried another. 'Look!'
'Do you know her?' asked another fellow.
'We know here well,' said another fellow, with grim satisfaction.
I half stumbled in the chains. My feet hurt on the hot gravel. The sun was hot on my bare arms and legs. I could take only short steps for my ankles were shackled, the run of chain between them only some eight to ten inches. Iron, too, adorned my wrists. I wore manacles. With expert blows, on an anvil, these had been hammered shut, leaving only a fine line where the edges met. The manacles were joined by some seven or eight inches of chain. Another chain, some three feet in length, ran from the center of an ankle chain to the center of the chain joining the wrist rings. Standing upright, then, I could not lift my hands, even to feed myself. I was also in neck coffle, the fifth girl in the coffle. A chain ran from a ring on the back of the collar of the chain ran from the ring on the back of my collar to the ring on the front of the collar of the girl who followed me. Thusly we were fastened together.
'It is she,' announced another fellow.
'Move, kajirae,' said a fellow with a whip.
'Yes,' said another man.
I looked about myself, wildly, in terror.
I heard the snap of the whip and, together, we hurried forward, within the fence, toward the square tent, the overseer' s tent, on a rise in the distance. The fellows along our route, sweating, half-stripped, in their ankle chains, paused in their labors, resting on their implements, to watch us pass.
'It is you, is it not,' asked the girl before me, whispering over her shoulder, 'to whom these beasts refer?'
'I fear so,' I moaned.
'How is it they know you?' asked the girl behind me.
'From Argentum,' I said.
'Woe is us,' said the girl before me. 'These brutes are criminals, murderers, cutthroats, brigands, dangerous men, held in penal servitude. We shall be fortunate if we are not killed!'
'The guards must protect us,' said the third girl.
'But how can we garner such shelter?' wept the second girl.
'If you had been a slave longer, you would know the answer to that question,' said the third girl.
The second girl moaned. She was naA?ve. Her brand had not been on her long. We were female work slaves. Such are used among the chains largely for carrying water. Other purposes, too, as might be expected, may be found for them. 'I am afraid,' said the second girl.
'Look!' cried a man, as we passed. 'She! It is she, I am sure of it!' 'Yes!' said another. 'You are right! I, too, am sure of it!'
I shuddered. 'Not all of these men are criminals,' I said to the second girl. 'How is that?' asked the girl behind me.
'Some are honest fellows,' I said, 'caught, impressed into labor.' 'Such things are not done,' said the girl before me.
'You are mistaken,' I told her.
'There are many ways,' said the girl behind me. 'Some times lure girls are used.' Then she said, 'Perhaps Tuka knows about that.'
I was silent.
'You are very pretty, Tuka,' said the girl behind me.
I was silent.
'You are probably pretty enough to be a lure girl,' she added.
I was silent.
'I would not wish to be a lure girl who came within their reach,' she remarked. 'I might be torn to pieces. It would doubtless be far worse, of course, if I were the actual girl who had been involved in their capture.'
I shuddered.
'What is wrong, Tuka?' she asked.
'Nothing,' I said.
'I suppose that these fellows out here, with the digging, the labor and the whip, have little to live for,' she remarked, 'except perhaps vengeance.' I trembled in the chains.
'Do not be frightened, Tuka,' she said. 'You have nothing to fear, for you were surely never a lure girl.'
Over the fence, in the distance, I could see the walls of a city. I had been told it was Venna. I had been told this by the girl who was now first on the chain. She had seen it once, long ago, when she had been a rich, spoiled, beautiful free woman, in her robes of concealment, from her palanquin. Then she had fallen to slavers. She was no longer spoiled or rich. No longer did she wear ornate robes of concealment. She wore now only the same sleeveless, brief, clinging work tunic as we. To be sure, she was doubtless much more exciting and beautiful now than she had been when she was free. This sort of thing would not be merely a matter of the brand and collar, of course, significant though they might be, but of the entire radiant transformation of her womanhood as it blossomed in bondage, she now in her place in nature.
'Master!' I called to the guard. 'Master, may I speak?'
'What do you want?' he asked, walking beside me now, coiling the whip. 'Is that Venna?' I asked.
'Yes,' said he.
