'Please, Master,' begged Phoebe.
'Are you jealous?' he said.
'Yes, Master,' said Phoebe, defiantly.
'You do not sound humble,' he said.
'Forgive me, Master,' she said, quickly, frightened.
'Who is jealous?' he inquired.
'Phoebe is jealous,' she whispered.
'You are a thousand times more beautiful than she,' said Marcus.
'Master sports with his helpless slave,' pouted Phoebe.
'To me,' said Marcus, teasingly.
'How shall I ever hold you, Master?' she wept. 'I am yours, and only a slave. You may put me aside or keep me with others, s you might please. There are thousands of intelligent, pretty women who would be eager to serve you. You may have your pick. You may buy and sell as you please. How shall I ever keep you?'
'It is mine to keep you if I wish,' said Marcus.
'Yes, Maser!' she wept.
I considered the unilaterally of the master/slave relationship. All power is with the master. This, of course, has its effect upon the slave. Let her strive to be such that her master will keep her.
'Look,' I said, pointing to the foot of the wall, where the flute girl was together with others of her station. She seemed distraught, bound, turning about, to look at me. They all, excited, confused, looked in this direction. To be sure, several of them, and many on the wall, too, both flute girls and laborers, had paused in their various activities, to follow the sequence of events on the Wall Road. But Marcus and Phoebe paid me no attention. They were in one another's arms.
'I love you, Master,' was saying Phoebe, looking up at him, 'totally and helplessly.'
'And I,' he was saying, brushing back hair from her forehead, 'fear that I might find myself growing fond of you.'
'Use me, Master, use me!' she begged.
'Not here,' said Marcus. 'Perhaps in a darkened doorway, on the way back to our lodging.'
Quickly she pulled from him, and hurried a few steps back, toward Harness Street, turning them to look back, pleadingly at him.
I was pleased to see that she was much in his power.
'I see,' said Marcus. The flute girls at the foot of the wall, looking this way, knelt, putting their heads down to the stones, doing obeisance in our direction. The command of a free man had been conveyed to them. I then say the lovely brunet picking her way with difficulty up a path to the higher part of the breach. She was communicating my message, I gather, to the girls she encountered, on the different levels. I looked up toward the height of the breach. There, girl after girl, especially as she saw my eyes upon her, knelt, putting her head down. Those that were sitting cross-legged swiftly abandoned that position, also performing obeisance. Then, one by one, as the brunet hurried among them, they picked their way down the paths from the breach to the Wall Road and hurried away. In a few moments the breach was cleared of flute girls. Doubtless all of them, at one time or another, had been under an excellent discipline and now, fearful of an impending restoration of such rigors, would lose no time in recalling, and manifesting, suitable attitudes and behaviors. No woman who has ever felt the whip forgets it.
'Was that wise?' asked Marcus.
'No,' I said.
'Tomorrow they will be back, and things will be the same,' he said.
'Undoubtedly,' I said.
'Nothing will be changed,' he said.
'True,' I said.
'Then why did you do it?' he asked.
'I felt like it,' I said.
'I was afraid you might not have had a good reason,' he said.
'Master,' said Phoebe, pleadingly.
'It could be dangerous here,' said Marcus.
'For whom?' I asked.
'I see,' said Marcus.
'Master,' begged Phoebe.
'The men of Ar, and the woman, and youth,' he said, looking over to the wall, 'remain on the breach.'
'Yes,' I said.
'Interesting,' he said.
'Master!' said Phoebe, suddenly, again. But this time, from the note in her voice, we turned about, instantly.
'You there, hold!' cried an angry voice, that of a guardsman in the uniform of Ar, hurrying toward us. His hand was on the hilt of his sword.
We turned to face him, separating ourselves. This permits outflanking, the engagement by one, the death stroke by the other.
Instantly the guardsmen stopped. He was then some four or five yards from us. 'You are armed,' he said.
'It is lawful,' I said. 'We are not of Ar.'
He drew his blade.
We, too, drew ours.
'You have drawn before a guardsman!' he said.
'Did you think we would not?' I asked.
'It is against the law,' he said.
'Not our law,' I said.
'What have you done here?' he asked. 'The flute girls have worked enough today,' I said. 'We have sent them home.'
'By whose authority?' he asked.
'By mine,' I said.
'You are an officer?' he said.
'No,' I said.
'I do not understand,' he said.
'You are Cosian,' said Marcus.
'I am a guardsman of Ar,' said a fellow.
'You are Cosian,' said Marcus.
'You have drawn a weapon against me,' I said.
'You are of the warriors?' said the fellow. He wavered. He, too, knew the codes. 'Yes,' I said.
'And he?' asked the fellow.
'He, too,' I said.
'You are not in scarlet,' he said.
'True,' I said. Did he think that the color of a fellow's garments was what made him a warrior? Surely he must realize that one not of the warriors might affect the scarlet, and that one who wore the grimed gray of a peasant, one barefoot, and armed only with the great staff, might be of the scarlet caste. It is not the uniform which makes the warrior, the soldier.
'There are two of you,' he said, stepping back a pace.
'Yes,' I said.
'Be off,' said he, 'before I place you under arrest.'
'Perhaps you fellows should go about in squads of ten,' I said.
'It is not necessary,' he said.
'No,' I said. 'I suppose it is not necessary.'
'Are you going to kill him?' Marcus asked me.
