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"Yes, Master," she said. She crawled to the men, on her hands and knees. She extended her hand to one of them, and looked up at him, with tears in her eyes. "Please touch Slave Beads, Master," she begged.
He took her by the hair and pulled her into the darkness. We did not retire that night until Slave Beads, on her knees, had begged the touch of each of my master's men. He himself was the last to grant her plea. When he had finished with her he put her again in the Sirik and threw her to the wall of the cliff. Eta went to her and, putting a rep-cloth blanket about her, held her and comforted her. "Poor slave," said Eta.
I, and the other girls, went to sleep.
"Run!" cried the man, lowering the torch.
I, and the other girls, sped, scattering, from the dirt line.
Some fifty yards from the line, in the darkness, between the straw huts, on their pilings, I stopped, and, wild, gasping, in the Ta-Teera, looked back.
Already the torch had been fixed in the ground. The slave girl who wore the rope of Thurnus on her throat as a collar leaned back against the man of my master. Her head was back on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed. His hand was tight on her body, counting the beats of her heart. He was calling the count, but I could not hear him.
I looked wildly about, and then ran further through the huts, down the long corridor between them. Then my hands were pressed against the smooth logs of the palisade surrounding the village. I pressed my body and cheek against the wood. I stepped back and, hands on the wood, looked up. The pointed tops of the palings were eight feet over my head. I turned about, my back to the logs, and looked back down the narrow dirt street. I could see the fire in the village's clearing, its light on the faces of the men about it. I saw the boys getting to their feet, eagerly.
"There is no place to hide!" wept Slave Beads, who was near me.
"We are slaves," I snapped at her. "We are meant to be caught."
I saw some of the boys spitting on their hands and wiping them on their thighs. This would improve their grip. The flesh of a girl would be less likely to slip from their hands.
More than one of them I knew wanted me. Bets had been taken on who would bring me as his slave for the night to the ring drawn about the torch, as they had, too, on the other girls. A big red-haired fellow and a smaller dark-haired fellow had bet on which of them would take Slave Beads.
I saw Chanda creeping into a hut.
Slave Beads turned away from me and fled about the interior perimeter of the palisade.
I followed her, and then darted among the huts. I almost died of fear when, suddenly, I heard, not feet from me, a bedlam of vicious snarling. I cried out, my hand before my mouth. Dozens of vicious eyes blazed at me from behind the stout bars of a sleen pen, one of several in the village. Snouts and teeth pressed at the bars. I stumbled back.
I ran again.
I did not see Marla or Eta, nor Lehna. Slave Beads, too, had fled elsewhere.
I did see a white ankle, not covered by a piece of canvas. It was Do
I heard a shout from the center of the camp. The hunters were now in pursuit.
"Do not be afraid, Do