I could not rid my mind of the sudden appearance of the rattling projections. Such devices, I supposed, might be common in places such as these. I had heard, too, of such things as blades and pits. Naturally then I was terrified that I must hurry ahead. Yet I reminded myself that I was not a free person, but only a domestic animal and thus, presumably, as long as I was docile, and obedient, and perfect in my service, and fully pleasing, I might hope to be spared. I do not here, incidentally, discuss the nature of slave traps, as they const.i.tute a different object of discourse. Some of these are rather benign devices, with no object more in mind than to discommode a free woman until the hunters arrive and collect her. Others, with coiled wire, with springs and steel teeth, generally designed for the capture of escaped male slaves can be quite cruel. Smaller, lighter versions of such traps exist for escaped female slaves. Within some of these devices, surrounded by the wire and blades, one cannot move without cutting oneself to pieces. I had once, in training, been carefully entered into one, and then left there, standing, for more than an hour. It helped to impress upon me, as did a thousand other considerations, physical and social, the hopelessness of escape for a female slave.

We crossed another such bridge.

"Hold," said the pit master.

Instantly I stopped, gasping, looking wildly about me. But he merely unlocked the bridge from its pegs behind us, drew it on our side of the opening, and locked it there, so that it could not be slid back, without being unlocked, from our side.

A few yards ahead I saw what appeared to be the opening to a large, cavernlike room. It was, it seemed, illuminated by lamps. We paused at its entrance. Yes, the light within it was from lamps, two of them, set on wall brackets. The lovely brunet slave extinguished her torch, thrusting it into a vat of sand near the entrance. The room seemed primitive. The walls were of simple stone, like those of the pa.s.sages. Within it, to one side, were some cupboards. Near its center was a roughly hewn table, with rude benches. There was a pitcher, and a trencher, and some clay vessels on the table. To one side there lay some boxes, and sacks. On the wall, near the boxes, there hung some ropes, some chains, and shackles. There were some switches there, too, and a whip. I could see, too, some rings here and there, on the walls, and on the floor. Two dangled from the ceiling. At one wall, chained in place, at our arrival they had been reclining or sitting, they were now kneeling in obeisance, were five women. There were some blankets by them. This it pleased me to see. To the left, in an oblique extension of the same wall, I could see several small, barred gates. These, it seemed, were kennels, carved into the rock. Behind the bars, two in chains, I could see three women. There was a brunette and two blondes. All were kneeling at the bars, heads down, in an att.i.tude of obeisance. In these three cells, or kennels, the three occupied cells, or kennels, I was certain that I detected blankets. Again I was pleased.

Further to the left, at the side wall there, rather back, and out of the way, some piled on others, were several small, stout slave cages. These were empty. They were, I conjectured, being stored here.

"Kneel," said the pit master.

I knelt and, my head down, saw my face not inches from a stout ring in the floor.

"You may lift your heads," said the pit master to the women who were, I gathered, his charges.

I then became aware that they might be kneeling upright, surveying me, appraising me, judging me, while I knelt before the ring, my head still fastened down.

"This is a new girl," said the pit master, in that slurring voice, almost like a natural force, water or lava, issuing from some aperture.

"May we speak, Master?" asked one of the women at the wall. She, like the others, was fastened to it by two chains, independently, one on her neck, one on her left ankle.

"Yes," said he.

"What is her name?" asked one.

"What is your name?" inquired the pit master.

"I do not know!" I said.

"Is it on your collar?" asked he.

He had not, it seemed, read the collar. He had, however, certainly carefully ascertained the piercing of my ears, which had apparently been of considerable interest to him, and he had, as I had lain helplessly bound before him on the walkway, with his large, rude boorish hands, or paws, if that is what they might better be termed, so heavy and hairy, and rather thoroughly, determined, traced and a.s.sessed my curves, "slave curves" as they are often called. But he had not, it seemed, read the collar. I supposed that my name was not all that important, or even if I had a name. After all, who cares what might be the name of a dog or horse? But, too, perhaps he could not read!

"Yes," I said. "I think so!"

"What is it?" he asked.

"I do not know!" I said.

"You were not told?"

"No," I said.

"You saw it?"

"Yes," I said.

"You cannot read?"

"No," I said.

"She is illiterate!" said one of the slaves.

"How insulting that she should be put with us!" said another.

"Beware," said the pit master.

"Forgive me, Master," she said, quickly.

"What was her caste?" asked one of the women.

"She never had one," said the pit master. "She has always been casteless."

"Ai!" said the woman, softly, in disbelief.

"So unutterably low?" asked another woman.

"Yes," said the pit master.

"What was her Home Stone?" asked a woman.

"She comes from a world without Home Stones," said the pit master.

I sensed that this information was met with disbelief. It was not my fault if I came from a world without Home Stones, whatever they might be!

"She is not from our world?" asked one of the women. It was one of those who were kenneled, the brunette. She was just within the bars, kneeling there. In her kennel, as in most, one, even a woman, cannot stand upright. I could see the shadows of the bars on her face and body. Her hands were on the bars of the kennel gate. I gathered that this was permitted.

"No," said the pit master.

"Master jests with his girls," said one of the women, reproachfully, one at the wall, in her chains.

"No," he said.

"I knew such a slave once," said one of the women at the wall. "She was sold in the same auction as I.

She brought a high price."

"They often do," said another woman, bitterly.

"Some men like them," said another. "They look for them in the markets."

"In some cities they are popular," said another.

"It is only a matter of supply and demand," said another. "There are so few of them."

"They are rare," said another. "But their numbers increase."

"More must be being brought in," said another.

"Yes," said another.

"Who would want a barbarian girl?" asked one of the women.

"There is obviously a market for them," said one of the others.

"I understand that men are quite strict with them," said one of the women.

"Yes," said another.

I trembled.

"What is that beneath her hair?" inquired one.

The pit master gathered together my hair gently, and lifted it, and held it, bunched, behind my head. I could feel the stress on the hundreds of tiny hairs at the sides of my head, taut, drawn back, but he did not hurt me.

"Yes!" said one of the women. "See! See!"

"Her ears are pierced?" asked another.

"Yes," said the pit master.

"Not only a barbarian, but a pierced-ear girl!" exclaimed another.

"Yes!" said another.

"Do not keep such a s.l.u.t with us!" cried one of the slaves.

"No!" cried another.

"No!" protested yet another, one from the kennels.

"I think I shall summon the leather worker," said the pit master.

"Master?" said one of the women, frightened.

"That the ears of all of you may be pierced, that adornments may be hung from them."

"No, Master!" cried more than one of the women.

"Forgive us, Master!" cried others.

They shrank back, those at the wall to the very rings to which they were chained, those in the kennels back in the kennels, well behind the bars.

I remained at the ring. I had been put there.

I was confident, though I may have been mistaken, of course, that the reaction to the threat of the pit master had not been one of unmitigated scandal and horror. I thought I detected something else which was involved. The feelings of the women, I gathered, were not unmixed.

To be sure, I did not doubt but what on one level they feared and dreaded the very notion of the piercing of their ears but, too, on another level, a much deeper level, I think they were deeply fascinated, and deeply stirred, by the idea. I think they found it disturbingly exciting, and arousing. I sensed this, seeing how some knelt back trembling, quivering, against the wall, and others lifted their fingers to their ear lobes, as though, even now, they might feel adornments fixed there. Their feelings with respect to the piercing of their ears seemed to me, in short, profoundly ambivalent. Did they sense, tremblingly, how exciting they might seem to men if they were so adorned, how much this might increase the desire which they might provoke in masters? And were they not, all, slaves? Did they not want to be exciting, beautiful, and desirable? Did they dare to conceive of themselves, however, being that exciting, that beautiful, that desirable? Did they not understand the perils and terrors which might be consequent upon such a thing, upon being so fiercely coveted, so fiercely sought, so fiercely desired? Were they prepared, in their hearts, to be such, to have so much demanded of them? Did they dare to be such, the first to be summoned forth from captive herds, the first to be a.s.sessed, the first to be chained? Were they not such as to be the first to be thrown to the furs? Were they not such that the whips snapped most fiercely about them? How could they dare to be such? Would they not swoon in terror, understanding how men might view them? Did they truly dare to be such as to be fiercely thrust to the surface of the sales block, to hear the men screaming with need, vying to own them? "Prepare the new girl some gruel," said the pit master.

"Yes Master," said the brunette, she who had held the torch.

The monster crouched down, near me. He undid the rope which ran from my bound wrists to my collar and brought it forward, between my legs, in front of me. I whimpered as his hand touched the interior of my left thigh. I felt stirred. How needful is a slave! I kept my head down.

I trembled. I muchly feared him. He then, the rope now before me, threaded it beneath the ring, again over my collar, once more under the ring, and then tied its circuit closed. It was now looped twice about the collar and ring. I could lift my head a little more, but not much. My collar, the double strand of rope taut, was about a foot from the ring.

I then felt him undo my bound wrists. These he brought before me and bound them there, tightly, crossed, before my body. My heart began to sink. I could hear the brunet slave, to one side, pouring some meal into a dish or bowl.

"Master?" I begged.

I feared that it needed now only that my hair be thrown forward, before my shoulders.

It was done.

I moaned.

I heard the brunet slave, behind me, at the table, pouring some water into a bowl.

"Would you prefer to be beaten tomorrow?" he asked me.

"No, Master," I said. I wanted to get it over with.

He went behind me, doubtless to the wall. In a few moments he returned.

I saw, on the flooring before me, the shadow of the whip, in his hand.

I watched the shadow, waiting for the lash to rise. When it descended I would shut my eyes.

I was pleased that I could see the shadow. Sometimes we do not know when the blows will fall.

It is so much harder then! Too, if we do not know the number of blows!

It is most merciful when we know the number of blows and they are delivered with predictable periodicity. Sometimes we must, as we can, count the blows. Sometimes, too, we must, as we can, if we can, state the reasons for the blows, if there are reasons for them. There are many ways, of course, in which discourse can figure in such episodes. "Why are you being beaten?"

"That I do not forget that I am a slave." Sometimes, too, we must beg for our punishment. It is terrifying to crawl to a man, the whip in one's teeth.

But I saw the whip put down on the stone beside me.

I nearly fainted. Was I not to be beaten? The free woman would never know, of course! But I recalled that the monster had a.s.sured the free woman that I would be punished. Again my heart sank. The men of this world do not give their word lightly. There would be no escape for me. I would be punished.

But what was the delay? I felt his hands on me and he turned me to my side, and then put me to my back, my head by the ring, tied to it by the collar. He bent over me. No, he must not, I thought. Please, no! I pressed up at him a little, weakly, with my bound hands. I could not have forced him away, of course, nor would I have had the courage to try. My gesture was no more than a tiny, futile, almost inadvertent protest. I hoped I would not be beaten for it. I even drew my fingers back a little. I turned my head to the side, in order that I not look upon his features. I was at his mercy. He could do with me as he wished. I belonged, I had learned, to the state, and in this place, I had learned, he was as the state. In this place then he was to me as master, with all privileges, rights, and powers, I helpless and nothing before them, that that entailed on this world. In this place, for all practical purposes, I was his. In this place, for all practical purposes, I belonged to him. He held my head, lifted it a little, and turned it back toward him.

I kept my eyes closed. I heard a snuffling, grunting sound. It was as though a beast bent over me. I could feel its breath upon me. Why did it not begin? How merciless would it be? Let it pity me! I was only a slave! Then it made a little noise, as of satisfied curiosity.

I did not understand this.

I heard the brunet slave now stirring the water and meal together.