In a short while, at the public well near the chamber of justice, I had filled my water bags and collected the latest gossip. “Out of my way,” said a soldier, reaching down to splash water in his face. I deferred to him, which it seemed to me was advisable for a local date merchant. Besides he had had a difficult night of it in the desert. “Have you found the assassin yet?” I asked. “No,” he growled. “Sometimes I fear I am not safe,” I said. “Do not fear, Citizen,” said he. “Very well,” I said.

The search parties would recuperate during the afternoon and night, I had learned. There was little chance of picking up a subtle trail by moonlight. It was impractical to begin again, the men and animals exhausted, until morning.

That would give me a start, I speculated, of some fifteen Gorean hours.

It would be more than sufficient.

In the neighborhood of noon, moving slowly, in the yellow and purple striped burnoose, with sash, water bags at the flanks of my kaiila, sacks of pressed-date bricks tied across the withers, kaiila bells ringing, calling attention to myself and my wares, I left the oasis. Once, the lofty palms small behind me, I had to turn aside, to avoid being buffered by the return of the last of the search parties.

On a hill, more than two hundred pasangs north and east of Nine Wells, two days after I had left the oasis, I reined in, the kaiila turning on the graveled crest.

Below, in the valley, between the barren, rocky hills, I observed the small caravan being taken.

Two kurdahs were seized in the hand of a rider, by their frames, and jerked to the side on the kaiila, spilling their occupants, free girls, in a flurry of skirts, to the gravel.

Drovers and merchants were being herded, at lance point, to a side. A guard, holding his right shoulder, hurried by a lance tip, was thrust with them.

The packs of kaiila were being slashed, to determine the value of the merchandise carried, and whether it would be of value to raiders.

Some of these kaiila were pulled together, their reins in the hands of a rider.

One of the burdens tied among others on the back of one of the pack kaiila was transferred to another beast, one whose rein was held by the rider.

The hands of the free girls were bound before their bodies.

Their hands were bound at the end of long straps. The lengthy, free end of these tethers, then, was, by their captor, looped and secured about his pommel.

One man tried to break and run. A rider, wheeling after him, struck him in the back of the neck with the butt of his lance. He fell sprawling in the dust and rocks.

I saw a water bag being slashed, the water dark on the side of a kaiila it shifting and fearing, the water falling, soaking into the dust.

I saw other water bags thrown to the ground, before the cornered man.

Packs were cut from kaiila, their contents spilling on the ground. These were goods not desired. The kaiila, then, freed of reins and harness, with the flat of scimitars, and cries, were driven into the desert.

The two girls now stood naked in the dust, stripped by the blade of their captor. One of the girls had her hands, wrists bound, in her hair, pulling at it, crying out with misery. The other girl seemed angry. She looked at her bound wrists, her tether, as though she could not believe herself secured to the pommel. Her head was high. She had long, dark hair.

Their captor, who seemed to be chief of the raiders, mounted. He stood in his stirrups. He shouted directions to his men. The raiders, then, as one man, turned their kaiila, and, unhurried, rode slowly from the trail. Two of the men held the reins of two pack kaiila; another man, by the rein, pulled another beast, shambling after him. The leader, his scimitar across his saddle, rode first, his burnoose gentle, swelling in the hot wind, behind him. Tied to his pommel, stumbling, followed his two fair captives.

Behind, the men shouted. Some dared to raise their fists. Others went to the water bags.

On foot, on the trail, they would have only enough water to reach the tiny oasis of Lame Kaiila, where there would be for them doubtless sympathy, but little aid in the form of armed men. Indeed, it lay in a direction away from Nine Wells, which was the largest, nearest oasis where soldiers might be found. By the time word of the raid reached Nine Wells the raiders might be thousands of pasangs away.

I turned my kaiila and dropped below the crest of the hill. I had scouted the camp of the raiders last night.

I would meet them there. I had business with their leader.

“You work well,” I told the slave girl. The camp was abandoned, save for her.

She cried out. The heavy, round-ended pestle some five feet in height, more than five inches wide at the base, dropped. It weighed some thirty pounds. When it dropped, the heavy wooden howl, more than a foot deep and eighteen inches in diameter tipped. Sa-Tarna grain spilled to the ground. I held her by the arms, from behind.

Like the camps of many nomads the camp was on high ground, which commanded the terrain, but was itself concealed among scrub brush and boulders. There was a corral of thorn brush, uprooted and woven together, which served for kaiila.

Within it, now, were four pack kaiila. There were five tents, each of tawny, inconspicuous kaiila-hair cloth, each pegged down on three sides, each with the front, facing east, for the warmth of the morning sun, left open. These tents, typical nomad tents, were small, some ten feet in depth, some ten to fifteen feet wide; they were supported on wooden frames; the ground, within them, leveled off, was covered by mats. At the back the tents were low, stretching to the ground. It is at the backs that goods are stored. In a normal family situation the household articles and the possessions of the women are kept on the left side of the area, and the goods of the men, blankets, weapons, and such, are kept on the right. These goods, both of men and women, are kept in leather bags of various sizes. These, made by the women, are often fringed, and of various colors, and beautifully decorated.

I looked about; there was little difference between this camp and a typical nomad camp. One crucial difference, of course, was the absence of free women and small children. In this camp there was only a slave girl, left behind to pound grain and watch kaiila.

I smiled. This was a camp of raiders.

I released the girl.

She turned about. “You!” she cried. Alyena was fully dressed. She wore a long, bordered skirt, with scarlet thread at its hem, which swirled as she turned; she wore a jacket, tan, of soft kaiila-hair cloth, taken from the animal’s second coat, which had a hood, which she had thrown back; beneath the jacket she wore a cheap, printed blouse of rep-cloth, blue and yellow, which well clung to her.

At her throat was a metal collar, no longer mine.

I observed the drape of the skirt on her hips, the sweet, delicate, betraying candor of her blouse.

Her master had not given her undergarments. What need has a slave for such? She wore slippers.

She looked at me, frightened, her eyes very blue, the hair loose and lovely.

“I see, pretty Alyena,” I said, “you now wear earrings.”

They were golden loops, large, barbaric. They fell beside her neck.

“He did it to me,” she said. “He pierced my ears with a saddle needle.”

I did not doubt it, in this out-of-the-way place. The operation, usually, of course, is performed by one of the leather workers.

“He put them on me,” she said. She lifted her head, and brushed one. I could see she was proud. “They are from his plunder,” she said.

Alyena, as an Earth girl, acculturated to earrings, did not object to them, not in themselves. If she had had objections doubtless they would have pertained to other matters, such as the fact that, against her will, her ears had been pierced; that she had not chosen the rings, but he; and that he, as a master, giving her no choice, not considering her feelings, because it had pleased him, had simply put them on her, making her, his slave, wear them. But she did not seem displeased. She had a healthy flush to her features. Alyena, though she seemed apprehensive, did not seem unhappy.