I screamed with pain, awakening suddenly. I tried to get to my feet. I could not do so. My wrists and ankles seemed confined. There was something heavy on my neck. I got to my hands and knees. I could not believe my senses. I was collared, and naked and shackled. Then the lash fell again, and I cried out with misery, slipping to my stomach. I lay on a flooring of large blocks of fitted stone. My wrists were chained to one iron ring, my ankles to another. I felt wet straw beneath my body. The stones were damp. There were no windows in the room. The light was dim, being furnished by a tiny lamp in a small niche. The place was dank, and smelled of wastes. I thought it might be far below the ground. I was intensely conscious of the heavy metal collar I wore. There was, attached to it, as I conjectured, hearing the tiny sound of its movement and its clink on the stone beneath my body, a smaller piece of metal, perhaps a ring of some sort.

Then the lash, as I wept from the pain, struck me again and again.

"Please, stop!" I begged. "Please, stop!"

Then I no longer felt the disciplinary tearing of the leather at my flesh.

The gravity of this world was different from that of my own, being slightly less. I knew then I was no longer on Earth.

I turned, frightened, in the chains, to see who had struck me.

A strong woman stood there, perhaps some five feet ten inches in height and one hundred and forty pounds in weight. She was breathing heavily and, in two hands, held the whip tightly gripped. She was dark-haired and dark-eyed. She was muscular and strong, but her figure was striking. She wore a leather halter and tights of black leather. Her midriff was strikingly white, and her arms and legs. There was a golden armlet on her left arm. Her hair was held back by a leather band. She wore a heavy, studded belt, tightly buckled, and heavy sandals, almost like boots, with thongs. From her belt there hung a ring of keys and a coiled chain, with a snap. On her belt, toward the back, on her right side, in a snap strap, hung a pair of steel manacles.

I tried to turn away from her, for I was naked, but she drew back the whip and, suddenly, again struck me.

"You are a woman," I said, half turned from her, stung by the fierce stroke of her whip. There were tears in my eyes.

"Do not insult me," she said.

She then struck me again with the whip. I cried out with misery.

She then changed her position, walking about me, until she stood a few feet ahead of the forward ring, that to which my hands were chained. Again I tried to turn to the side, that I might not be so shamefully exposed to her.

"Kneel facing me," she said. "Spread your legs"

I did so, miserable with embarrassment.

"Free persons may look upon you as they please," she said.

"You speak English," I said.

"A little," she said, "not much. Some four years ago my superiors thought that it might be useful for me to learn the language. A female captive, a graduate student in linguistics, kept under close discipline, was acquired to teach me. When I had learned a sufficient amount she was disposed of."

"Slain?" I asked.

"No," she smiled. "She was intelligent and attractive. Thus we made her a slave and sold her. She was purchased by a strong master. She will serve him well."

"But you do not much use your English?" I asked.

"No longer," she said. "For a time we used it in the training of Earth wenches, slave girls. But now, from this facility, as from others, they are simply scattered, after two or three days' training, to various markets, sold, for most practical purposes, ignorant and raw. They are then forced to learn the language of their masters directly, as a child learns, not through the medium of their old tongue. The method is efficient. The girls become quickly acclimated to their chains and collars in a unilingual environment, that of their masters."

"Are you holding, here," I asked, "an Earth girl named Beverly Henderson?"

"Slaves have no names," she said, "unless it pleases the masters to name them."

"She is dark-haired and dark-eyed," I said, "very pretty, about five feet in height and ninety-five pounds in weight."

"Oh, the exquisite little beauty," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I wish that I had been able to get my hands on her," she said.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"I do not know," she said. "She and the others, hooded and chained, have already been separated and sent to various markets, to be sold. They will quickly learn to be superb slaves."

I looked at her.

"It was a lovely shipment," she said. "Masters will be pleased to own them."

I moaned. What a miserable fate awaited the lovely Miss Henderson and, of course, her fellow captitves, or slaves.

"You know nothing of where they were sent?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I am not privy to that information."

I shook my head in misery. Miss Henderson, the helpless little beauty, now totally in the power of men, could be anywhere on this world.

I lifted my chained wrists. "Why am I chained?" I asked.

"What a stupid fool you are," she said. Then she walked about me, whip in hand. "Yet you are a pretty one," she said. "To a woman you might not be unattractive."

Then she stood again before me.

I shrank back in the chains. I was acutely conscious of the clash of the steel on my wrists and ankles.

She approached me and. with the coils of the whip, tapped the metal on my neck. "This is a collar," she said. Then, with her left hand, she jerked at the metal piece attached to the collar. From the way it felt I gathered that it was, as I bad suspected, a ring. Then it fell back against the collar and against my collarbone. She then stepped back. and regarded me. Never had I been looked upon so objectively by a woman. "I think you will do very nicely," she said.

"Release me, please," I said.

She then struck me twice, viciously, with the whip.

I fell to my stomach on the stone and straw. I tried to cover my head with my chained hands. Five times more the whip fell, mercilessly.

"On your back," she said.

I rolled on my back, and lay, miserably, at her feet. She caressed the side of my body with the coils of the whip. "Yes," she said, "I think you will do very nicely. Now, again on-your knees, legs spread, before me!"

Then again I knelt before her, precisely as she had commanded, obeying her. Frightened, I lifted my eyes to those of my sturdy jailer. Her eyes frightened me. They were cruelly hard, uncompromising, dominating. Never in my life had I seen such inflexible will manifested in the eyes of a woman. I put down my head. I realized that her will was stronger than mine. I feared she would be strict with me. I trembled. I was afraid of her.

I felt the whip under my chin, lifting my head. Again I looked at her. "Do not be afraid," she said, soothingly, "Slave."

"I am not a slave," I said.

She stepped back, and laughed. She went to my left. The wall there had the shape of a large, conical arch. The area which would have been open, however, was closed by heavy bars, reinforced every six inches or so by sturdy, lateral crosspieces. In this wall of bars, itself also formed of bars and crosspieces, was a heavy gate. Beyond the bars and crosspieces I could see a corridor, some eight feet wide. On the other side of the corridor I could see another cell. As nearly as I could tell, it was empty. My jailer stood very straight and proudly, whip in hand, by the heavy gate. Her flesh seemed very white. I saw the keys and the coiled chain which hung at her belt and, toward the back, on the right side -in their snap strap- the steel manacles she carried.

"Prodicus," she called. "Gron!"

In a moment two extremely large and powerful men had responded to her call. They were dressed not unlike her, save for the halter and the leather band which bound back her hair. Their chests, bare, were large and broad. The chest of one was hairy; that of the other was smooth. Their arms and thighs were like iron. They carried no whips. One seemed Caucasian and the other Oriental. The Caucasian had shaggy, brown hair and the Oriental had had his head shaved, except for a topknot of black, shiny hair. They pushed into the cell, for she had apparently left the gate unlocked following her entrance. Or, perhaps, it had not been locked, considering the confinement of my chains. She spoke to them rapidly in a language I did not understand. I heard her use the expression `sleen'.