"You give me great pleasure, Master," she said.

"Be quiet," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

A quarter of an Ahn later I held and kissed her, gently, letting her subside at her own rhythms. "What are you?" I asked her.

"A slave, Master," she said.

"Whose slave?" I asked.

"Yours, Master," she said.

"Are you happy?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she whispered. "Yes, Master."

The Palms of Schendi had now begun to come about, about Point Schendi.

The yards swung on the masts, capitalizing on the wind. The oars dipped and lifted.

We were still some seven or eight pasangs from the buoy lines. I could see ships in the harbor.

We would come in with a buoy line on the port side. Ships, too, would leave the harbor with the line of their port side. This regulates traffic. In the open sea, similarly, ships keep one another, where possible, on their port sides, thus passing to starboard.

"What is the marking on the buoy line that will be used by Ulafi?" I asked Shoka, who stood near me, by the girls, at the bow.

"Yellow and white stripes," he said. "That will lead to the general merchant wharves. The warehouse of Ulafi is near wharf eight."

"Do you rent wharfage?" I asked.

"Yes, from the merchant council," he said.

White and gold, incidentally, are the colors of the merchants. Usually their robes are white, trimmed with gold. That the buoy line was marked in yellow and white stripes was indicative of the wharves toward which it led. I have never seen, incidentally, gold paint on a buoy. It does not show up as well as enameled yellow in the light of ships' lanterns.

I could see some forty or fifty sails in the harbor. There must then have been a great many more ships in the harbor, for most ships, naturally, take in their canvas when moored. The ships under sail must, most of them, have been entering or leaving the harbor. Most of the ships, of course, would be small ships, coasting vessels and light galleys. Also, of course, there were river ships in the harbor, used in the traffic on the Nyoka.

I had not realized the harbor at Schendi was so large. It must have been some eight pasangs wide and some two or three pasangs in depth. At its eastern end, of course, at one point, the Nyoka, channeled between stone embankments, about two hundred yards apart, flows into it. The Nyoka, because of the embankments, enters the harbor much more rapidly than it normally flows. It is generally, like the Kamba, a wide, leisurely river. Its width, however, about two pasangs above Schendi, is constricted by the embankments. This is to control the river and protect the port. A result, of course, of the narrowing, the amount of water involved being the same, is an increase in the velocity of the flow. In moving upstream from Schendi there is a bypass, rather like a lock system, which provides a calm road for shipping until the Nyoka can be joined. This is commonly used only in moving east or upstream from Schendi. The bypass, or "hook," as it is called, enters the Nyoka with rather than against its current. One then brings one's boat about and, by wind or oar, proceeds upstream.

The smell of spices, particularly cinnamon and cloves, was now quite strong. We had smelled these even at sea. One smell that I did not smell to a great degree was that of fish. Many fish in these tropical waters are poisonous to eat, a function of certain forms of seaweed on which they feed. The seaweed is harmless to the fish but it contains substances toxic to humans. The river fish on the other hand, as far as I know, are generally wholesome for humans to eat. Indeed, there are many villages along the Kamba and Nyoka, and along the shores of Lake Ushindi, in which fishing is the major source of livelihood. Not much of this fish, however, is exported from Schendi. I could smell, however, tanning fluids and dyes, from the shops and compounds of leather workers. Much kailiauk leather is processed in Schendi. brought to the port not only from inland but from north and south, from collection points, along the coast. I could also smell tars and resins, naval stores. Most perhaps, I could now smell the jungles behind Schendi. This smell, interestingly, does not carry as far out to sea as those of the more pungent spices. It was a smell of vast greeneries, steaming and damp, and of incredible flowers and immensities of rotting vegetation.

A dhow, with a red-and-white-striped sail, slipped past us on the port side.

The bow of the Palms of Schendi had now come about, and the peninsula of Point Schendi dropped behind us, to port. The impassive, painted eyes, white and black-pupiled, of the huge, brown kailiauk head at the prow now gazed upon the harbor of Schendi.

It lay dead ahead, some four pasangs.

The blond-haired barbarian looked across the deck to Sasi. "Mistress," she whispered to Sasi, who stood to her as first girl.

"Yes, Slave," said Sasi.

The blond lifted her bound wrists, the line running up to the golden ring in the left ear of the kailiauk head, through it, and back to the deck. "Why are we bound like this?" she asked.

"Do you not know, you little fool?" asked Sasi. I smiled, for Sasi was actually a bit shorter than the blond girl. I would have guessed they would have weighed about the same. Sasi may have weighed a little more. Neither was a large girl.

"No, Mistress," said the blond girl. She was deferential to Sasi. If she had not been, she might have been whipped to within an inch of her life.

"Rejoice," said Sasi. "You have been found beautiful enough to be put at the prow."

"Oh," said the blond girl, uncertainly. Then she knelt back, on her heels. She smiled. Then she looked up, uneasily, at the ring in the ear of the kailiauk head, that proud adornment surmounting the prow of the Palms of Schendi, through which her wrist rope was strung.

"On your bellies," said Shoka to them, and the two girls lay on the deck.

He first crossed the blond's ankles and tied them together, and then he did the same for Sasi. This is done to improve the line of a girl's body, as she hangs at the ring.

"Up," said Shoka to them, and they again knelt. Both were now ready to be put at the rings, the blond at the left, Sasi at the right.

We were now some three pasangs from Schendi.

A light galley, two-masted, with yellow sails, was leaving the harbor, far to port.

Coming about Point Schendi, behind us, some two pasangs astern, was a round ship. She flew the colors of Asperiche. Far to starboard we saw two other ships, a medium-class round ship and a heavy galley, the latter with red masts, both of Ianda.

"What will be done with us in Schendi? asked the blond-haired girl of Sasi.

"I do not know what will be done with me," said Sasi, "but doubtless you will be marketed."

"Sold?" asked the blond.

"Of course," said Sasi.

Uneasily the blond girl squirmed a bit in her bonds, but they held her perfectly.

"Do not fear," said Sasi. "You will learn to obey men with perfection. They will see to it."

"Yes, Mistress," said the blond. And then she glanced at me, and then, quickly, looked away. I continued to regard her. She knelt back as she could, her small ankles roped, a bit frightened, lifting her upper body. She displayed herself well. She trembled. She, an Earth girl, knew herself now subjected to the scrutiny of a Gorean male. She did not dare not to display herself well. She did not wish to be kicked or beaten.

Yet, as I regarded her, I saw more in her body and beauty than the mere intelligence of a collared slave.

I saw something, incipiently, of the joy and pride of the slave girl, the girl who knows that though her body is being placed in bondage her womanhood, paradoxically, is being freed.

I continued to regard her. Surely, at the beginning of the voyage, it never would have occurred to Ulafi to have put her at the prow. Better than that she would have been chained in the hold, to a ring, or caged on deck, the tarpaulin thrown over the cage, that she might not detract from the splendor of his entrance into his harbor. But Ulafi and Shoka had, in the voyage, accomplished much with her. She was now, incredibly enough, sufficiently beautiful to be found acceptable for the prow of the Palms of Schendi. What a subtle thing is a woman's beauty. How little it has to do, actually, generally, with such matters as symmetry of form and regularity of features. It eludes scales and tapes; mathematics cannot, I think, penetrate its mysterious equations. I have never understood beauty; but I am grateful that it exists.