They knelt before me, back on their heels, head down, arms lifted and extended, wrists crossed as though for binding.

“I submit myself,” said each, in turn.

They need not be bound. They need not be collared. They need not eve have spoken. The posture of submission itself, assumed by them before me, constituted them my slaves.

They were now mine.

“Slave,” said I to the first girl, dark-haired, “head to the sand, speak.” “Yes, Master,” she said.

“We were the slaves of Hesius of Laura,” she wept. “We are paga slaves. Our master dealt with Sarus, Captain of the Rhoda, of Tyros. We were to be rented to the camp of Bosk of Port Kar. We were to serve wine. The men of Tyros, when the wine had been drunk, were to storm the camp.” “Be silent,” I told her. I gazed upon the second girl, a blond. “Head to the sand.” I said, “speak.” She plunged her lovely hair to the sand. “The plan went well,” she said. “We served wine to all, and, even, secretly, to the slave girls of the camp. Within the Ahn all were unconscious. The camp was ours.” “Enough,” I said. “You,” I said, to the third girl, a redhead, “speak.” She put her head, too, to the sand, and spoke, rapidly, trembling, the words tumbling forth. “The entire camp was taken,” she said. “All with ease, were locked in slave chains, both men and women. The wall about the camp was thrown down, the camp destroyed.” “Enough,” I said. I did not command the fourth girl to speak as yet. I wished to think. Much now seemed more clear to me, things that the girls had not spoken. It was not difficult to imagine that it was not simply to capture Bosk of Port Kar, or to do injury to those of Port Kar, that the Rhoda of Tyros had come to Lydius, and upriver to Laura. She was a medium-class galley. She had a keel length of about one hundred and ten feet Gorean, and a beam of about twelve foot Gorean. She would carry some ninety oarsmen. These would be free men, for the Rhoda was a ram-ship, a war ship. Her crew, not counting officers, beyond oarsmen, would be some ten men. She was single masted, as are most Gorean war galleys. How many men she would be carrying below decks, concealed, I had no idea. I would speculate, however, judging the business on which I conjectured the Rhoda had come north, that she would have carried more than a hundred below decks, doubtless all skilled warriors.

There was bigger game in the forests.

Tyros and Ar, of long standing, are enemies.

Marlenus, I feared, for once in his life, had miscalculated.

I turned to the fourth girl. She was a black-haired, light-skinned beauty. “Head to the sand,” I told her.

She put her head down. Her shoulders shook.

“You will answer my questions,” I told her, “promptly and exactly.” “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“How many men do those of Tyros have?” I asked.

She trembled. Her knees moved in the sand. “I do not know exactly,” she wept. “Two hundred?” I conjectured.

“Yes,” she said, “at least two hundred.”

“The ship, the Tesephone, which was here,” I said, “was it taken, by a prize crew, downriver?” “Yes,” she said.

“Of how many men?” I asked.

“Fifty, I think,” she said.

The Tesephone had forty oars. That would have manned each oar. They had men to spare.

“What happened,” I asked, “to my men, and slaves?”

“The men,” she said, “ with the exception of one, whose head wore the swath of panther girls, were chained in the hold of the Tesephone. The women, the four slaves, and he who wore the swath of panther girls, were taken, with the majority of the men of Tyros, into the forest.” “What was the destination of the Tesephone?” I asked.

“Please do not make me speak!” she cried.

I began to unfasten the tether that bound her with the other girls. “Please!” she wept.

I tool her naked in my arms, unbound, and began to carry her into the river. “No!” she wept. “I will speak! I will speak!” I held her, standing behind her, by the arms. We stood in the river. The water was at my hips, and higher on her.

I saw a fin turn in the water and move towards us. The river shark, commonly, does not like to come into water this shallow, but it had been feeding, and it was aroused. It began to circle us. I kept the girl between us.

The girl screamed.

“What is the destination of the Tesephone?” I asked.

The circles were becoming smaller.

“Laura!” she screamed. “Laura!”

“And whither then? ”I asked.

The shark moved toward the girl, smoothly, flowing, liquid in its flawless menace. But its tail did not snap for the swift strike. It was belly down, dorsal fin upright. It thrust its snout against the girl’s thigh, and she screamed, and it turned away.

“It will join the Rhoda at Laura!” she screamed.

The shark moved in again, similarly, and bumped against her leg, and turned away.

The shark thrust twice against us again, once with its snout, another time with its tail and back.

“The next time, I expect,” I said, “It will make its strike.”

“Your ship and the Rhoda will go to Lydius and thence north to an exchange pint!” she cried, “have mercy on a slave!” she shrieked.

I saw the shark turn again, this time from some fifteen yards away. I saw it roll onto its back, its dorsal fin down.

“For what purpose do they proceed to the exchange point?” I asked.

“For slaves!” she cried.

“What slaves!” I cried, hold her by the arms. “Speak swiftly! It makes its strike!” “Marlenus of Ar, and his retinue!” she cried.

I threw the girl behind me, and, with the heel of my sandal, as the shark thrust towards us, with great force, stopped it.

It turned thrashing about in fury.

I took the girl by the hair and, holding her bent over, as one holds a female slave by the hair, waded up the beach.

Her entire body was trembling. She was shuddering, and moaning.

I threw her to the sand with the other girls, and again fastened her, with them, in throat coffle.

“Stand,” I told them. “Stand straight, heads high. Place your wrists behind your back.” I then picked up the slave silk they had worn and, under the throat tether of each, thrust the silk. Then, with the binding fiber I had earlier removed, I fastened their wrists behind their backs.

The Tesephone, most of my men aboard, chained in her hold, was to make rendezvous with the Rhoda at Laura. The two ships would then proceed to Lydius, and thence to an exchange point on the shore of Thassa, north of Lydius. The bulk of the attackers had proceeded through the forest, to surprise the camp of Marlenus. They had taken with them Rim and the four girls. They had doubtless taken Rim, knowing him from Laura as an officer of mine. My men would not have revealed to them who else might be officer. Thurnock, as a common seaman, was doubtless chained in the hold of the Tesephone. That might be desirable. My men there were thus provided with an officer. It is a reasonably common practice to separate officers and men, in order that prisoners have less unity and direction than might otherwise be the case. Rim had been taken northward because he was an officer. The girls had been taken northward because they were lovely. The trip to the exchange point through the forests would be long. Rim, Grenna, Sheera, Tina and Cara were thus with the attacking force. The others, including Thurnock, had been incarcerated in the hold of the Tesephone I stood on the beach, and looked at the ruins of my camp. I saw the long mark in the sand, where the keel of the Tesephone had been dragged down to the water. I, Bosk of Port Kar, was not pleased.

There were some fifty men of Tyros, as a prize crew, with the Tesephone. The crew of the Rhoda herself, though I expected not all of her oars would now be manned, would have been somewhere in the neighbor hood of a hundred. The slave girl whom I had questioned on these matters had conjectured that the attacking force had numbered in the neighborhood of two hundred men. I suspected that some one hundred and fifty, or more, men were now moving towards the camp if Marlenus. They had left eleven men behind at my camp, to pick up any of my men who, unknowingly, might return to the camp. They had not expected any, really, apparently, for their security had been poor. It had cost them. These eleven men I did not leave behind me. It is a Tuchuk custom, not to leave an enemy behind one.