Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter 37 WHAT OCCURRED IN THE PIT

"You are a pretty she-property," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"Perhaps I will feed you," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"You may approach," I said, "on all fours."

"Thank you, Master," she said. She crawled toward me, on all fours, in the narrow pit. I put small pieces of pemmican in my hand. She fed from my hand. I put more pemmican in my hand. I then lowered my hand. I felt her kissing, nibbling and licking at my hand, taking the pemmican from it. I put more pemmican in my hand and the lowered it still further. I felt her hair on my body. She nibbled and kissed at my hand, delicately removing pemmican from it, her head following my hand, as I lowered it yet further, and then, with extreme delicacy, with tenderness and gentleness, she nibbled and kissed at my body. "Master desires his slave," she whispered.

"No," I said, restraining myself. I thrust her back. "Go to your place, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, and returned to her palce.

"I must remain alert," I said. "I must keep my senses sharp."

"Yes, Master," she smiled.

I noted that she knelt now in her place, rather than sat there. I did not effect anything cirtical. I had merely ordered her to return to her place. I had not specified that she was to sit there.

I threw her the water bag. She kissed the spike, softly, tenderly, watching me. Then, unexpectedly, mischievously, she quickly swirled her tongue about the spike, and kissed it again. She then took it deeply into her mouth and lifted the bag, holding it with both hands.

"It is ot necessary to drink like that," I said.

She put her head back yet further, and drank more.

Holding the water bag as she did, high, with her head back, arched her back and lifted the line of her breasts, beautifully. She had turned subtly, displaying herself to me in profile.

I observed how she drank.

"You are a lascivious slave, Mira," I informed her.

She turned her belly to me, still drinking. The water bag now prevented her from seeing me.

Unable to see me, with her hands high, and occupied, she could be easily approached and, unexpectedly, embraced, or attacked.

I wondered if I should have permitted her clothing. Perhaps if I had given her some clothing she would have been less distracting. Yet as a lsave is clothed her clothing is often less of a concealment than it is a device to make her seem more vulnerable, more helplessly, whether she wishes it or not, tantalizingly attractive. The clothing of a slave is usually little more than an invitation to its removal, and her rape. The collar, too, of course, and she is already in a collar, a leather-rope collar, makes her exquisitely attractive, indicating her status, that she is only a lovely, owned she-animal, to be done with as one pleases.

"It is enough," I said, angrily.

She brought the water back down. "I did not mean to drink too much water," she said, innocently. She replaced the leather cap on the spike of the water bag.

I took the water bag back from her, and put it beside me. "Sit," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said, and sat down, with her back against the other side of the pit.

She began to play with the narrow, dangling, braded rawhide rope ends of her leather-rope collar, that which I had put on her in the vicinity of the compound of the Waniyanpi. She fiddled with them, and sometimes jerked on them, showing me, thustly, as though inadvertently, that the collar was still fastened on her.

"Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

She looked at e, and, as though not knowing what she was doing, drew on the rope ends, holding them out a bit from her body. This demonstrated, as though thoughlessly, the possible leash function of the rope ends.

"Yes?" I said, irritably.

"I am sorry I drank too much water," she said.

"You are doubtless tired," I said, "and should rest. Lie down, on your side."

"Yes, Master," she said, and lay down, on her side, her head away from me, one of her feet drawn up more than the other. She lay looking at the side of the dirt pit, her head in the crook of her left arm.

"You are a pretty slave," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"The rawhide rope on your ankle looks well," I told her. This was the rope which I had tied on her ankle earlier, before I had ordered her into the pit. Its other end was looped twice about the hobbling log.

"My master put it on me," she said. "Thank you, Master." Women look well in bonds. The purpose of this bond, however, was her own protection. I wondered if she understood that. Perhaps she thought it was merely to hold her in the pit with me. But my will alone could have done that. She was a slave.

She stretched a bit. How maddeningly desireable are slaves!

If, outside the pit, she shoulc panic, and try to run, she might, by the rope on her ankle, be kept from doing so; that might save her life; similarly, if she should be paralized with fear and find herself unable to move, it might be used to drag her back into the pit. Also, of course, if, unfortunately, she should be seized, it might give us some time to encourage her captor, with blows, and lances and cries, to release her, before it could break and she could be carried off.

"Must you lie like that?" I asked.

"It is the shape of my body, Master," she said. "It is my hope that you do not find me displeasing."

Light filtered into the pit.

Similar pits, though much smaller, are used for the capture of the taloned Herlit. In the case of the Herlit it is dragged bodily into the pit. There it may be delt with in various ways. It may be strangled; it may be crushed beneath the knees, with the hunter's weight; or it may be put on its belly, its back to be broken by a swift blow of the foot. This avoids damaged to the feathers. It is not easy to kill such a bird with the bare hands, but that is the perscribed methodology. It is regarded as bad form, if not bad midicine, to use a weapon for such a purpose. An adult Herlit is often four feet in height and has a wingspan of some seven to eight feet. The hunter must beware of being blinded or having an artery slashed in the struggle. The fifteen tail feathes are perhaps most highly prized. They are some fourteen to fifteen inches in height, and yellow with black tips. They are particularly significant in the marking of coups. The wing, or pinion, feathers, are used for various ceremonial and religious purposes. The breath feathers, light and delicate, from the base of the bird's tail, are used, with the tail feathers, in the fashioning of bonnets or complex headdresses. They, like the wing feathers, may also be used for a variety of ceremonial or religious purposes. The slightest breeze causes them to move, causing the headdress to seem almost alive. It is probably from this feature that they are called "breath feathers." Each feather, of course, and its arrangement, in such a headdress, can have its individual meaning. Feathers from the right wing or right side of the tail, for example, are used on the right side of the headdress, and feathers from the left wing or left side of the tail are used on the left side of the headdress. In the regalia of the red savages there is little that is meaningless or arbitrary. To make a headdress often requires several birds. To give you an idea of the value of Herlits, in some places two may be exchanged for a kaiila; in other places, it takes three to five to purchase a kaiila. We were not today, however, hunting Herlits.

"Master is looking at me," she said.

I looked away from her, angrily. Then I looked back at her, again.

She lay naked in the pit, before me, on her left side, her head in the crook of her left arm, her right leg, the braided-rawhide rope on its ankles, drawn up a bit more than her left. She was exquisitly curvaceous. Doubtless she knew well how she lay before me. I wondered if she should be beaten or caressed, whipped or raped.

Sometimes slaves are skillful in immeshing masters in the toils of their beauty. How often do they conqure us with their softness! How often are we the vicuims of their delicious, insidious chamrs and wiles! What drums and alarms are found, upon occasion, in their glances and smiles. What battalions can march in a tearful eye and a trembling lip. What potent strategies can lurk in the line of a breast or the turn of a hip. How a bent knee and a bowed head can wrench a man's guts. Helplessness and vulnerablility seem strange shields; how implausible is gentleness as an insturment of diplomacy; what an unlikely weapon is her tenderness. Who is most powerful, I wondered, the master or the slave? Then I realized that it is the master who is most powerful for he may, if he wishes, put her on the block and sell her or dispose of her in any way he pleases. In the end, in the final analysis, it is he, and not she, who holds the whip. It is she who, in the end, must kneel at the feet of a master, completely at his mercy, her will, in the final analysis, nothing. It is she who, in the end, in the final analysis, is owned, and must please, absolutely.

"Master is still looking at me," she said.

"Be quiet!" I said. I had heard a noise.

Cautiously I crawled to the larger of the two openings in the ceiling of the pit.

"It is an urt," I said, "curious. It has now gone away."

I returned to my place.

It can be nerve-racking, waiting in the pit. In our hours in the pit we had had several occasions for concern. Twice we had heard the single note of the fleer from Cuwignaka, signaling the passage, overhead, of flighted ones, the Kinyanpi. Once a tabuk, a prairie tabuk, tawny in the Barrens, singlehorned, gasellelike, had grazed nearby. It had browsed within feet of us. In a sense this had pleased me, suggesting that our quarry might be in the vicintity; in a sense it had displeased me, suggesting that abundant, alternative game might also be in the vicinity, the tabuk tending to travel in herds. Some varieties of prarire tabuk, interestingly, when sensing danger, tend to lie down. This is counterinstinctual for most varieties of tabuk, which, when sensing danger, tend to freeze, in a tense, standing position and then, if alarmed further, tend to scurry away, depending on their ability and speed to escape predators. The standing position, of course, as it is the case with bipedalian creatures, tends to increase their scanning range. The response disposition of lying down, apparently selected for in some varieties of tabuk, tends to be useful in an enviroment in which high grass is plentiful and one of the most common predators depends primarily on vision to detect and locate its prey. This predator, as would be expected, normally attacks from a direction in which is shadow does not precede it. Any tabuk, of course, if it is sufficiently alarmed, will bound away. It can attain short-term speeds of from eighty to ninety pasangs an Ahn. Its evasive leaps, in the gorean gravity, can cover fromthirty to forty feet in length, and attain heights of ten to fifteen feet. Once we had heard two notes of the fleer, but, that time, as it had turned out, the source of the signal had not been Cuwignaka but, to our frustration, an actual fleer.

I sat back, against the rear of the pit.

I looked at the hobbling log, to my left, and the rope attached to it, coiled atop it. I looked to the walls of the pit, to the ceiling, with the poles and sod, and at the light, filtering downward into the pit, and then again I looked at my naked slave.

How shamelessly she lay before me!

Surely she knew how she lay before me. She lay before me as a curvaceous slave before her master.

I forced myself to look away from her. I counted several Ehn. Idly, in the dirt, beside me, I traced designs. Then I discovered they were cursive Kegs, the common Kajira sign, sometimes called the staff and fronds, that sign which marks the thigh of so many enslaved Gorean beauties.

I looked back at the girl.

"Do I distract you?" she asked.

"No," I said, angrily.

"Oh," she said.

She squirmed a little, apparently merely to change her position.

I made an angry noise.

"Master?" she asked.

"It is nothing," I said.

"Oh," she said.

I observed how her toes were pointed, this curving her calves deliciously. Her belly, too, was sucked in a bit, accentuating the loveliness of her breasts and the flare of her hips. How lasciviously, how desirably, she lay before me, and yet with what seeming indifference, with what a seeming innocence, with what a seeming lack of awareness! she sighed, and smiled, and looked away. How inadvertently she had seemed to do that. The she-sleen! I clenched my fists. She knew ell what she was doing. She lay before me with te lascivious, apparent nonchalance of a slave who, supposedly unaware, knows well that her master's eyes are upon her.

"Master?" she asked.

"Rest," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, and smiled. "If master should desire aught, let his slave be summoned. She will respond with instant and perfect obedience."

"It is well," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

She then closed her eyes, pretending to sleep.

I regarded her. I could not take my eyes from her. I owned her. Well was I pleased that she had fallen to my leather.

She opened her eyes, and smiled.

"Rest," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, and again pretended to sleep. There was a tiny smile about the corner of her lips. How shamelessly she lay before me, and yet with what an apparent lack of awareness!

The she-sleen was cunning, and delicious. Well did she knw what she was doing to me. I looked away from her and began to sweat. Again I clenched my fists. I must not permit myself to be diverted from the business of the day.

I looked back upon the slave.

She again closed her eyes, pretending again to sleep. She squirmed a little, and made a tiny noise, as though in weariness. I saw that she expeced to conquer.

"Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You do not seem to be sleepy," I observed.

"No, Master," she said.

"But it does not matter, whether you are or not," I said.

"No, Master," she said.

"For you are a slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Crawl to me on your belly," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, smiling.

"Now kneel before me," I said, "with your knees wide, with your wrists crossed behind you, touching, as though bound."

"Yes, Master," she said. She was then before me, in a posture of my dictation, and, as it is said, bound by my will.

I withdrew an object from my pouch.

"Master?" she said.

I held the object before her. She regarded it with dismay. "I have alread chewed the sip root within the moon," she said.

"Open your mouth," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then thrust the object into her mouth.

"Chew it well," I said, "and swallow it, bit by bit."

She grimaced, at the barest taste of the object.

"Begin," I told her.

She began.

"Not so quickly," I told her. "More slowly. Very slowly. Very, very slowly. Savor it well.

She whimered in obedience.

She did not need the sip root, of course, for, as she had pointed out, she had had some within the moon, and, indeed, the effect of sip root, in the raw state, in most women, is three or four moons. In the consentrated state, as in slave wine, developed by the caste of physicians, the effect is almost indefinite, usually requiring a releaser for its remission, usually administered, to a slave, in which is called the breeding wine, or the "second wine." When this is administered she usually knowns that she has been selected for crossing with a handsome male slave.

Such breedings commonly take place with the slaves hooded, and under the supervision of the master, or masters. In this way the occurrence of the breeding act can be confirmed and authenticated. Sometimes a member of the caste of scribes is also present, to provide certification on behalf of the city. Usually, however, in cities which encourage this sort of registration it is sufficient to bring the papers for stamping to the proper office within forty Ahn. Such rigor, however, is usually involved only in the breeding of expensive, pedigreed slaves. Most slave breeding is at the discretion of the privae master or masters involved. Slaves from the same household incidentally, are seldom mated. This practice is intended to reduce the likelihood of intimate emotional relationships among slaves. Furthermore, make and female slaves are usually kept separate, female slaves commonly performing light labors in housholds and male slaves working in the fields or on the grounds. Sometimes, to reward male slaves, or keep them content, or even to keep them from going insane, a female slave is thrown to them. this is sometimes a girl of delicate sensibilities from the house who has not been perfectly pleasing; she then finds herself thrown naked to work slaves. In slave matings, since most crossings do not take place within the same household, a stud fee is usually paid to the master of the male slave. The active ingrediet in the breeding wine, or the "second wine," is a derivative of teslik. In the matter of bitterness of taste there is little to choose from between raw sip root and slave wine, the emulsive qualities of the slave wine being offset to some extent by the strength of the concentrations involved.

"I have finished it," gasping the girl, shuddering.

"Open your mouth," I said, "widely."

I forced her mouth open, even more widely, with my thumbs and forefingers. I examined her mouth, closely. The sip root was gone.

She still held her wrists crossed, touching, behind her. She was still bound, as it is said, by the master's will.

"You are unbound," I told her. She removed her hands from behind her back.

She looked at me, knowing that I was her master.

"Lick and wipe your mouth," I told her. She ran her tongue over her lips, and wiped them with the back of her right forearm.

If I should choose to kiss her I did not desire to taste the residue of sip root.

"Hands on thighs," I said, "head down."

She complied. It is pleasant to command women.

"Do you think that you will conquer?" I asked.

"No, Master," she whispered.

"Would you like more sip root?" I inquired.

She shook her head, rigorously. "No, Master," she said.

She had not needed the sip root, of course.

It is occasionally useful to have the slave perform arbitrary and unpleasant acts. It helps to remind them that they are only slaves, and are subject to the master's will.

"Lift your head," I said.

She did so.

"Please me," I said.

"After what you have done?" she asked. "After what you made me do!"

"Please me," I said, "-perfectly."

"Yes, Master!" she said, frightened. She then began, anxiously and fearfully, desperately afraid, to kiss and caress me.

I then looked down at her, in my arms, snuggled against me, lifting her lips to mine.

"Who will conquer?" I asked her.

"You," she said, "you, Master!"

"You will see to it, won't you?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, desperately.

It is occasionally useful to enlist the woman's aid in her own conquest. If she is not conqured, authentically, and in her own understanding, and to the master's satisfaction, she is subjected to severe punishment, and may even be slain. Accordingly, with all of her will and feeling, she bends every effort toward her own defeat. She does not rest until she knows herslef, and her masters know her, to be naught but a submitted, vanquished slave.

I kissed her, and her lips, open, hot, seemed to melt beneath mine. How well her slave's body, hot and naked, yielding, felt in my arms!

"Be cruel to me," she begged. "I am yours. I am owned. I am a slave!"

Some women can resist, for a time, some masters, but what women can long resist both herself, turned against herself, by the maaster's will, and the master, as well? Waht a splendid ally the woman makes, in her own conquest! Should she not be used more often? Too, when a woman has aided in her own conquest, her defeat, brought about in part by her own will, has a special memorableness for her, a special, self-revelatory significance for her. She has, in her defeat, of her own will, acknowledged herself a slave. This understanding, and acknowledgement, openly made, is often the difference in a woman between joy and fulfillment, and egotism, hostility and frustration.

"Who has conquered?" I asked the woman.

"You have conquered, completely, Master," she said. "I am a slave. I am yours alone."

"Strictly," I said, "you belong to Cuwignaka. It is your use which is mine."

"Yes, Master," she sobbed.

"You are his alone, as of now," I said. "But if he should give you away, or sell you, then you would belong to another."

"To you," she wept. "To you!"

"To anyone," I said.

"Yes, Master," she sobbed.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I am a slave, only a slave," she wept.

"Yes," I said.

"Yes, my Master," she sobbed.

"Hold!" I said. "Listen!"

She clutched me, her eyes closed.

I heard the two notes, as of a fleer.

"Do you not hear it?" I asked.

"It is a fleer," she said. "It is only a fleer."

She moaned as I thrust her from me. I licked my lips. I could still taste a little of the sip root, kissed from her mouth. It was bitter.

She extened her hand to me. "Master!" she said.

I crouched in the pit. I lifted my head, peering through the larger of the two apertures in the ceiling of the pit.

Again we heard the two notes, as of a fleer, more insistently.

I stood then in the pit, my head and shoulders outside of the opening.

"Master," she said.

"It is not a fleer," I said.

I crouched down again, then, in the pit. I yanked at the rawhide rope, twice looped, tied, in her right ankle. It was tight. Its other end was looped twice about the hobbling log. I then seized the woman, my left hand in her hair, my right hand in her collar, and pulled her up, beside me.

"Master!" she cried, in misery.

I thrust her up, through the opening.

"Do you see it?" I demanded.

"Yes," she said, after a moment. "It is very high."

"Is it circling?" I asked.

"It is hard to tell," she said. "I think maybe it is."

"Good," I said. "Then it is probably hunting." The leisurely, high-altitude hunting circles of our prey sometimes manifested a diameter of pasangs.

"Does it see you?" I asked.

"I do not think so," she said.

"Move a little, walk about," I said. I saw the rawhide tether shift.

The distance vision of our prey would be truly remarkable. It is particularly good at the detection of movement. It is said it can see an urt move across open ground at a distance of two pasangs. It is said it can detect an irregular movment of grass, not correlated with wind direction and velocity, from a distance of one pasang. I was confident we could rely on its vision.

"It is circling," she said.

"Does it see you?" I asked.

"Now," she said, frightened. "Now I think it does."

"Do not lose track of it," I said. "Do not appear to notice it, but do not lose track of it. Your life could depend on this. Note exactly, as well, the location of the opening."

"I know well where it is, Master," she said. "Do not fear."

"The matter must be close," I said. "You understand that?"

"Yes, Master," she said, "yes!"

Our quarry must not be allowed a great deal of time for investigation.

"It sees me!" she moaned.

"Good!" I said. "Do not appear to much notice it."

"It is coming!" she said. "It is coming, very swiftly!"

"Do not appear to much notice it," I said.

"I am frightened!" she said.

"Breathe deeply," I said. "Keep your body ready, a little tense, but not tight."

"It is coming very swiftly," she said.

"do not lose track of it," I said. "Keep in mind clearly, as well, the location of the entrance of the pit."

"I am frightened!" she cried.

Suddenly the tether seemed to jerk from the pit and then, in a moment, it had jerked tight. I heard her cry out with misery. I thrust my head and shoulders from the pit and saw her, on her belly, in the grass, her right leg stretched out, almost straight, behind her, the tether tight on it. She had tried to run.

I hoisted myself out of the pit, screaming and cursin, waving my arms. The quarry, startled at my unexpected appearance, veered away, passing within feet of me, the great shadow suddenly between me and the sun, and then the sun again blazed on the late-summer grass, tumultuous and whipped, twisted, by the passage of the quarry. the sweat on my face felt cold, from the wind which had rushed past.

"On your feet," I said.

Tremblingly, she rose to her feet.

I looked after the receding figure in the afternoon sky.

"I could have been killed," she said.

"You lost us the quarry," I said.

"I could have been killed," she said, trembling.

"You are only a worthless slave," I told her. "You have lost us the quarry."

"Forgive me, Master," she said, her head down.

"Into the pit, Slave, and be quick about it," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I followed her into the pit. She knelt at one end, near the larger opening, her head down.

"Forgive me, Master," she whispered.

"Another such performance and you shall be well punished," I informed her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"It may return," I said.

She shuddered.

In a few Ehn, as I had hoped, we heard again the two notes, as of the fleer.

"It is perhaps hungry," I speculated.

She lifted her head, her eyes wide with terror.

"I di dnot think he would forget you, my luscious, nude bait," I said. I regarded her. Most women, for some reason, stand in mortal terror of such things. This is particularly true of women who have some familiarity with them, who know something of their swiftness, their savagery and their ferocity, who have some knowledge of what they can accomplish.

"Do not make me go out of the pit again," she begged.

"Out," I told her.

Fearfully, scarcely able to move, she crawled out of the pit.

"It is there," she said, "in the sky. It is ciercling. Isense myself the center of that circle."

"Splendid!" I said.

"Let me hide," she begged. "Let me hide!"

"No," I said.

She suddenly screamed and the tether, length by length, leaped from the pit and then, again, jerked taut.

"Idiot slave!" I cried.

"I'm tied! I'm tied!" she wept.

I stood up, lifting my head and shoulders above the entrance to the pit. She was sitting on the grass, at the end of the tether, weeping hysterically. "I'm tied," she cried, fighting to thrust the tether from her ankle.

The quarry was still in the sky.

By the tether I pulled her to within a few feet of the entrance.

"Get on your feet," I cried, "Slave!"

Unsteadily, trembling, her head lifted, she rose to her feet, her hands out to help her maintain her balance.

"I'm frightened," she wept.

"Where is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," she wept. "It's gone! It's gone!"

"No," I said. "It will not be gone."

"I can't see it," she cried, joyfully. "I can't see it!"

It is not gone," I said. "It is somewhere. Be alert!" Suddenly the hair stood up on the back of my neck. The quarry had seen the fear responses of the girl. Twice she had tried to run. Now it seemed to have disappeared.

"It is gone," she said.

"It has alighted," I said.

"What am I to do?" she asked.

"Scan in a low circle, about you," I said.

The quarry knew the girl's location. The girl did not know its location.

There is, within normal limits, and assuming the dimension is under surveillance, a direct correlation between height and detectability. It is for such reasons that an upright carriage increases the capacity to detct the appraoch of a predator or the position of game. It is for such a reason that the larl commonly crouches when stalking prey.

"I see nothing," she said.

"Be alert," I said.

I wondered how long it would take, say, a startled tabuk or ground animal, ofa burrowing sort, to regain its composure, to return to its normal activities.

"It is gone," she said.

"Do not relax your vigilance," I cautioned her. "It will presumably be moving with great speed and will be some ten to fifgeen feet in the air. You will not see it, probably, given your height, and the grass, until it is within a few hundred yards of you. Even so, however, this will permit you ample reaction time. You have a great advantage, you see, in that you are expecting it."

"I think it is gone," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"It would have come by now, surely," she said.

"Perhaps," I said. "Perhaps not."

The sky seemed placid, the clouds slowly changing their shapes in the air currents. I watched them for awhile. I supposed that a tubuk, my now, might have returned to grazing.

"It is coming!" she cried, suddenly.

"Into the pit!" I cried. "Hurry!" There had been no mistakeing the urgency in her voice.

"I cannot move!" she cried. "I cannot move!"

I threw myself half out of the pit and with my right hand seized her right ankle, and then, with my left, seized her left ankle. She screamed, throwing her hands before her face. Bodily I dragged her down beside me. Almost at the same instant, flashing over the opening, I saw immense, extended talons closing, and therushing passage of a huge, dark shape, the grass leaping up and seeming to almost torn up, almost uprooted, following it.

She clutched me, shuddering.

"You ahve not been pleasing," I told her. I then thrust her from me.

"Is it gone?" She begged, sobbing.

"It will be back," I said. "Stay near the opening."

I unlooped the tether on her left from the hobbling log. She watched me, frightened. Teh other end was still tied tightly on her right ankle. I then went to the other end of the pit, where the smaller opening was, and uncoiled the line which lay there, formerly atop the hobbling log.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"Wait," I said.

She lay downin the pit, making herself as low, and small as possible.

We did not wait long.

We heard a sudden, striking, thudding sound. It was almost as though half of a kaiila had been suddenly dropped to the earth. It was a sound which, when one has once heard it, one is not likely to mistake it for another. The vibrations were felt through the walls of the pit.

"It is here," I said.

The girl, looking up, suddenly screamed with fear. A large, bright, round eye peered through the opening in the ceiling of the pit.

A beak, yellowish, some two feet in length, scimitarlike, poked into the pit.

It withdrew.

We heard a taloned foot cutting at the sod and poles over our head.

"We are safe here!" cried the girl.

"No," I said.

The beak agian entered the pit and pushed downward. It poked against the girl's body. She screamed. It snapped at her and she shrank back, to the opposite end of the pit, covering her head, screaming. This excited the predator. Half of its head thrust into the pit, after her. Then it screamed, too, a shril scream, and, withdrawing its head, it began to cut and tear at the roof of the pit. I saw a talon emerge through the sod roof of the pit. I saw a talon emerge though the sod roof. I saw poles lifting and splintering.

In this moment, its attention fastened on the girl, on tearing away the obstacle which lay between him and her. I thrust through the smaller opening and, with a swirl of rope and two hitches, fastened the hoggling log on its right leg. I then screamed and thrust at it, and it spun about. I fended its beak away with my forearm.

"Well done!" cried Cuwignaka, sprining up from the grass. He interposed himself, and a lance, between me and the predator. The beak snapped the lance off short. Hci, swinging ropes, crying out, emerged, too, from the nearby grass. Cuwignaka and I backed off. The bird, smiting its wings, darted towards us but, screaming, fell short on its belly in the grass, feathers flying about. It only then realized it was impeded. It turned about, wildly, the leg, and rope, turning under him. Cuwignaka struck it on the beak with the shaft of the lance, distracting it. Hci, running up, struck it with the coils of rope in his hand. The bird, then, rising up, wings beating, took flight, jerking the hobbling log from the pit, tearing it up through the sod roof and poles.

"Strong! Strong! Marvelous!" cried Cuwignaka.

He had not understood the strength of such a creature.

Struggling, wings beating, screaming, the bird, lunging and falling, and climbing again, fought the weight. It struggled to perhaps a hundred feet in the air and then, bit by bit, the log swinging, fighting, it began to lose altitude. Cuwignaka and Hci ran beneath it, in the grass. I wiped sweat from my forehead. I was elated.

I returned to the pit, its roof now half torn away. In one end of it the girl crouched. I leaped down into the pit beside her. "On your belly," I told her. I then pulled her right ankle, to which the tether was still tightly attached, high, up behind her. With some of the tether, close to the knot on her right ankle, I tied her hands together behind her back. I then looked down upon her, she now on her side, with her wrists tied behind her, fastened to her right ankle, pulled up, closely behind her. She was well secured. I then, with extra ropes taken from the pit, went to aid Cuwignaka and Hci.