Time Slave

25

For eleven days Brenda Hamilton had been owned by the Dirt People.

It was now late at night, almost toward morning after a night of a full moon. The insects were quiet. The birds, which began to cry at dawn were not yet active. The wooden plug, which had been forced into her, and secured by thongs, irritated her. Ugly Girl, who slept near her, had been similarly humiliated. In the darkness Hamilton put forth her hand, and felt, some six inches from her face, the logs of the kennel. It was a yard high and a yard wide, and some twenty feet long. The floor was also of logs, smoothed at the top, but separated by some four inches, giving access to the dirt. The logs were fastened in place by mortise and tenon joints, fitting over stakes first driven into the ground. The mortise was not open to the inside of the kennel. Hamilton and Ugly Girl could not lift the logs from the tenons, as the logs, in addition to their weight, projecting, were anchored under the front and rear of the kennel. The floor of the kennel was, thus, formed of bars of wood, in between which lay dirt. Over the dirt was thrown a straw of barley stalks. Ugly Girl and Hamilton shared the-kennel with four ewes, the other sheep being penned outside. The ewes were pregnant and were penned at night. The kennel, when not secured, opened into the general sheep pen.

Hamilton was curious that the insects were now quiet. She could tell by Ugly Girl’s breathing, that the simple creature was not asleep. She did not, however, speak to her. One could not, even though Ugly Girl understood some of the language of the Men, easily communicate with her. She could not even form the sounds of the language of the men. She was stupid.

Hamilton turned on her back, dry eyed. The wooden plug hurt her. She clenched her fists in the darkness.

On the first night, after she had been, in the afternoon, locked with Ugly Girl in the kennel, she had heard the heavy door of the kennel being unfastened. She had crouched within. Then she had been ordered out. She had crawled out on her hands and knees, to be seized by the hair by a reeling farmer and dragged after him to the drinking hut. The Dirt People, from barley, half crushed and germinated, made a simple bread. This they cut into small pieces, and soaked in water. The process of fermentation was initiated by air-borne yeasts. It took only twenty-four hours to make a brew. Sometimes they strained it through cloth; at other times they drank the fermented mash, thick with barley hulls soaked loose from the crude bread. Hamilton was startled. She had not realized the immediacy, the simplicity, the naturalness of the relation between grain and beer; yet they were almost as naturally consanguine as the stone hammer and the flint knife, and as expectable; bread and beer lay at the foundation of the agricultural revolution; perhaps it was only beer, Hamilton thought, that tempted men to give up the hunt, that lured them to the slavery of the soil; or, more likely, it, the alcohol, was the drug which kept them in their fields, which broke them and tamed them, in the deliriums of which they could, in sorrow and mock hilarity, drown the dreams of freedom and the pursuit of game. He who worked bent in the dirt, poking at the soil, under the sun, his body aching, might, at night, lose himself in drunken stupor, forgetting the heritage of the hunt, keeping him in the village another night, to waken again to the dirt, the stones and seed, the beating sun, and the sticks with which he scratched at the earth. She wondered if it were not for the alcohol men might have gone mad or fled. It gave them the narcotic wherewith to endure their lot.

Hamilton well remembered, and bitterly, the night in the drinking hut.

The Dirt People were not hunters, she soon learned, though they might be but a few generations separated from the game trails. They did not look at her as did Hunters, even those of the Weasel People. Their looks frightened her, but not as did the looks of hunters. They seemed small, avaricious, venal. They even seemed, leering at her beauty, furtive. It seemed they might be afraid of something. When a hunter had looked upon her as a mere female, it had terrified and excited her. Even when she had drawn back, trembling, from a hunter she had felt the tension the delicate erecting, the lifting, of her tiny clitoris, against her will offering itself, and herself, to his mastery. But here she did not feel the tension, or the sudden, frightened suffusion of warmth throughout her belly, the smaller body’s spontaneous readying of itself for penetration, for submission to a dominant animal. She only felt cold and miserable. She looked at them, from face to face. She suddenly understood, sick, that they were about to do something secretive, something sly. She understood, suddenly, that her beauty was something which, for some reason, was forbidden them. She tried to run for the entrance of the hut, but was caught and thrown back to the center of the men. Some of them laughed. Their eyes glistened. Before a hunter she had felt a helpless doe before a lion, who in his innocent might, his innocent cruelty, ferocity and joy, would wreak devastation upon her, overwhelming her, devouring her, until, helpless, she begged for mercy, crying herself his. But before these men, somehow so different, her fear was not that with which she might have faced a hunter, even one of the Weasel People. It was the fear with which she might, naked, kneeling back against a wall in a dungeon, hands apart, chained to it, have observed the timid, then bolder, approach of rodents. One of the men seized her. Then, as they drank and watched, she was handed from man to man. They made jokes about her as she was penetrated. They hurt her, for she did not desire them. They were quick, and brutal. She was a receptacle only, unwilling, miserable, into which they swiftly emptied the pleasure of their bodies. When she lay, looking into his eyes, her arms held, in the hands of the leader, he only then finished with her, there was, suddenly, a great shout. She was thrown to one side. He scrambled to his feet, frightened, trying to pull his garment about him.

In the entrance to the hut there stood a terrible figure. Hamilton, her hand flung before her mouth, screamed. In the figure’s right fist was a handful of sprigs, with red berries. The metal face, horned, feathered, painted, striped, with yellow and purple, regarded her. In the figure’s left hand was a yellow stick, surmounted by a skull. He was very tall, and naked, gaunt and bony, save for a cord and strip of cloth. Through the slits in the bronze face, of hammered metal, the eyes looked upon her, in fury. On the cheeks of the horned bronze, engraved in the metal, were mystic signs. The figure’s body, too, was covered with such signs, tokens heavy with magic, yellow and purple, tattooed into the skin in patient, agonizing rites, the results of deliberately inflicted wounds, kept open, methodically contaminated over a period of weeks with colored earths. About his neck was a string from which hung small bags of herbs; to the same string, pendant, some four inches in width, hung a round disk of hammered bronze; on this disk was the representation of a personage, one bearded and of dreadful mien, many times the size of life, sitting on a great seat, handing a stalk of barley to a tiny man, reaching upward to take it. At the cord at his waist, too, on strings of woven grass, hung the bones of two hands. These were painted yellow. He uttered a great cry of wrath. He lifted the yellow stick with the skull high in the hut. The men, miserable, moaning, unable to look up, fell back before him. He thrust the handful of sprigs, with red berries, at Hamilton, and shook it. She was crouching down. She shrank back, shuddering. The figure turned away from her and regarded the men. They cringed before him, shrinking small. None met his eyes. Hamilton, the attention of the figure no longer focused on her, on her hands and knees, crawled to the side of the hut, and knelt there, leaning sick, frightened, against the mud and poles. The gaunt figure in the bronzed mask turned on the men, berating them. They looked down. The voice of the man in the bronzed mask was mighty in its denunciation, in its indignation, its outrage, in its condemnation. Suddenly the leader of the men in the hut, furtively looking up, blurted out words, and pointed at Hamilton. She looked up to see him pointing at her. The other men, supporting their leader, blurted their assent to whatever he had said. Hamilton, who did not even understand the language of the Dirt People, shook her bead, negatively. “No,” she said in English, and in the language of the Men. “No, No!” The tall, gaunt figure turned on her and looked down upon her. She shrank back against the mud and poles. “No,” she said. “No!” The impassive mask, the eyes cold behind it, looked down upon her. “No,” whispered Hamilton, and then looked down. The tall figure turned away from her. He said something, decisive, to the men in the hut, and then left the structure. None of the men left the hut. The men looked to one another. They seemed more confident now. And; too, they looked upon her, angrily. She looked down, and away. After a short time the tall, gaunt figure returned. No longer did he carry the handful of sprigs or the stick, surmounted with a skull. He carried, this time, a wizard stick, yellow, wrapped with cord, with feathers dangling from it. The men formed a circle in the hut, one point on the circumference of which was occupied by Hamilton, now ordered to stand, while, within the circle, stood the tall, gaunt figure. He began to chant, a monotonous, repetitive chant, which was taken up by the men. Sometimes he closed his eyes; he began to turn and sway; the men, too, in their bodies, reflected the rhythm of the chant; then, within the circle, the gaunt figure, swaying, chanting, began to watch the stick which he held in his hand; so, too, did the men; Hamilton, too, in spite of herself, watched the stick. Then, to her horror, the stick, though it was moved by the tall, gaunt figure, seemed to hesitate and lift itself; obviously he controlled the stick, but, in the manner in which his attention was focused on it, and that of the men, there was almost an illusion that the stick, like a snake, moved of its own accord; the gaunt man, and the others, chanting, watched the stick; it lifted its tufted, feathered end, as though quizzically, and, as though it might have had eyes, or nostrils with which to smell, it seemed to peer at them, or to take their scent; it quivered, alert; it regarded the men, turning slowly about the circle; sometimes it lingered on one; meanwhile the chant continued, sometimes growing more intense, more frenzied, louder, sometimes less intense, more subdued, softer. The stick prowled the circle, like an animal, trying to smell out. something; the men, chanting, watched it with apprehension; Hamilton was terrified; twice the stick prowled the circle; twice it passed her; the second time it lingered longer; as the stick neared her the chant became more intense, louder; “No!” she said; then the stick passed her again, and she almost fainted, fearing only that it would, in its circle, return again, pausing before her, marking her out. The stick paused then before the leader of the men in the hut; he could not chant; sweat broke out on his forehead; he was terrified; then, as his knees almost buckled, the stick, as though it had not yet found what it wanted, left him, continuing its circuit; as the stick approached Hamilton this time, the chanting became ever more frenzied, louder; it rang in the hut; “No!” she cried; the stick paused before her, quivering; “No!” she cried; then it passed her, but only a yard or so; the chanting had become less, more subdued; the stick turned back, to again look upon her; “No!” she wept. “No!” The stick stopped before her, quivering. “No!” she cried. The chanting was now wild, insistent, powerful, overwhelming, irresistible. No longer did the stick quiver. Hamilton looked upon it with horror. It pointed to her.

The tall, gaunt man cried out a single word; the chant stopped; the stick was again only a stick.

Two men seized Hamilton by the arms and, as she wept, head down, dragged her from the hut.

They thrust her into her kennel, with the ewes, the straw and Ugly Girl, and locked her within.

The next morning Hamilton was not permitted to leave the kennel with Ugly Girl for work. She was kept locked within. Throughout the morning, crouching inside, through a crack at the door, she looked out, into the compound. At noon the women came for her; the men were not with them; even the young, dark-haired girl, the beauty of the village, was with them; the younger women, under the direction of the older women, dour, and in cold fury, bound Hamilton’s wrists, crossed, above her head to a post; then the women of the village, with bundles of switches, lashed her; then they loosened her from the post and knelt her down; they then shaved her head with a bronze knife; the older women then fitted her with the wooden device, thrusting it deep in her and thonging it tightly in place, tying the knots behind the small of her back; when it was fixed in place one of the older women pointed to it and then, lifting a handful of switches, threatened her; Hamilton was not, under threat of punishment, to remove the device; it was hers to wear; she was then clothed in a long, straight dress of wool; it was sleeveless, but came to her ankles; she was then sent to the fields, under supervision, to dig in the sun; the dress was hers when out of the kennel; she would not wear it within the kennel, lest it be soiled; that evening, as a matter of precaution, on the decision of the older women, one of the wooden devices was also fastened within Ugly Girl; one of the men had been observed looking upon her; Ugly Girl, too, was fitted with one of the long, woolen garments, for use out of the kennel; her head was not shaved, however, nor was she beaten; Ugly Girl did not care for the long garment; it discomfited her muchly, more so than it did Hamilton; Ugly Girl had worn hitherto next to her skin only the soft freedoms of tanned hides and furs; the inhibiting, scratchy, hobbling skirt of the Dirt People, thought fit to conceal the bodies of females, their shames, disgusted her. Hamilton looked at her bloodied, cut head in a bowl of water, and wept; how ugly she was; one of the older women then poked her; that she be up and about her work, that she take her digging stick and go to the fields; the young, saucy girl with her flow of dark hair, waited to conduct her; Hamilton followed her guide to the fields; she walked with difficulty in the long, tight dress, with small steps, her body sore about the wooden device within her; the men did not look at her as she walked among them; once she passed the tall, gaunt man, now without the bronzed, horned mask; she did not lift her eyes to him; shamed, carrying her digging stick, she went to the fields.

It was now late at night.

Hamilton lay in the kennel, stripped, the wooden device within her.

This morning her head had been again shaved. So, too, had been that of Ugly Girl. But this time the older women had not hurt her. They had only shaved her head.

Hamilton could tell by Ugly Girl’s breathing that she was awake, but she did not speak to her. She seldom spoke to Ugly Girl. Ugly Girl was stupid. Hamilton wondered why Ugly Girl was awake. She wondered why the insects had become quiet.

There had been a full moon.

Hamilton, with Ugly Girl, had participated, in their way, in the ceremony. They had stood far back, with the children, holding, like them, two bars of bronze, which, repeatedly, they struck together. The moon had bathed the fields in white light. There had been incantations and chants. In the fields, turning, twisting, leaping, holding up barley shoots to the sky, to the moon, had been the tall, gaunt man. The gaunt man had then cried out a command, his arms lifted. To Hamilton’s amazement the villagers had then put aside their clothing and, openly, lying in the furrows of their fields, engaged in sexual congress. While this was occurring, the tall, gaunt man, with great solemnity, had cast barley seed about. Something similar, four days ago, had been done with her. In the sheep pen, before the rams and ewes, under the supervision of the tall, gaunt man, the leader of the Dirt People had stripped her, placed her on her hands and knees, removed the wooden device and used her; it had caused her only pain as she was sore from the wood which had been within her; after he had been finished with her, two of the older women had again reinserted the device, thrusting it in and thonging it more tightly than ever, again knotting it behind the small of her back; they had then made her hold her arms up and had pulled the long, tight garment again over her body; she had then been set to work carrying water. In the ceremony of this night, however, neither she nor Ugly Girl were involved, other than, as the children, in striking the bars together. Only one suitable female of the village, strangely, was not put to her back in the dirt, her face to the moon. That was the young village beauty, the saucy, dark-haired girl. She, white-faced, sat alone on a wooden stool in the fields. No one touched her. She wore white wool. Her hair was combed. A white flower was put in her hair. She seemed frightened.

When the couples rose from the furrows, Hamilton regarded them closely. She saw nothing of the shame, or furtiveness, which she might have expected in them. One older woman suddenly ran to the girl on the stool but, before she could touch her, the tall, gaunt man, with a wave of his arm, warned her away. The older woman began to weep, but a man took her by the arms and pulled her away. The young girl on the stool, so beautiful in the white wool, the flower in her hair, said nothing to the older woman. White-faced, she stared across the barley fields.

When most of the villagers had returned to the compound, Hamilton, Ugly Girl, and the children, had accompanied them. The tall, gaunt man, and certain of the other men of the village, had remained behind in the fields, with the girl in white wool.

Hamilton could not sleep. Ugly Girl, too, for some reason, was not asleep.

Only one of the villagers had been kind to Hamilton, a young man gangling, little more than an adolescent with long hair; he was tall, but not powerfully built. While she had worked in the fields he had once brought her water. Another time he had given her a small flower. She smiled. Had he been a bunter, he would have torn the wood from her body and forced her to serve his pleasure. He had given her a flower. He had wanted her to like him. He had tried to please her. He had put himself at her mercy, and she only a shaven-headed, forbidden, shamed slave girl. How naive he had been, so sweet, so foolish. Did he not know that he was a man, and she only a woman? Why did he put himself at her mercy, not her at his? The males of the Dirt People, she conjectured, had forgotten their manhood. It had been mislaid in the ceremonies. The tall, gaunt man, perhaps, had taken it. But she had not wished to hurt the young man. Moreover, she was touched by the sweetness of the gesture. But how could she tell him that she was a woman, and, truly, could love only a man, not a boy in a man’s body? She had taken the flower, and had thanked him as she could, nodding her head, and smiling. Too, she had said thank you in English, and expressed gratitude, as well, in the language of the Men, that words might be uttered. He had smiled, reddened, and turned away. She had watched him go. She fixed the flower at the neck of her garment. An older woman, working near her in the field, took the flower from the garment and threw it away.

Ugly Girl made a sudden, soft noise, of warning.

Hamilton tensed. But she heard nothing. Ugly Girl took the scent of the air. Hamilton could imagine her, crouching in the kennel, the nostrils in that wide, flat nose distended, the eyes half shut, concentrating every fiber of her awareness on the still, night air.

Then, after a moment, she heard the sounds of footsteps, soft, furtive, outside.

Then there was the sound of fumbling with the leather that bound the door bolt in place. The door of the kennel swung open. Hamilton could see the poles of the sheep pen, the stars, framed in the small square opening, and, too, silhouetted in the opening, dark, the horns of the painted bronze mask.

She shrank back on the straw. One of the sheep bleated, softly. The man was then quiet, motionless, as though listening. But there was no other sound.

He whispered to her. She did not respond. Then, again, more insistently, more harshly, he repeated himself. She had learned in her days with the Dirt People certain words of their language, simple commands, expressions for common objects, the name by which she was addressed, which expression was also used for a ewe. “Come forth, Ewe,” said he. She crept back on the straw. She felt Ugly Girl behind her. The man, his frame filling the doorway, crept forward. She felt his hand close about her ankle. His grip was unusually tight. “Make no sound,” he said. He dragged her on her belly from the kennel. Outside the kennel, holding her by the arm, he dragged her to her feet. Holding her, he dragged her to the door of the pen, which he opened, and then closed. She was helpless. Over her shoulder, with a sudden start, she noticed Ugly Girl slipping from the kennel, swiftly, silently. The man thrust her along, stumbling, with him. “Make no sound,” he said again to her. His grip, above her elbow, on her left arm, was tight. He took her from the compound, slipping through the gate. The fingers of her left hand began to feel numb. He pulled her toward the barley fields, away from the compound. Soon she knew her screams would not carry to the compound. “Make no sound, Ewe,” he told her. Silently, dragged sometimes losing her footing, she accompanied him. He took his way across the fields. In the center of the fields was a large, rectangular stone. Hamilton had seen it before but had thought little of it. They took their way near this stone. Before it, he stopped. Near the stone was a small wooden stool. On the stone, on her back, arched over it, her arms over her head, bent back, elbows bent, a wrist fastened on each side of the stone, lay the young girl. She was stripped naked. Her ankles were tied widely apart, knees bent, an ankle fastened on each side of the stone. Between her legs, its point facing her, lay a long, bronze knife. The white moonlight streamed down upon her. She struggled, and whimpered. The gaunt man regarded her for a moment, holding Hamilton. Suddenly Hamilton felt sick. The girl, she understood now, for the first time, was being raped by the moon. She was intended as a virgin sacrifice. The girl struggled, and regarded the gaunt man wildly. The bonds held her, easily. Hamilton looked at the knife, and trembled. Doubtless, after the moon’s rape, or that of a god, it would not do to return the girl to the village; she would then be different; doubtless she would not then be simply another village woman, to be profaned by the touch of a common digger. In the morning, the moon or god finished with her, Hamilton sensed, the girl, perhaps drugged with beer, would be slain. The knife lay ready. She saw the girl’s wild eyes; surely she was not reconciled to her fate; if she had, earlier, had a belief in the moon, or the god, clearly she no longer held that belief; but that did not matter; in the morning all that would matter would be that others held the belief, or pretended to hold it; she might have lost her faith, repudiating it as her heart detected the falsity of its tenets, but it mattered little if others kept theirs, or pretended to; in the morning it would not be the truth that would matter but the bronze knife; truth, Hamilton surmised, was a feeble weapon, compared even to a knife of bronze. What would the truth matter when the gaunt man, with bloody hands, lifted the heart from her body?

The gaunt man, in the mask, turned away from the girl bound in the moonlight, tied over the altar, and pulled Hamilton behind him, making his way across the furrows, to the grass on the other side of the fields.

The girl on the altar was not a despised person, or a lowly one, saving that she was female, and thus fit for sacrifice. She was the prize of the village. Only the most beautiful, the highest born, would be dared to be offered to the moon or the gods.

Hamilton knew, with mixed feelings, that she was safe from such a fate. She, a despised slave, would not be deemed fit for such sacrifice.

On the other side of the fields, the gaunt man thrust Hamilton down to her belly in the grass, and then knelt across her legs. Even if she cried out she was too far from the village to be heard. She felt the man’s fingers fumbling at the small of her back, in the moonlight undoing the knots. He did not cut the thongs. She realized then that he would, when finished, replace the wooden device. It would be as though nothing had happened. She wondered how often he would come for her, ordering her from the kennel, in the darkness. She lay on her belly, her cheek on the grass; she clutched at the stalks of grass with her small hands; she felt the knots undone; with his fingers he pulled at the device; she felt it slip free. He rolled her on her back; she, opened, breasts, belly, face bared, an exposed slave, looked up at him; he crouched over her; the moonlight streamed down upon her slave nudity; the bronze mask, horned, hideously painted, leaned toward her. She screamed; the body fell forward, struck with great force, the mask lost in the grass.

Hamilton scrambled to a position half crouching, half kneeling, her hands on the grass. Then she knelt, aghast, covering her body as best she could with her hands.

The young man was half crouched down, his hands still on the handle of the bronze ax, the head of the ax buried in the skull and brain of the tall, gaunt man.

Then, with his foot, pressing, and pulling upward, he freed the ax. He stood there, looking at Hamilton.

He was white-faced.

He turned the body on its back. The sightless eyes stared like glass at the moon. The face, Hamilton saw, was mediocre, but ugly; there was something sly about it; without the mask, it seemed not so much forbidding and powerful, as sly and weak, mediocre and vicious. It was the face of a man who had found a way to live, but not by hunting, not by digging.

Hamilton cried out. Two figures emerged from the darkness. Even in the darkness she knew with what sort of men they dealt. They had appeared as if from nowhere, lithe, silent, swift, powerful, menacingly purposive, armed. “Run!” she cried to the young man. “Run!” The strangers had appeared from downwind. They did not speak. The young man, so foolish, lifted the ax. “They are men!” she wept. “You are a boy! Run! Run!” But he was determined to defend her. “Run!” she cried. “Run!” She watched him struck to his knees, and then to his belly. He lay, his head broken, in the grass. “No,” she wept. She was scarcely conscious of the leather strap being tied about her throat. She saw the head of a weasel tied at the belt of the man who secured her. By the strap, his fist six inches from her neck, half choking, she was jerked to her feet. In the distance, across the barley fields, she saw the sky glowing; the compound was being fired. She could see, here and there, a tiny figure, dark against the flames, running. The two men made their way across the barley fields – Hamilton, given some two feet of leash, was pulled behind them. On the other side of the field, they saw some two or three villagers running, but none successfully fled their pursuers; two older women, were struck down before they reached the fields; the other, a man, reached the edge of the fields; it was there where, from behind, the ax, with its head of stone, lashed to the yard-long handle, caught him. Another hunter, carrying a torch, came behind them. Another appeared to Hamilton’s left, he, too with a torch. They dipped the torch to the young barley. Hamilton’s captors made directly for the stone altar in the center of the field. They had well reconnoitered the area. Their strike had been well planned. The barley now, at two edges of the field, was blazing. Hamilton had little doubt that the Dirt People were encircled, and that the circle, like the strings on a trap, was now, the first strike made, to scatter the villagers and destroy the center of their strength, drawing shut. Hamilton’s captors stopped beside the stone altar. They looked down on the girl, on her back, arched across the stone, stripped, tied, on the helpless, virginal delicacies of her body, with the relish of hunters. About them the barley blazed. The girl, bound, looked at them wildly, piteously. Then, to Hamilton’s amazement the virgin, the prize of the village, the intended sacrifice, bound on the altar, her eyes imploring, lifted her hips to Hamilton’s captors. They regarded her eyes, desperate, the sweet, delicate, supplicatory arch of her body. Her eyes, her body, begged piteously to be freed of the stone; her eyes, her body, begged piteously to be permitted to serve them on any terms which they might please. One of them lifted his stone ax, as though to crush her face against the stone. She writhed, screaming, in the light of the flaming barley; he held the ax poised, and grinned, then lowered it; she almost fainted; then, again, desperately, eyes piteous, whimpering, she lifted her hips, begging, to them. They laughed. Each in turn, swiftly, brutally, took her. She threw her head back, screaming with agony and elation; she was jolted viciously, mercilessly, in the bonds; when they had taken their sport, and blood lay on her thighs and the stone, her head, and her shoulders, were back, hanging over the edge of the stone. Flames leapt about the altar. The girl, in her bonds, looked at them, turning her head piteously; were they pleased enough with her? To her joy a thong was knotted about her neck and, with the sacrificial knife, she was cut free of the altar. She was dragged through the flaming barley on her tether, beside Hamilton; she laughed with pleasure; she was alive; she, naked, leather on her throat, regarded Hamilton, unashamed, her face transfused with a brazen joy; she again laughed, putting her head back, screaming with pleasure; she was alive, alive!

The two captors, with their captives, left the flaming fields, approaching the compound.

A man, in torn woolen tunic, fled toward them. A hunter seemed to rise from the ground before him. He, with a sweeping, horizontal blow of his ax, caught the running figure in the gut; the man stopped, bent over, retching unable to move; then the ax fell again, striking him down. A woman’s scream came from the compound. The man who had struck the running figure walked over to greet the captors. They spoke, while more screaming came from the burning compound. A sheep, bleating, ran past. The leashes of Hamilton and the girl cut from the altar were tied together, forming a single leash with double collar. This the man who had struck the running figure took in his fist, he subordinate to the two others, holding it in the center. The three men then approached the compound, the two captors in the lead, he who had struck the running man a step behind, holding the leash of the two female captives, naked.

The stockade, and the huts within, were burning. Almost at the gate, two more of the Dirt People fled outward. One was a woman, who was struck down from behind by a hunter within. She reeled against the palings, the back of her head bloodied, and stumbled into the darkness and fell. The second was a man. The first captor tripped him, and he rolled sprawling in the dirt; as he tried to climb to his feet the ax of the second captor struck him frontally, and he fell heavily, forward, into the dirt. Four sheep, bleating in terror, one with flaming fleece, hurried out of the compound.

Hamilton and the girl, her leash-mate, were dragged within the compound.

On a stake in the compound was the head of he who had been the leader of the Dirt People.

The gate was opened, widely. The work of the men of the Weasel People had been easier than they had anticipated, for the tall, gaunt man, in taking Hamilton from the compound, had left it open, that he might return silently. Yet this would, Hamilton knew, have made little difference. The men of the Weasel People would have, without great difficulty, scaled the palisade. A loop hurled over a pointed log and a swift climb, feet against the logs, would have brought them to the top, whence they might have leaped down to the dirt within. The palisade was effective against animals; it was not effective against men.

Hamilton turned her head away as she saw an older woman struck to the dirt.

From a hut, half burning, two men of the Weasel People dragged forth a man, throwing him to the dirt before them, then striking him six times with their axes. The flint of the axes of the men of the Weasel People, and their faces, sweaty, exhilarated, glowed in the reflection of the flames. Inside the compound it was almost as light as day, reminding Hamilton of the electric lights of the compound in Rhodesia, where she had been held captive. About the compound, in the dirt, lay several bodies, bloodied, their heads broken open. Before one wall four of the younger women of the Dirt People stood, huddled together; they were separated and thrust back against the wall; their clothing was cut from them; shuddering, they were inspected, closely, and felt; the leader of the Weasel People, the heavily built, bearded man, pointed to two of the women; immediately they were turned about, their hands tied behind their backs, and a rope put on their necks; they were dragged across the compound, to the post at which Hamilton, several days before, had been tied and whipped with switches; they were tied by their necks to this post; the leader turned his back on the other two women, who were not comely; Hamilton and the girl with her screamed with horror; then they turned away. From a storage pit, where she had hidden herself in the barley, another girl, caught in the grain, was forced to climb the ladder to the surface of the compound. She was stripped and bloody; there was grain on her body, stuck to the blood, and caught in her hair. The hunter who had found her followed her up the ladder. When she stood on the surface of the compound, she stood before the leader of the Weasel People. Proudly she threw back her head, shaking her hair, unafraid. He said a word and, as she stared angrily ahead, her hands were tied behind her back and then she was thrust, stumbling, to the post, where she, too, was fastened to it by the neck.

Suddenly Hamilton remembered Gunther, in the camp of the Weasel People, remarking to her that he surmised that such groups, so small, so isolated, which had initiated at this early date a form of herding, of agriculture, of metalwork, would not survive. His words, for the first time, now seemed weighty to her, rich with an insidious import she had not at first understood. Why had he brought her here? Why had he sold her to the Dirt People? It had puzzled her, for she had suspected, given the contempt in which he held her, his irritation with her intelligence, his scorn for her vulnerabilities, the profound, desperate needs of her female sexuality, which could turn her into a helpless slave in a man’s arms, that he would have kept her for himself, a despised love captive it might have pleased him, from time to time, to abuse and use for his pleasure; surely he would not have soon relinquished his title to the helpless, delicious slave who had once been the prim, reserved, formal, proud Dr. Brenda Hamilton? No, it was his intention to have her back, and he had never intended for the Dirt People to keep her. She had been brought here for another reason, to give him an opportunity to take reconnaissance of the compound of the Dirt People; under the pretext of selling two females he had studied the compound, its men, their numbers, the weapons, the land; oh, it had amused him, doubtless, to sell her as a nude slave, the once proud Dr. Hamilton, but that, pleasing though it might have been to him, had not satisfied the full intention of his plan; her sale had been a pretext, a diversion, to permit himself access to the compound and conduct the inquiries of his espionage. Hamilton knew then that she had been a dupe in the plans of the brilliant Gunther; she wondered if, in the stresses of the temporal translation, in his accession to power among the men of the Weasel People in his finding himself, with his rifle, almost a god in this wild country, he had gone insane. She recalled the throne on which he had seated himself, the robe of bearskin he had worn about his shoulders. In Rhodesia Gunther had been hard, brilliant, efficient, and, even then his genius had bordered on the fine line that separates incomparable intellect from madness, but he had been, clearly, sane; here, in this ancient, primitive time and country, she feared he had crossed the border into madness; what had the Dirt People done to him; had he seen fit to ventilate on them his hatred of diggers, his esteem of hunters; she recalled the violence, the force, with which, in Rhodesia he had once spoken to her of such things; the hunters are dead, he had said; but perhaps they are not dead, but only sleeping, he had suggested; perhaps they will come again; perhaps they will hunt again, he had seemed to feel, building ships and voyaging to stars, taking up again the hunt, that which gave meaning to man. But how, wondered Hamilton, could the hunters waken if they had not slept; one cannot attack the stars with ships of stone, and poles and logs; the world must change a thousand times before the fleets of steel ships could be built, before they could be launched for the systems of distant suns. It would be a contest between the hearth and the mountains, between barley and the call of Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, Arcturus and the clouds of Andromeda. Turn their eyes to the stars, had said Herjellsen, who was mad, mad. Hamilton could do nothing. And Gunther, she feared, had gone mad, too. It was wrong to kill the Dirt People. They had not harmed him. The Men would not have injured them, though they would, in all likelihood, have avoided them, or, if they wished, taken their stock, or one or two of their women. The Weasel People, she recalled, fed on human flesh. She wondered if Gunther, in his hatred for diggers, had gone insane.

She looked up, startled. The leader of the Weasel People was looking upon her and the other girl. Her leash-mate stood very straight, frightened; she arched her tiny, virginal breasts toward the bearded beast who looked upon her; she sucked in her belly, and put her head back; she trembled; he looked upon her face and figure; she was white and small before him; he was large and hairy, and darkened by the sun; would he find her pleasing; if he did not she knew she would be killed, struck down by the heavy axes; he turned from her, stopping before Hamilton; he looked closely at her face squinting, seeing that it was truly her; he took her by the head and pulled it down looking at it, running his hand over the head it was still cut and scraped, from the first time it had been shaved; only this morning had the older women shaved it again; it had not been their intention to let Hamilton soon forget her shame; furthermore, a vital girl, with long hair and bared legs, might trouble their men; much less would they be troubled, or should they be troubled, by a girl with shaved head, heavily and grossly clad, and kept busy constantly, kept exhausted and bent with labor, with digging and the carrying of water. She had had, since the first day, very little to do with the men. Women had been, constantly, her merciless supervisors. Often, indeed, even the young girl, now her leash-mate, had been in charge of her labors. How proud the young girl had been. Now she was stripped and tied by the neck, only a slave girl, naked, trying desperately to stand and display herself in a way that would please the brute who had led the attack on her village. Hamilton’s head was released; she straightened; she was sure that, even in spite of her shaved head; she would not be killed; she looked into the leader’s eyes. Gunther, she was sure, would have told him to bring her back. The leader, with a grunt, gestured to the man who held the common leash. Hamilton’s leash-mate uttered a tiny, joyful cry. They were pulled stumbling to the post. There were three other girls there, each with her hands tied behind her back, each tied by the neck to the post. The man who held Hamilton’s leash, that shared by the raped, virginal beauty, did not tie their hands behind them. He forced Hamilton, rather, to walk once completely about the post, stepping over the ropes of the other tethered women; the leash was thus looped about the post; then, pulling the loop out from the post, he forced Hamilton to duck beneath it and then step over it, and draw it tight; then, having used Hamilton’s body to tie the loop about the post, he bade them kneel; they did so.

The roof of one of the huts tumbled in, burning. The men of the Weasel People busied themselves gathering the loot of their raid; they sacked barley, gathered bowls, fetched axes and implements of bronze; one of them overturned a vat of sourish beer; another fell to his knees and sniffed at it; Hamilton’s heart leaped; there was another vat; but the leader, striking it with his ax, puzzled, broke it open, and it, too, spilled onto the earth, mixing with blood; Hamilton saw the knotted thong on the young girl’s throat; she could not see the knot on her own; “Make no sound,” said Hamilton, in the language of the Dirt People. The girl looked at her with horror. She shook her head negatively. Hamilton crept to her and began to pick at the knot on her throat. “No,” whispered the girl, fearfully, and struck Hamilton away. Hamilton tore at her own knot, but could not see to undo it. The men, with bowls, were now dipping into the broken vat, toward its bottom, below its rupture, from the leader’s ax. The leader did not stop them. One of the men spit out the fluid in disgust. The others laughed. Hamilton, desperate, looked at the open gate, and then at the young girl. Then she seized her by the throat, choking her, putting her to her back; the young girl’s eyes were wild; “Make no sound,” said Hamilton. Then she took her hands from the frightened girl’s throat and untied the knot; she then, with the free end, slipped the knot about the post free. The men at the beer laughed. Another had tried it, and swallowed it. He looked puzzled, then smiled. The leader then, gruffly, commanding a bowl, partook. He drank it down, all of it, and grinned. Hamilton slipped from the compound.