center of the circle, and I was buffeted, spinning, to the side, for it struck me in its passage, I felt its ribs, and it hurled itself on the smaller beast which was rolled to its back, and then, in a moment, they were rolling about, biting, and tearing at one another. I could scarcely follow their movements, so rapid they were, so swift and fierce was the tumult of their engagement.
Then I saw the larger beast rear up from that loose, spattering tangle of fur and blood, its jaws on the throat of the smaller beast, and, itself rent, torn, and bloody, its flanks and shoulders red with the furrows of claw marks, it lifted the smaller body half from the ground, and shook it, and shook it, long after it was without life, repeatedly, meaninglessly, in the pointless, spasmodic frenzy of the kill. It then lay down, its scarlet-flowing jaws still clenched on the throat of the smaller beast, whose body now lay across its paws. It was breathing heavily. An ear was half torn away. I could see bone at the side of its face. It was looking toward me. I did not know if it saw me or not.
I was lying on my belly, where I had fallen, near the center of that circle whose periphery had been recently trodden by two dangerous beasts.
I felt my hands pulled behind me and I heard the click of slave bracelets. Then a leash collar was buckled about my throat.
“Kill it, please, kill it, Master,” I begged.
“No,” he said.
“It is dangerous!” I said.
“It is not dangerous now,” he said. “Perhaps later it will be dangerous.”
I recognized the voice.
“You are fortunate you were not eaten,” he said. “I might not have arrived in time.”
“I think I was followed since yesterday,” I said.
“Quite possibly,” he said. “A panther not driven by hunger will often linger in the vicinity of prey, or follow it, at a convenient distance.”
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“I speculated you would regard your escape from the camp as successfully accomplished, not irrationally, and would then, too soon perhaps, return to the river. I thus kept to the shoreline. To be sure, some fortune was involved. I feared, naturally enough, you might be tracked by panthers, or sleen, and thus, when I heard a particular roar, a typical roar of warning, of territorial claimancy, I conjectured a territorial intrusion might have occurred, either deliberately or inadvertently. In any case, I decided to investigate.”
“Did you see it all?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“But you did not intervene.”
“It was not necessary,” he said. He then stood up, and stepped back. “You are in the presence of a free man,” he observed.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
I then struggled to my knees, and knelt before him, looking up at him, a Gorean master, my hands braceleted behind me, his leash collar buckled about my throat, the leash itself, twice looped, in his hand.
“Perhaps you thought you had escaped,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I whispered.
“Did you escape?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
“Why did you run away?” he asked.
“I beg not to speak,” I said.
“Very well,” he said.
“Thank you, Master!” I whispered.
“On your feet, kajira,” said he.
I rose to my feet, and stood before him, head down.
“Are you a slave?” he asked.
“Yes, Master, I am a slave,” I said.
“You understand that, fully?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” I said. Had I not known this, since puberty?
“You have been displeasing,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I whispered.
His hand reached to the disrobing loop at my left shoulder.
“Oh, yes, Master!” I said. “Please, Master!”
“You have been displeasing,” he said.
“Master?” I said.
“You will be lashed,” he said.
“No, Master!” I said. “Please, no, Master!”
Chapter Forty-Nine
I leaned back against the tree, and listened to the crackle of the small fire, in the tiny camp on the way back to Shipcamp.
I idly reached for the leash, and tugged twice, which activated the metal ring on the leash collar, lifting and dropping it twice, signaling the slave that she should approach, which she did, on all fours.
“Please me,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, bending over me.
Later she lay beside me, her head at my thigh.
I had seen fit to deny her clothing.
“Keep me,” she whispered.
“You are a camp slave,” I reminded her, “at Shipcamp, and are the property of Pani masters.”
“Will Master return me to Shipcamp?” she asked.
“A caught slave,” I said, “is to be returned to her masters.”
“I am afraid,” she said.
“As well you might be,” I said.
“What will they do with me?” she