Chapter XVII: In the Mating Pens

On the evening following her capture, Vernia, driven by the pangs of hunger to taste the sticky mess which formed the sole ration of the slaves, was choking down a small portion when she saw Rotha entering the women's quarters.

The girl ran toward her and buried her face in her bosom, weeping softly. Vernia noticed several bruises on her shoulders and arms, and the bluish prints of huge fingers on her neck.

"Poor child." Vernia murmured, stroking the soft, black hair. "They have abused you shamefully."

The girl looked up into her eyes, and there was a smile on her quivering lips.

"I weep not with sorrow, Vernia of Reabon," she whispered. "It is because of my great joy that I cannot control myself. I tremble with rapture and thrill with the memory of a wonderful experience."

"But you have been choked and beaten. The marks of brutal mistreatment are on your throat and arms. Can it be that you take kindly to such--"

"You do not understand, Vernia of Reabon. The man who made those marks is dead."

"Then you were rescued. Tell me of it."

"When I entered the mating pens, Oro, whom I love, met me at the gate and conducted me to the man for whom I had been destined by the king sabit. On the way I besought him to take me to an empty room and leave me there until to-night, but he was inexorable. He said such tactics would be useless--that we would surely be found out and the sabits would put us both to death with horrible tortures. When we arrived at the doorway I made a last appeal, but he only smiled grimly and remained obdurate.

"When he led me into the room, a great, hairy man leaped up from the corner and seized me by the arms. I cried out in pain and struggled to escape him, but he gripped my throat with his huge fingers so that I could make no sound. Oro had left, but he must have heard my cry, for I saw him enter the room just as the hairy giant hurled me to the floor. There was a look of rage on his face that made me tremble with fear, for I at first thought he was displeased with me for screaming.

"Would that you could have seen my beloved at that moment, my Vernia! He was magnificent. With blazing eyes and set lips he grasped my assailant, held him for a moment aloft, and then threw him to the floor with such violence that I could hear the snapping of his bones. He stood glowering down at the lifeless form for a moment, then lifted me tenderly in his arms, and whispered words of comfort, cuddling me as one would a little child. Presently he set me on my feet and would have gone away, but I seized his hand and clung to it and pressed it to my lips, begging him not to leave me.

"He turned with a new look in his eyes--a look that women may see for the first time yet never misunderstand.

"'Tempt me not, he said, 'lest I further transgress the laws of our masters, the sabits. Think you that I am fashioned of stone?'

"Then he swept me in his arms, and pressed his lips to mine, while I trembled and grew weak with the joy of that first kiss of love. And so it came about that Oro the Mighty made me his mate, and swore that as there had been no women before me, so should there be none after me. That I was his, and he was mine, forever and ever. Is it not wonderful?"

"It is wonderful," said Vernia, "to have known your true love, though for only a day. But will Oro not be punished by the sabits?"

"If he is found out. But we hope that they will never know. During the night he took the body to the river which fronts the mating pens and, after weighting it with stones, sank it in deep water. The natural supposition will be that the man escaped and is either wandering in the forest or captured by the sabits of some other community."

* * * * *

Vernia and Rotha worked side by side for many days, first in the incubator room, and later tending and feeding small fantas. It was due to this change in occupation that Vernia twice avoided the inspection tours of the king sabit, though she knew he would come eventually and she could scarcely hope to escape his scrutiny.

She was feeding the sticky stuff to a voracious young fanta one day when Rotha touched her arm.

"The king sabit comes," she whispered. "Stoop over that he may not observe you."

Vernia bent low over the wriggling fanta, meanwhile watching the king sabit from the corner of her eye. He advanced slowly, pausing now and then to indicate a woman for the pens. At length he came in front of Vernia, stopped for a moment, then started on. It was her hungry charge that proved her undoing, for in her preoccupation she held her wrist too close to the keen mandibles and received a sharp nip.

With a cry of pain she stood erect. The king sabit stopped, turned back, looked at her fixedly for a moment, then vibrated his antennæ noiselessly. An accompanying soldier sabit gave the royal edict to Vernia through an interpreter in the tone-language. She would be conducted to the mating pens the following evening!

A familiar cackling laugh sounded behind her, and turning she beheld the wrinkled face and grinning gums of the hag who had previously taunted her.

"It has come to pass," she rasped, gloatingly. "The proud one will now bear slave-children for our mighty masters."

Vernia buried her face in her hands with a feeling of despair that she had never experienced before, even in the pit of the grampites. Her forgotten charge, having succeeded in smearing itself with food from end to end, left a white, sticky trail on the floor as it wriggled away. Rotha came and put her arm about her shoulders.

"Do not give up hope, Vernia of Reabon," she said. "You have a whole day in which to plan an escape. Remember how miraculously I was rescued, and take courage."

"Your case was different, Rotha," replied Vernia. "Think you that my lover will be waiting to rescue me in the mating pens? And what other recourse have I? I cannot even take my own life, which I would rather do than obey the order of the king sabit, for I have no weapons--not even a knife. As for escape, even though I might succeed in getting into the open, what chance would I have to outdistance the fleet soldier sabits?"

"Then you, too, have a lover. I might have known it, for one so beautiful might have a thousand lovers to command. Tell me of him, Vernia of Reabon."

A most becoming blush crimsoned the face of Vernia.

"I spoke without thought," she said hastily. "There is one who might have some day been my lover--a brave man from another world who has rescued me from many terrible creatures. But, alas! I have not seen him these many days, and though I have hoped against hope, he has not appeared."

"Oh, but he will come, even as my Oro came, at the moment when all seemed lost."

"I wish I might have your optimism, but I feel that this time I am doomed."

* * * * *

A group of powerful hairy men stood conversing in the entrance chamber of the mating pens on the following day. One great muscular brute, who towered several inches above the tallest of the others, leered gloatingly at the surrounding circle.

"And know you, men," he was saying, "that Tholto has received further recognition from the king sabit, for to-day he has chosen me to mate with the most beautiful slave-woman ever captured by our masters. In her own land she was a princess, ruler of the greatest empire in all Zarovia, yet for a day and a night must she bow to the will of Tholto the slave."

A short, broad-shouldered man with thick neck and bulging muscles answered him.

"As usual, our braggart ignores the rights of his fellows. Think you, Tholto, that there will be none to take advantage of the ancient custom of the sabits--none to dispute your claim by combat?"

"If there be a man present who dares dispute this woman with Tholto, let him come now to his death, for the fool will surely die."

"Think not to frighten us with vain boasting, Tholto. We are indolent now, not from fear, but because we have not seen the woman. If she proves but half as beautiful as reported, you will not lack contestants."

A sudden stir in the front of the mating pens followed these words. Two soldier sabits rushed in, knocking slaves right and left, while a third carried the limp form of a woman clad in red leather, and deposited its burden on the floor in front of Tholto.

The sabits left as suddenly as they had come, and a circle of men formed to look down at the beautiful girl. She had fainted, and as she lay there, the oval of her perfect features half hidden in the glory of her disheveled hair, each curve of her slender body eloquent with the lure of newly-ripened womanhood, small wonder that in the breasts of those great, hairy savages arose primitive passions that found expression in low muttering, and dark, challenging looks at the king sabit's favorite!