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.My old clothing,and my boots, which the girls, laughing, cut to pieces with small knives, wereburned.Outside the doorway, with large, curved knives, stood two huge men,warriors, on guard."The blond-haired barbarian looked at me."Continue," I told her."That night they came for me," she said."My hands were tied behind my back.Then two straps were put on my neck and, by two men, the girls following.Iwas led forth.I was conducted down a long street, between mighty buildings.Men and women followed me, with long-handled, feathered fans.There was muchsinging.There were numerous torches, and drums.At the end of the street,before a group of men standing on the wide steps and the surface of a broad,stone platform, some ten feet in height, we stopped.The drums and singing,too, suddenly stopped.A sign was given, by one of the men on the height ofthe platform.The straps were removed from my neck.My hands were freed.Ilooked up at them.Another sign was given.The girls removed my sandals andthen, gracefully, drew away my robe.I looked up again at the men.I was nowstark naked.The man on the height of the platform, red, in his robes andfeathers, regarded me for some time.Then, by nodding his head, and a simplegesture, he indicated his approval.There was a shout of pleasure from thecrowd which made me shudder.My wrists were seized and a long thong was tiedon each wrist.Men then began, by these wrist leashes, to drag me up thePage 192ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlsteps.The singing and drums had then again commenced.'No!' I screamed, whenI reached the top of the platform, for I then saw, before me, a large, oblongpiece of stone, a massive, primitive stone altar, discolored with huge stainsof dried blood, with iron rings.'No! No!' I screamed.But I was lifted frommy feet and, my back to the ground, screaming, carried by many men, washelplessly hurried to its surface.I was thrown on my back on the altar and myhands, by the wrist leashes, were fastened apart and over my head to ironrings.At the same time my legs, by the ankles, were jerked apart, painfullyso.I felt thongs tied on my ankles.I cried out.My legs were pulled evenmore widely apart.Men strung the thongs on my ankles through the iron ringsat the foot of the altar.I screamed.By the thongs my legs were drawn aparteven more.I was then, as I wept and begged for mercy, fastened in that cruelposition.The ceremony began.The priest, from a golden dish, lifted up aknife.It was long and translucent, eighteen inches in length, of slender,bluish stone.I twisted on the altar, under the torches.All about me were therobes and feathers, the savage red faces; the thongs bit deeply into the fleshof my wrists and ankles; the singing, the drums, began to intensify increscendo; they became deafening; the priest lifted the knife.It was thenthat I saw him, sitting on an oblong pillar of stone, some eight feet inheight, some forty feet from the altar.He was sitting cross-legged, watching,impassively.Though he now wore the robes and feathers of this savage people,I recognized him instantly.It was he who had been the guide of the tour inwhich I had been a member, that tour with which I had been, visiting the rumsof the mysteriously abandoned city.It was he who had explained to me themeaning of the carving of the kneeling girl, who had told me not to replace mysunglasses, he whom I had disobeyed.'Master!' I screamed to him.'Master!'""'Master'?" I asked."Yes," she said, "I called him 'Master'.""Why?" I asked."I do not know," she said."It startled me, that I should have called himthat.Yet the utterance came naturally, helplessly, from deep within me, anirrepressible, incontrovertible acknowledgment.""You called him 'Master'," I said, "because, in your heart, you knew that hewas your Master.""Yes, Master," she said."That is it.I suppose I had known from the firstinstant I had seen him that he was my Master, and I was his Slave, but howcould I, an Earth woman, have admitted that, even to myself, let alone to thesuperb, red brute.""What occurred then in the dream?" I asked."He lifted his hand and spoke out to the priest and the men about the altar."I lay there, helpless.He pointed to me and said something in his own tongue.I could tell that it was scornful."The priest, angrily, returned the knife of blue stone to the golden dish.Others, too, were angry.The thongs at my ankles were cut free.My wristleashes were untied from the iron rings.The crowd began to become ugly.By ahand on my arm I was thrust from the altar.It seemed now they did not want meon the altar.I was struck by a man.I cowered.My wrist leashes were seizedby two men and I was dragged before the pillar of oblong stone on which sat heto whom I had called out 'Master'.The anger of the men, and the crowd, Isuddenly realized, was not directed at the red brute sitting upon the stone,but, startingly, frighteningly, at mc.They were not angry with him forinterfering with their ceremony but somehow, for no reason I understood, withme.I shuddered, held naked by the wrist leashes before the stone, the objectof the contempt and wrath, the scorn and fury, of the multitude.I, terrified,felt their hatred directed upon me, almost as though it came in waves.'Whydid you not tell us you were a slave?' he asked of me.He spoke in English.'Forgive me, Master,' I begged.'To our gods,' he said, 'the offer of acontemptible slave would be an insulting sacrifice.' 'Yes, Master,' I said.Page 193ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlThe first time I saw you,' he said, 'I thought you were a slave.Yet when Iordered you not to replace your sunglasses, you did so.' 'Forgive me, Master,'I said.'Surely you know that any free man has authority over a slave girl? heasked.'Yes, Master,' I said.'When you did not obey,' he said, 'I thenthought perhaps that I had been mistaken about you, that perhaps you were nota slave, but a free woman, and thus might serve as a suitable sacrifice to ourgods.' 'Yes, Master,' I said, my head lowered.'But, as I had originallythought,' he said, 'you were only a slave.' 'Yes, Master,' I said.I did notraise my head.'When I ordered you not to replace your sunglasses, you didso,' he said.'Yes, Master,' I said.'Why?' he asked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]