There was pleasure in the eyes of the Whip Slave as he enjoyed the tormenting moment of suspense which his uplifted whip inflicted on the ragged, hungry slaves.
The whip cracked. 'Feed!' he shouted.
The slaves lunged forward.
'No!' I cried, my voice checking them.
Some of them stumbled and fell, sprawling with a rattle of chains on the floor, dragging others down. But most managed to stand upright, catching their balance, and, almost as one man, that wretched degraded huddle of slaves turned its frightened, empty eyes upon me.
'Feed!' cried the Whip Slave, cracking the whip again.
'No,' I said.
The huddle of men wavered.
Ost tried to pull toward the trough, but he was chained to Kron, who refused to move. Ost might as well have been chained to a tree.
The Whip Slave approached me. Seven times the whip struck me, and I did not flinch.
Then I said, 'Do not strike me again.'
He backed away, the whip arm falling. He had understood me, and he knew that his life was in danger. What consolation would it be to him if the entire mine were flooded, if he had first perished with my chain about his throat?
I turned to the men. 'You are not animals,' I said. 'You are men.'
Then, gesturing them forward, I led them to the trough.
'Ost,' I said, 'will distribute the food.'
Ost thrust his hands into the trough, and crammed a fistful of bread into his mouth.
Kron's wrist chains struck him across the cheek and ear, and the bread flew from his mouth.
'Distribute the food,' said Kron.
'We choose you,' said Andreas of Tor, 'because you are known for your honesty.'
And amazing to say, those chained wretches laughed.
Sullenly, while the Whip Slave stood by and watched, angry fearful, Ost distributed the poor fare that lay in the trough.
The last piece of bread I broke in two, taking half and giving the other half to Ost. 'Eat,' I said.
In fury, his eyes darting back and forth like those of an urt, he bit into the bread and gulped it down. 'The chamber will be flooded for this,' he said.
Andreas of Tor said, 'I, for one, would be honoured to die in the company of Ost.'
And again the men laughed, and I thought that even Ost smiled.
The Whip Slave watched while we filed up the long incline to the shafts, his whip arm limp. Wondering, he watched us, for one of the men, of the Caste of Peasants, had begun to hum a plowing song, and, one by one, the others joined him.
The quota was well met that day, and the day following.
Chapter Eighteen: WE ARE OF THE SAME CHAIN
Occasionally a bit of news filtered down into the mines, brought by the slaves who filled the feeding trough. These slaves were fortunate for they had access to the central shaft. Each of the hundred mines of Tharna, at one level or another, opened on this shaft. It is to be distinguished from the much smaller ore shafts, which are individual to each mine. The ore shafts are like narrow wells sunk in the stone and their platforms can scarcely accomodate a slave's sack of ore.
It is through the central shaft that the mines of Tharna are supplied. Down that shaft comes not only food but, when needed, canvas, tools and chains. Drinking water, of course, is supplied by the natural sumps in each mine. I myself, and my fellow slaves, had descended the central shaft. Only dead slaves made the ascent.
Beginning with the slaves who worked the pulleys that controlled the supply platform in the central shaft, the news had spread, from one mine to another, until at last it had reached even ours, which was the deepest on the shaft.
There was a new Tatrix in Tharna.
'Who is the new Tatrix?' I asked.
'Dorna the Proud,' said the slave, who tumbled onions, turnips, radishes, potatoes and bread into the feed trough.
'What happened to Lara?' I asked.
He laughed. 'You are ignorant!' he exclaimed.
'News does not travel fasy in the mines,' I said.
'She was carried off,' he said.
'What?' I cried.
'Yes,' said he, 'by a tarnsman, as it turned out.'
'What is his name?' I asked.
'Tarl,' said he, and his voice fell to a whisper, '- of Ko- ro-ba.'
I was dumbfounded.
'He is an outlaw,' said the man, 'who survived the Amusements of Tharna.'
'I know,' I said.
'There was a tarn, wearing the silver hobble, that was to kill him, but he freed the tarn, leaped on its back and mad good his escape.' The slave put down the tub of vegetables and bread. His eyes were wet with amusement and he slappped his thigh. 'He returned only long enough to tarnstrike tha Tatrix herself,' he said. 'The tarn carried her off like a tabuk!' His laughter, which spread to the other slaves in the room, those chained to me, was uproarious, and I understood better than I had understood before the affection with which the Tatrix of Tharna was held in the mines.
But I alone did not laugh.
'What of the Pillar of Exchanges?' I asked. 'Was the Tatrix not returned at the Pillar, and freed?'
'Everyone thought she would be,' said the slave, 'but the tarnsman apparently wanted her more than the riches of Tharna.'
'What a man!' cried one of the slaves.
'Perhaps she was very beautiful,' said another.
'She was not exchanged?' I asked the slave with the food tub.
'No,' he said. 'Two of those who are highest in Tharna, Dorna the Proud, and Thorn, a Captain, went to the Pillar of Exchanges, but the Tatrix was never returned. Pursuit was launched, the hills and fields combed without success. Only her tattered robes and the mask of gold were found, by Dorna the Proud and Thorn, Captain of Tharna.' The slave sat down on the tub. 'Now,' said he, 'Dorna wears the mask.'
'What,' I asked, 'do you surmise to be the fate of Lara, who was Tatrix?'
The slave laughed, and so, too, did some of the others.
'Well,' said he, 'we know she no longer wears her golden robes.'
'Doubtless,' said one of the slaves, 'some more suitable raiment has replaced them.'
The slave laughed. 'Yes,' he roared, slapping his thigh. 'Pleasure silk!' He rocked on the tub. 'Can you imagine!' he laughed, 'Lara, the Tatrix of Tharna, in pleasure silk!'
The chain of slaves laughed, all except myself, and Andreas of Tor, who regarded me questioningly. I smiled at him, and shrugged. I did not have the answer to his question.
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Little by little, I tried to restore the self-respect of my fellow slaves. It began simply enough at the feeding trough. Then I began to encourage them to speak to one another, and to call one another by their names, and their cities, and though there were men of different cities there, they shared the same chain and trough, and they accepted one another.
When one man was ill, others saw that his ore sack was filled. When one man was beaten, others would pass water from hand to hand that his wounds might be bathed, that he might drink though the chain did not allow him to the water. And in time, each of us knew the others who shared his chain. We were no longer dark, anonymous shapes to one another, huddling in the dampness of the mines of Tharna. In time only Ost remained frightened by this change, for he continually feared the flooding of the chamber.
My chain of men worked well, and the quota was filled day after day, and when it was raised, it was filled again. Sometimes even, the men would hum as they worked, the strong sound resonant in the tunnels of the mine. The Whip Slaves wondered, and began to fear us.
News of the distribution of food at the feeding trough had spread, by means of the slaves who carried the tubs of food, from mine to mine. And, too, they told of the stranges, new things that happened in the mine at the bottom of the central shaft, how men helped one another, and could find the time and will to remember a tune.
And as time passed I learned from the food slaves that this revolutio
n, as unannounced and silent as the foot of a larl, had begun to spread from mine to mine. Soon I noticed that the food slaves spoke no more, and gathered that they had been warned to silence. Yet from their faces I knew that the contagion of self-respect, of nobility, flamed in the mines beneath Tharna. Here, underground, in the mines, home of that which was lowest and most degraded in Tharna, men came to look upon one another, and themselves, with satisfaction.
I decided it was time.
That night, when we were herded into the long cell, and the bolts were shoved in place, I spoke to the men.
'Who among you,' I asked, 'would be free?'
'I,' said Andreas of Tor.
'And I,' growled Kron of Tharna.
'And I!' cried other voices.
Only Ost demurred. 'It is sedition to speak thus,' he whimpered.
'I have a plan,' I said, 'but it will require great courage, and you may all die.'
'There is no escape from the mines,' whimpered Ost.
'Lead us, Warrior,' said Andreas.
'First,' I said, 'we must have the chamber flooded.'
Ost shrieked with terror, and Kron's great fist shut on his windpipe, silencing him. Ost squirmed, scuffling in the dark, helpless. 'Be quiet, Serpent,' said the bull-like Kron. He dropped Ost, and the conspirator crawled to the length of his chain and huddled against the wall, trembling with fear.
Ost's shriek had told me what I wanted to know. I now knew how we could arrange to have the chamber flooded.
'Tomorrow night,' I said simply, looking in Ost's direction, 'we will make our break for freedom.'
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The next day, as I had expected, an accident befell Ost. He seemed to injure his foot with the pick, and he pleaded so earnestly with the Whip Slave that the fellow removed him from the chain and, putting a collar on his throat, led him limping away. This would have been an unusual solicitation on the part of the Whip Slave but it was obvious to him as to the rest of us that Ost wished to speak with him alone, to communicate information of extreme importance.
'You should have killed him,' said Kron of Tharna.
'No,' I said.
The bull-like man of Tharna looked at me questioningly and shrugged.
That night the slaves who brought the tub of food were accompanied by a dozen warriors.
That night Ost was not returned to the chain. 'His foot requires care,' said the Whip Slave, gesturing us toward the long cell.
When the iron door was shut and the bolts shot into place, I heard the Whip Slave laugh.
The men were despondent.
'Tonight,' said Andreas of Tor, 'you know the chamber will be flooded.'
'Yes,' I said, and he looked at me in disbelief.
I called to the man at the far end of the chamber. 'Pass the lamp,' I said.
I took the lamp and went, some of my fellow prisoners perforce accompanying me, and held it to the circular shaft, about two feet in diameter, down which the water would hurtle. There was an iron grating set in the stone, about eight feet high in the shaft. From somewhere above we heard the movement of a valve.
'Lift me!' I cried, and on the shoulders of Andreas and the slave shackled beside me, I was lifted into the shaft. Its sides were smooth and slimy. My hands slipped on them.
Chained as I was I could not get to the grating.
I cursed.
Then it seemed that Andreas and the slave grew beneath my feet. Other slaves knelt beneath them, giving their backs that the two might rise higher. Standing side by side they lifted me higher into the shaft.
My shackled wrists seized the grating.
'I have it,' I cried. 'Drag me down!'
Then Andreas and the slave fell in the shaft and I felt the chains that fastened my wrists and ankles to theirs tearing at my limbs. 'Pull!' I cried, and the hundred slaves in the long room began to draw on the chains. My hands bled on the grating, the blood falling back in my upturned face, but I would not release the bars. 'Pull!' I cried.
A trickle of water from above moved down the sides of the stones.
The valve was opening.
'Pull!' I cried again.
Suddenly the grating sprang free and I and it fell clattering with a rattle of chains and metal to the floor.
Now there was a stream of water flowing down the shaft.
'First on the chain!' I called.
With a rattle of chains a small man with a wisp of straw- coloured hair across his forehead snaked past the others and stood before me.
'You must climb,' I said.
'How?' he asked, bewildered.
'Brace your feet against the wall of the shaft,' I said. 'Use your feet!'
'I can't,' he said.
'You will,' I said.
I and his fellow took him and thrust him bodily through the opening.
We heard him in the shaft, grunting, gasping, the sounds of chains scraping on stones as he began the tortuous inch by inch ascent.
'I'm slipping!' he cried, and rattled down the shaft and fell to the cell floor weeping.
'Again!' I said.
'I can't,' he cried hysterically.
I seized him by the shoulders and shook him. 'You are of tharna,' I said. 'Show us what a man of Tharna can do!'
It was a challenge which had been put to few men of Tharna.
We lifted him again into the shaft.
I set the second on the chain beneath him, and the third on the chain beneath the second.
The water was sloshing through the aperture now, in a stream about as wide as my fist. In the tunnel it rose to our ankles.
Then the first man on the chain supported his own weight, and the second, chains rattling, began to ascend the vertical tunnel, supported by he who was third, who now stood on the back of the fourth man, and so it continued.
Once the second man slipped, dragging the first down with him, and causing the third to lose his grip, but by now there was a solid chain of men in the tunnel, and the fourth and fifth men held. The first began his tortuous ascent once more, followed by the second and third.
The water was perhaps two feet high in the cell, pressing upward to the low ceiling, when I followed Andreas into the tunnel. Kron was the fourth man behind me.
Andreas, Kron and I were in the tunnel, but what of the poor wretches on the chain behind us?
I looked up the long shaft, at the line of slaves moving upward, inch by inch.
'Hurry!' I cried.
The stream of water now seemed to press us down, to impede our progress. It was like a small waterfall.
'Hurry! Hurry!' cried the voice of a man still below, a hoarse, terrified cry. The first man on the chain had now ascended the tunnel to the very source of the water, another tunnel. We heard a sudden, loud swift rushing of water. He cried out in fear, 'It's coming, all of it!'
'Brace yourselves!' I shouted to those above and below me. 'Drag the last men into the tunnel!' I yelled. 'Get them out of the cell!'
But my last words were drowned in a hurtling plunging cataract of water that shattered on my body like a great fist, knocking my breath out. It roared down the shaft, pounding on the men. Some lost their footing, and bodies were wedged into the shaft. It was impossible to breathe, to move, to see.
Then as suddenly as it had begun, the cataract ceased. Above, whoever worked the valve must have grown impatient and thrown it open completely, or perhaps the sudden torrent of water had been intended as a gesture of mercy to drown any survivors quickly.
As soon as I had caught my breath, I shook the sopping hair from my eyes. I peered up into the sodden blackness, crowded with chained bodies.
'Keep climbing,' I said.
In perhaps another two or three minutes I had reached the horizontal tunnel down which the tumult of the water had been fed into the vertical tunnel. I found those ahead of me on the chain. Like myself they were soaked to the skin and shivering, but alive. I clutched the first man by the shoul
ders.
'Well done!' I said to him.
'I am of Tharna,' he said proudly.
At last each man of the chain was within the horizontal tunnel, though the last four men had of necessity been dragged to its level, for they hung limp in their chains. How long they had been under water was hard to say.
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