LITMIR.BIZ

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that it was a coincidence of almost miraculous quality that she should have been captured by one whose studies were so engaged, and he being, if she had understood rightly, the only one who was occupied precisely in that way.

      Yet was it coincidence? Might not even this have been of the magician’s design?

      She tried to remember what her conversation with the magician had been, and was both annoyed and frightened to find that it could not be clearly recalled. Was the memory of the past (about which some bargain had been made: she was sure of that) to be no better than the recollection of a dream which a man may be unwilling to lose, but which becomes fainter even while he strives to recall it to waking thoughts?

      She must endeavour to retain those memories, if necessary by deliberate recollections, when solitary opportunities might allow. But why should Lemno speak with such contempt of the civilization from which she came? She knew that it had developed some evil features: that its records, both of wickedness and folly, were black enough, especially in the incidence of its wars, but surely it had shown better qualities also? Vaguely, she had always thought of her own time as superior even to the centuries immediately preceding. And for him to talk so, with a steak from his wife’s haunch already cut for his morning meal!

      From these interesting abstract reflections, her mind returned to the immediate future—a dubious prospect of very limited attractions. The position was not one which she could accept passively as beyond her control. Its issue might depend entirely upon her own conduct and her own wits. She had saved herself already by the opportune suggestion that she would be better used as a wife than a meal, but for which she had little doubt that her joints would be distributed now, as those of Destra already were. For the rest, she saw that everything must depend upon the success with which she could fulfil the duties of the job she had taken on.

      There came a time when he rose to build up the fire, and as he went back to his place, he looked at her and their eyes met. She knew then, unmistakably, that his train of thought had been close indeed to hers.

      Seeing that she was awake, he asked abruptly, though still in the toneless voice which she felt to be no compliment to her: “You are virgin?”

      The question was more complicated than he could reasonably have been expected to understand. For a moment it reduced her to silence. Then she replied fatuously: “Yes, I suppose I am.”

      He showed no sign of observing any ambiguity in this reply, and went back to his books.

      Turning her mind to what we may call the left hand of her dual memories, she was glad to conclude that she had probably made a correct reply.

      After that, she began to speculate upon what they would eat when Destra had done her part. She did not like the idea of ten nuts a day. It would be no better if she knew that those around her might be considering improvement of their own diet at her expense—and perhaps arguing the prudence of doing so before the meagre ration reduced her weight. She decided that she must aim to become a most desirable wife before that question should become acute. And, for the moment, the empty frying pan witnessed that she had had a good meal; on which thought she slept.

      CHAPTER V: MARRIAGE

      She waked to find that daylight had come, and that Lemno sat at his table as though he had not moved during the night. Did he never sleep?

      Her mind went back to the thoughts which had preceded her own response. Was she a virgin? As a physical fact, as applied to the body which she now had, she was disposed to think that she had given the right reply. Was it what he had wished to hear? That seemed likely too.

      He was studying the history of her own time. She wondered with what parts of her world he was becoming familiar. It had been a crudity of the scientists of her time that they had inclined to presume that conditions had been similar in past ages over the whole earth. There might be evidences of a stone age in Nevada or Natal, but why should there not have been a civilization in Tibet at the same time, perhaps superior to anything which had been known subsequently? Even in her own day, in spite of its abnormal development of communications, to which it had sacrificed its prosperity if not its existence, there had been differences between Paris and Central Africa and the interior of Brazil. There was a talking point there, which could be developed without disclosure of what she must not reveal.

      Lemno rose, yawning. He stretched his arms upward, so that they were near to reaching the low ceiling of the room. He came over to where she lay. He said: “You lie late.” And then, as one who would be just in rebuke, he added: “But we will say there was cause.”

      She rose at once. She had supposed it to be an early hour. And she had wondered what would be expected of her when she was on her feet what her duties would be.

      He gave her a first direction without delay: “You shall heat water first. You shall rub me down.”

      As the water warmed, he threw off his fur, and strode into the kitchen, a figure of vigorous masculine nudity which was not hard for her to admire. He stood erect and silent on a part of the floor which was slightly beneath the main level, of somewhat different and harder material than its polished boards, with a gutter along the edge. She stood hesitant, and he said, with more impatience than he had yet shown: “Well, will you begin?”

      She said “I will do what you wish. It is strange to me.”

      “It is strange that you do not know where a sponge would be—a sponge which is in your sight now.”

      As he spoke, she knew; and became aware of a danger she had not realized before. She had two sets of memories, and she had thought that she must use care that those of her distant self—of her real self, she would have said—must not be allowed to fade. She had been dwelling on them, and had not realized that the two sets of memories could not be active at once.

      Instantly, but none too soon, she became the girl he had captured the day before. She knew what to do now.

      She took a sponge which was made of absorbent leaves, sewn together in a flat way, such as she had used all her life, and rubbed him down with warm water from head to foot as he stood motionless there, while a towel of somewhat similar material warmed at the fire. While he dried himself, she dealt with her own body in the same way.

      His eyes were on her as she did this, in a fashion that she was not sure she liked, nor yet sure that she would not have. But he did not speak, and the short silence had seemed long by the time she put the towel down, and was conscious of the nervousness in her voice as she asked: “Shall I get breakfast now? Are there no nuts at all?”

      “That can wait,” he said. He caught her in a strong grasp. “Do you not know what a wife does—or is done to? Well, you are near to learn.”

      And in the next moments she did.

      CHAPTER VI: THE EVILS OF AN OLD TIME

      They sat at the evening meal, about which they had agreed that Destra’s liver was good.

      Gleda ate with relish, the repulsion she might otherwise have felt at the consumption of human entrails being controlled by her hatred of the woman who had felt her own buttock with such greedy anticipation, prodding her like a pig. And the position might have been so precisely reversed! Her liver might have been on the dish, and Destra eating it now. It was impossible not to feel some satisfaction at that. And Destra’s liver was good.

      It had been a wonderful day. After the morning consummation, they had talked freely together, and found affinities of mind which (it was easy to guess) Destra had not possessed.

      Indeed, a remark he had made during the day—that it was a good thing he hadn’t put his knife into the wrong belly—was proof enough that he was contented with her, not only in herself, but in comparison with what might have been.

      Now she was asking: “If it’s true you’ve not been cannibals till now, any more than we are on the other side of the river, how did you owe Relf a ham?”

      “Relf had a man at his house who fell off a tree gathering nuts.”

      “Not really?” Everyone was so at home in the trees! And the

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