The binding fiber was removed from her wrists but her hands, that she might not tear at her brands, were snapped behind her back in slave bracelets. Then, by the hair, she stumbling, scarcely able to stand, he dragged her to the small, square iron box which sat near the whipping pole, and thrust her within.
Crouching inside the box, I saw the door shut, and heard the two heavy, flat bolts sliding into place. I then heard the click of two padlocks, securing them in place.
I was locked inside. I could see a tiny slit of the outside through the aperture in the iron door, about a half an inch in height and seven inches in width. There was a somewhat larger opening at the foot of the door, about two inches in height and a foot wide. The box itself was square, with dimensions of perhaps one yard square. It was hot, and dark.
I remembered that a slave girl, on my first day in the camp of Rask of Treve, had warned me, that if I lied or stole, I would be beaten and put in the slave box.
I moaned and fell to my side, my knees drawn up under my chin, my hands braceleted behind me. My thigh burned terribly, from the branding, and my back and the back of my legs still screamed from the cruel flames of the leather lash. Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, had been branded as a liar, a thief and a traitress, and a bold tarnsman, from a distant world, her master, had put into her flesh, insolently, the mark of his own city. The girl in the slave box was under no delusion as to who it was who owned her. He had collared her, and, with a hot iron, had placed in her flesh his brand.
In the slave box, she fell unconscious. But that night, cold, she awakened, still in pain. Outside, she heard the sounds of pleasure and feasting, that celebration called in honor of the capturing of two young girls, who had fled from undesired companionships, which had been arranged by their parents.
I remained in the slave box. The door was opened, when I was braceleted, only to feed and water me. I was not allowed to stretch my body. On the fifth day the bracelets were removed, but I was kept in the box. My brands had now healed. But the box itself, its heat, its darkness, its tiny dimensions, worked their tortures in me.
In the first days, braceleted, I screamed and kicked, and begged to be released. After my bracelets were removed, and the food then, and water, would only be thrust through the hole under the tiny iron door, I pounded, and screamed, and scratched at the inside of the box. I thrust my fingers through the tiny aperture and cried out for mercy. I feared I would go insane. Ute would feed me, and fill my water pan, but she would not speak to me. Once, however, she did say to me, “You will be freed when your master wishes it, not before.” Once Inge came by, to taunt me. “Rask of Treve has forgotten you,” she said. Rena, too, accompanied Inge. “Yes,” she laughed, ” he has forgotten you. He had forgotten you!”
On the tenth day, instead of the pan of bread, with the water, Ute thrust a different pan under the door. I screamed. Tiny things, with tiny sounds, moved, crawling over and about one another in it. I screamed again, and thrust it back out. It had been filled with far, loathsome green insects which, in the Ka-la-na thicket, Ute had told me were edible. Indeed, she had eaten them. :They are nourishing,” she had said. I screamed hysterically, pounding at the sides of the slave box. The second day, too, I thrust the pan away, almost vomiting. I saw Ute, through the slit, take one of the insects and bite it in two, eating it. The third day, almost vomiting, I ate five of them. They, such insects, and water, were my food for the remainder of my time in the tiny slave box. I would spend hours at the slit in the door, hoping to see someone walk by. I would call to them, but they would not answer, for one does not converse with a girl in a slave box. Then I was happy, even, to see someone pass by, or birds alight on the grass and peck for seeds. I spent eighteen days in the slave box.
On the night of the eighteenth day, Ute, with Inge and Rena, crouched before the box.
“Does El-no-or, the slave, wish to leave the box?” asked Ute.
On my knees in the box, my eyes at the opening, frightened, my fingers on the slit, I whispered, “yes, El-in-or, the slave, wished to leave the box.”
“Does El-in-or, the slave, beg to leave the box?” asked Ute.
“Yes, yes!” I wept. “El-in-or, the slave, begs to leave the box!”
“Release the slave,” said Ute, to Inge and Rena.
