"I thought you were a girl," I blurted out.
A fine mouth spread into a smile that revealed strong, white teeth. "I am," she said.
"But your hair—your harness—even your figure belies your claim."
She laughed gayly. That, I was to find later, was one of her chiefest charms—that she could laugh so easily, yet never to wound.
"My voice betrayed me," she said. "It is too bad."
"Why is it too bad?" I asked.
"Because you would have felt better with a fighting man as a companion, whereas now you feel that you have only a burden."
"A light one," I replied, recalling how easily I had lifted her to the thoat's back. "But tell me who you are and why you are masquerading as a boy."
"I am a slave girl," she said; "just a slave girl who has run away from her master. Perhaps that will make a diffe
