BARBARY SLAVEGIRL
by
Allan Aldis
Copyright Allan Aldiss
Free extract downloaded from www.allanaldiss.com
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This story takes place at a time when European girls really were captured by the Barbary Corsairs and sold in the slave markets of North Africa.
Such women really were totally at the mercy of the rich men who owned them, and of the black eunuchs who supervised them. The Barbary States did have a reputation for treating Christian slaves unbelievably harshly, almost as animals, and there actually were slave breeding farms in the Ottoman Empire ... and although you won’t find Marsa on the map, it could well have been there.
The principal naval powers were busy fighting each other - the long drawn out war between Britain and Revolutionary and then Napoleonic France started in 1793 and only ended with the battle of Waterloo twenty-two years later - and this gave the Corsairs great freedom of action. This period also saw the elimination of one of their main enemies, the Knights of Malta. Thus, at the time of this story, the Corsairs had an almost free rein to plunder and kidnap along the coasts and islands of Southern Europe.
By this time they had replaced their sea-going galleys with fast sailing craft such as Polacca-Chebecs, which carried a mixture of European style square sails and Arab style lanteen sails. The demand for large numbers of young male Christian galley slaves had therefore dwindled. Instead, many of the Corsos, as the raids were called, concentrated more on capturing young women and boys.
In 1798, for instance, only a few years before the setting of this novel, Barbary Corsairs from Tunis carried off almost a thousand women and children in one raid on the island of San Pietro, off Sardinia. Years later some were ransomed, but many had been sold off in the slave markets and were never seen again.
So although what follows is fiction, the background is realistic and those of a squeamish disposition are advised not to read the books in this series.
For a more serious study of the period I would recommend books such as Stephen Clissold’s ‘The Barbary Slaves’ (Elek Books), Noel Barber’s ‘Lords of the Golden Horn’ (Macmillan), ‘Harem, the World Behind the Veil’ by Lytle Croutier (Bloomsbury), and books about the Knights of Malta.
PROLOGUE
It was early in 1810 that I, renegade Irishman though I was, found myself being sent to Malta on a delicate mission by my superior, the Pasha of Marsa, a port on the North African coast.
I made quite a stir when, attended by Tulip, my page boy, I strode into the crowded ballroom in the former palace of the Grand Masters in Valletta, where the British Commissioner, Captain Sir Alexander Ball, had invited me to a ball he was giving.
I was in my somewhat exotic full dress uniform as a senior officer of the Janissaries, the elite troops of the Turkish Empire: blue embroidered tunic, yellow boots, baggy Turkish shalwar trousers and a strangely shaped tall felt hat surmounted with Birds of Paradise plumes.
It was there that, later in the evening, I was accosted by this fiery Irish girl, Barbara Kennedy.
"So, Sir," she demanded, almost as soon as she was alone with me, "you call yourself an Irish gentleman!"
"Indeed!" I replied.
"And what sort of an Irish gentleman is it who is no more than the disgraced scion of one of your wretched penniless Protestant ascendancy families!"
I started back. Evidently I was talking to a Catholic with strong Republican views. It was of course only ten years since the Wexford Rebellion, the Battle of Vinegar Hill, and the death of Wolfe Tone.
"And is it not true," she went on, "that you who call yourself an Irishman have a harem of Arab wives?"
I could feel my face beginning to cloud with anger at this pretty woman’s ill-mannered approach. Her aggressive attitude made me a little more provocative than I would normally have been, and for a moment the discretion that my mission demanded was forgotten.
"Not wives, Miss Kennedy," I replied coldly. "Not wives! Concubines is the correct term for them. Concubines, if you please."
"Concubines!" she cried. "Concubines, is it! You mean slaves, no doubt! You mean you keep a harem of slave girls? You’ll be telling me next that you beat the poor creatures when the fancy takes you."
"My black eunuchs certainly beat them if they do not please me," I said. I was controlling myself with difficulty, for it was intolerable for this rude and outspoken chit of a girl to broach such private matters in public.
"Oh!" she shouted out loudly, so that people turned to stare at us, "black eunuchs is it now! Holy Mother of God, what a monster you are! It’s just as well it’s only ignorant Arab girls that you have!"
"As a matter of fact, Miss Kennedy," I said, really angry with her now, "I, like, most other Moslems in my position in Marsa, where I come from, have several beautiful and well educated Christian girls in my harem. Some of them look very like the ladies here tonight and two of them are very like you!"
The Irish girl spluttered and went white with passion. She stamped a delicate foot in outrage, but seemed unable to speak. "Like me!" she got out at last, "LIKE ME!"
She was glaring at me so fiercely that I almost took a step backwards. Instead I looked straight into those fiery eyes. "Like you," I repeated. "More polite, of course. Prettier, perhaps!"
She gulped and paused to regroup, then changed her attack, as women will.
"I don’t believe a word of it ... and what about this pretty page-boy?" She pointed at Tulip who was standing dutifully behind me. "Just where he does he fit into this story of barbaric lust?"
"His name is Tulip. The Turks would call him a ‘garzon’. He accompanies me everywhere, especially when I am travelling or visiting the women in my harem."
"Oh! Oh! You brute! You brute!" Again she stamped a delicate foot. I dare say I would have found her attractive under other circumstances - once she had learned to keep a civil tongue in her head. "So you really are a Moslem, now!"
The way she spat out the word Moslem made it into an insult, but I still held my temper in check. My attachment to that religion was really only skin deep, little more than a convenience, but I was damned if I was going to say so to this rude little bitch of a girl.
"A Moslem?" I repeated. "Yes indeed, I am a follower of the true Prophet. I am proud of it, just I am also proud of owning my European concubines, slave girls captured by the corsairs and sold in the slave markets of Marsa. You can look as shocked as you like, but in the eyes of a True Believer they are mere infidel Christian dogs to be used for whatever purpose their Master may decide ... But, my dear Miss Kennedy, I should add that no matter how cheap European slave girls may be in Marsa, I doubt if any high ranking Turk there would wish to add a nasty little spitfire like you to his collection. So you would be quite safe, if you were ever captured. You’d probably just be used as a beast of burden, part of the live-stock of some farm."
"You swine! You miserable wretch of an arrogant Protestant land-owning swine!"
She was screaming at me, quite out of control.
Unfortunately I laughed, and it was then that she made a real enemy of me.
She actually had the temerity to to strike me on the cheek, twice, with her glove.
And I could not lift a hand to her, not in that company! No, I had to contain my fury as best I could, knowing that they were all sniggering at me - but also knowing that my mission would be prejudiced, perhaps irretrievably ruined, if I reacted in any way.
"I shall not forget this, Miss Kennedy," I murmured quietly. "I hope for your sake that our paths do not cross in the future."
Then I bowed and walked away, leaving her speechless.
She certainly needed to be taught a few sharp lessons in civility and respectfulness. Little did I think then that I was later to help provide them, nor that she would end up ... as she has done.
I commanded her to write down her story in her own words. I think you will enjoy it more than she did ...
PART ONE I BECOME A SLAVE
Chapter 1 SHIPWRECKED
Just as I thought I would drown in the rough seas, I suddenly felt myself flung onto a sandy beach. With what seemed to be my last ounce of strength I struggled against the undertow - and won!
Slowly I crawled up the beach out of reach of the surf. It was pitch dark. The gale shrieked, blowing the sand along in its wake. I found myself in a little half sheltered dip with long grass around me. Exhausted, I collapsed onto the soft sand, still spitting out the sea water that I had swallowed.
Was I alone, I wondered, in surviving the shipwreck? The fishing craft, a luzzu, had been caught in a Gregale, the sudden fierce North Easterly Gale that could sweep down across the straits between Italy and North Africa. Forced to flee before the wind, the little craft had been blown down towards the Barbary Coast.
Suddenly in the heaving darkness she had hit a rock. In a few minutes she had broken up. The three Maltese fishermen had been swept overboard. Luckily I was a good swimmer, thanks to holidays spent on the wild West coast of Ireland when I was a young girl. I just had time to to get most of my heavy clothes off, before I too had been swept into the raging sea, leaving all my possessions to the elements.
Too exhausted to think, I curled up in the shelter of my little dip in the beach and fell asleep.
It was daylight when I awoke. The wind had dropped and the sun was shining. My only garment, a thin shift, was almost dry. I could hear the surf still pounding on the beach. I raised my head and saw an empty beach between two headlands. Some hundreds of yards out to sea was a spray covered line of rocks where the fishing boat must have foundered, but there was no sign left of her, apart from a few planks on the beach.
I stood up, shaky and weak from my ordeal, naked except for my shift. I called the names of the fishermen. There was no reply, and no sign of them. I was alone, quite alone. I walked along the beach, looking for any signs of my possessions.
There were none.
No one would know what had happened to me, not the authorities in Malta, not my employer in Sicily, and not my family or betrothed back in Ireland. I, and the crew of the fishing boat, would simply be assumed to have perished in the storm.
I was twenty four, a well educated but poor Catholic Irishwoman, who bitterly resented the British occupation of my country. I was regarded as a pretty young girl, and my cousin, Dermot, had asked me to marry him as soon he inherited his Great Uncle’s farm. But meanwhile, to earn my living, I had taken the post, two years before, of Governess in the household of the British Ambassador to the Court of the King of Naples. In fact King Ferdinand had been forced by French troops to flee to Palermo in Sicily several years previously, and there he was protected by British troops and by the Royal Navy. Meanwhile the French had set up a puppet King of their own in Naples, first Joseph, Napoleon’s older brother, and then Marshal Murat, his brother-in-law.
I had gone to Malta to buy English books for my young charges. A few days after that awful scene with the Irish Bey, I found a Maltese fishing boat that was leaving for nearby Sicily and persuaded them to take me as a passenger, so that I could get back to my employers.
And now here I was shipwrecked somewhere in Barbary!
Barefoot and walking with care, I started to make my way inland, following a path that led up to a small hill. I was hungry and thirsty. I came across a little stream, leading down towards the beach, and drank eagerly. But I was still hungry as I continued up the path.
At last I reached the top of the hill, and looked down the other side. Some fifty feet below me was a little gorge and, a track running through it, and I saw the marks of wheels.
Civilisation!
Indeed I soon heard the noise of wheels approaching. I was about to run down to the track when I remembered that I was half naked and in the Barbary Coast. Hesitantly, I lay down in the long grass, and hidden from the track, looked down into the gorge.
Into view came a typical Mediterranean two wheeled country cart, pulled by a donkey. It was laden with farm produce: vegetables and live chickens in wooden cages - all apparently being taken to market. Driving it was a Negro in a long brown robe and a coloured turban.
But it was the girl who caught my eye. She was running along behind the cart. A light chain ran from the back of the cart to an iron collar fastened round her neck. Her wrists were also loosely chained, and she was trying to hold a shawl over her shoulders.
Except for the shawl she was naked.
The Negro driver paid no attention to her as he occasionally plied his whip to the donkey. The girl made no protest as she ran along behind the cart. It was if she was used to being treated just as another animal being taken to market.
Her skin was white.
I shivered with fright.
Tortured by thoughts of slavery, I lay in my hiding place, warmed by the autumn sun.
Next a cavalcade of horsemen trotted past me. They were richly dressed, riding beautifully schooled and harnessed Arab horses. They were laughing and chatting in high pitched voices as they rode behind and in front of a bearded Moor with a huge blue turban, who seemed to be their chief. His attendants were youths, rather pretty youths, with beardless European complexions and wearing the same strange conical hats that I had seen the Bey’s page-boy wear at the British Commissioner’s Ball in Malta.
Riding behind them was a powerful looking Negro. In his hand he held a short whip.
I gasped as I saw that on either side of the bearded man’s horse, ran a pretty white girl. They both wore simple white tunics and sandals. A delicate silver chain ran from each side of the man’s saddle to a silver collar round each girl’s neck chain. Like the girl I had seen running behind the farmer’s cart, each girl’s wrists were linked by another chain.
Each girl was holding an elaborate parasol, which she was trying to hold up over the bearded man’s head to shield him from the sun.
The youths paid no attention to the scantily clad young women, although they were pretty things with large breasts, fine waists and swelling hips. It was as if the youths were used to seeing half naked girls running at the stirrup of the bearded man.
Suddenly one of the young women stumbled. The umbrella waived in the air, and hit one of the youths, who called out angrily to the bearded man, pointing disparagingly to the unfortunate girl who was now desperately trying to restore the parasol to its place above the bearded man.
The bearded man turned and said something to the Negro. The Negro rode his horse up behind the girl, who gave a terrified glance behind her. The Negro raised his whip and brought it down twice across the girl’s back. She gave a little whimper, but continued to run on by the side of the horse, holding up her parasol.
The youth smiled at his companions and the cavalcade rode on, leaving me shocked at the scene that I had just witnessed.
Who were these youths? I remembered what the odious Irish Bey had said in Malta about wealthy men owning captured Christian slave girls and being accompanied by their white page-boys, ‘garzons’ he had said they were called. Clearly the youths were jealous of the girls. Presumably the Negro was the girl’s overseer - I remembered what the Bey had said about his own black eunuchs beating a girl who had displeased him.
It was all very frightening. I had never seen women being treated with such callous cruelty.
Soon it was late afternoon. I had not eaten all day, and was becoming ravenously hungry. I crept back to the stream to drink, and was just returning to my hide-out when I saw a long four wheeled waggon drawn by two pairs of oxen coming round the corner of the track.
An Arab driver with a long whip was walking alongside the lumbering oxen urging them on. In front of the waggon was a large canvas awning, sheltering two other men. One was an Arab armed with a musket who seemed to be a guard.
The other man was a huge Negro wearing a white conical hat similar to those that I had seen before being worn by rather effeminate looking white youths like the Bey’s ‘garzon’. But there was nothing effeminate about this huge Negro - he was naked to the waist, his powerful torso shining in the evening sunlight, a whip in his hand, a whip that had a short handle and a short thick black flat leash.
But it was what I saw behind the awning that once again made me gasp in sheer disbelief. A raised metal bar ran down the middle of the waggon. Free to slide up and down the bar were some twenty metal rings. The bar was supported at either end of the waggon by wooden cross-pieces that held it several feet above the floor, and at either end of the bar were some sort of locked projections that would prevent the rings from sliding off, even if it were no longer supported by the cross-pieces. From each ring hung a length of stout chain, at the end of each chain was an iron collar, and each collar was fastened round the neck of a naked woman!
Some twenty women were sitting on the floor of the waggon in two lines facing each other. They were half hidden by its sides but exposed to the elements. I saw that they were nervously looking at each other and at the Negro in the front, but they did not talk to each other.
They were about to stop - the driver led the waggon just off the track and halted the oxen, and the Arab guard and the Negro climbed down from the waggon. They helped the driver to unhitch the oxen and to tether them nearby, giving them both water and a feed from sacks hanging under the waggon. Then they started to erect a tent and to build a fire, evidently preparing to camp for the night.
With my heart in my mouth for fear of being detected, I lay in my hide-out, watching them. Soon the aroma of meat being roasted drifted up to me, reminding me sharply of my own hunger. I began to lick my lips and to wonder if I could slip down later and steal some food.
Evidently the lamb being roasted on a spit was not for the women chained in the back of the waggon. I saw the powerful looking Negro go to the waggon and unhook a sack hanging from under it. He poured some of the contents into a large metal bowl - it looked like oats or barley. He added hot water from a large kettle boiling over the fire, and stirred the mixture until a sort of porridge had been formed.
Then he climbed up into the waggon and threw a dollop of the porridge onto the floor in front of each woman. I saw several fights break out as those who had finished their own rations quickly began to help themselves to those of their slower eating neighbours. The Negro laughed at their antics.
I was overcome at the cruel and barbarous way in which these white women were being treated, and by the way they had been reduced to the level of animals, fighting over their food.
I remembered what the hateful Bey had said about his black eunuchs disciplining the women in his harem. Was this massive brute a black eunuch? Was that why he wore that strange conical hat? But if so, then why had the youths I had seen earlier on also worn it? Surely not even the Turks and Moors would make eunuchs out of captured Christian boys? Or was that why they had seemed so soft skinned - like little boys?
But who were the women in the waggon? Why were they chained and naked? Where were they being taken?
Chapter 2 CAPTURED
I crept through the darkness down towards the waggon.
I could hear the clinking of chains as the women stirred, and laughter coming from the tent where the men were eating. Two of the men’s voices were deep, but one was curiously high pitched. There were no voices coming from the waggon.
I reached the track at the bottom of the small hill. At last the waggon containing the women was in front of me, close, silent.
I looked round, then drew breath.
"Hullo there - don’t make a noise," I whispered in Lingua Franca, the mixture of basic Italian and Spanish that was widely used throughout the Mediterranean, and which I had learnt in Sicily.
There was a sudden movement of chains. "Who’s there?" called out a woman, frightened.
"Shush!" I whispered urgently. "Be quiet, please! I’m a friend."
"What’s going on?" whispered another woman. I heard the movement of more chains, of bodies.
I climbed up over the side of the waggon and quickly lowered myself to the floor beside the captive women. It was covered with straw on which they were lying, their collar chains fastened to the metal pole that ran the length of the waggon above them. There was hardly any room to move. I felt naked female flesh, soft and yielding. Quickly I squeezed in to lie down amongst them. I could not risk being seen.
"Who are you? ... What do you want?"
"Shush! Please keep quiet," I whispered.
"Who are you?"
"I’m Barbara. I’m Irish. From Malta. I’ve been shipwrecked and I need help."
"How can we help? ... We’re chained ... We’re slaves," a voice replied. "We’ve only just been captured ourselves ..."
"Give me some food," I begged.
"We have no food! We just have to scramble for what is thrown to us."
I moaned in my distress. "But the food being cooked by the men ..."
"That’s not for us!"
"But, please, please, you must help me!" I cried.
"What can we do?" came a new voice. "We are kept chained like animals."
Again there was a pause. "Are you a runaway slave? ... Have you escaped from your Master?" The voices suddenly became urgent, almost hysterical. "How did you do it? ... Where will you go? ... Can you cut free our chains?... Can you take us with you?"
"No, no, you don’t understand. I’m not a slave. I tell you I have been shipwrecked. I’m an Irishwoman, from Malta. I’m not a slave."
"Well you soon will be, you little fool." There was laughter.
A girl seized my left arm. She held it so that the light from the men’s camp fire lit it up through a gap in the planking in the side of the waggon. I felt my arm being turned.
"It’s true what she says. She’s got no number."
"What do you mean?" I whispered, snatching away my arm.
"Look! Look at my arm," said the girl.
In the half light I could make out that something strange had indeed been tattooed along the soft skin inside her forearm.
"Arabic numerals," explained the girl. "My slave number - registered at the port at which we were disembarked: somewhere near Tunis, we think it was."
"Yes," came another voice, bitterly, "not only are we kept chained like animals, and fed like animals, but we have even been tattooed with a number so that our Masters can keep a record of us - just like my father used to record his live-stock on our farm ... You must go quickly. You must get away from here!"
"But where to?" I moaned piteously. "I don’t even know where I am! Where do I go to get help? Where can I get some food?"
"Not here, that’s for sure!"
"Nowhere on the Barbary Coast!"
"It’s too late now! The Negro’s coming for Slave Check!"
I saw a lantern coming towards the waggon. I heard the crack of a whip and a high pitched voice, shouting in broken Lingua Franca.
"Animals! No talking!"
My arm was suddenly gripped by one of the women. "Quick, you fool, take off your shift so that you’re naked like us. Hide it in the straw. And put this collar round your neck. It doesn’t matter that you can’t lock it. It’s from a girl who died two days ago."
"Died?" I whispered anxiously as she put the collar round my neck. It was hinged at one side, with two flanges meeting on the other, through which a padlock or rivet could be fitted.
"Yes. Perhaps being enslaved was all too much for her. Who knows? Oh do hurry! He’s coming! Quick! Lie down here and just hope that he doesn’t notice you."
I heard the heavy footsteps of the big Negro coming closer, and lay flat on the floor like all the other women. I put my hands over my face, partly to hide it, and partly to hold the collar shut. I could feel the weight not only of the iron collar itself, but also of the thick chain that linked it to the metal bar over us. It made me feel helpless, as I suppose it was intended to do.
I heard the whip crack again. I felt the women on either side of me flinch. It was terrifying. I now understood for the first time the power that a ruthless man with a whip can have over a woman - particularly a naked one. The fact that the man was a burly Negro, and I a delicate white woman, made it all the more terrifying. I half closed my eyes in fear, lying curled up on my side.
The back of the waggon was let down. I felt it sway under the weight of the huge Negro as he stepped up into it. Several women moaned, more in fear than in pain, as he kicked them out of his way. He was coming up towards me! Petrified, I lay absolutely still.
A few seconds later I glimpsed the naked and muscular torso of the eunuch as he stood over me, holding up his lantern. He was wearing baggy Turkish breeches, or shalwar, that came down to his calves. I saw his cunning beady eyes, the frightening tribal scars on his cheeks.
He was looking down at the woman alongside me. then his eyes switched to me and flickered over my head, then travelled on down my naked body.
He had not noticed that my collar was not properly fastened round my neck, nor that the dead girl’s empty collar was now missing. Suddenly his eyes rested on my belly and stopped. With his foot he kicked me over onto my back.
"So an unshorn little animal has come to join us!" he said in his high falsetto voice. It seemed odd, such a high pitched voice coming from such a burly body. He began to laugh. Suddenly he snatched at the chain leading down to my collar, wrenching it out of my hands.
"So Allah the merciful, Allah the provider, has sent me a new slave to replace the dead one!"
He turned and shouted at his two companions, still by the fireside, and they came running.
I heard expressions of astonishment, then one of them handed something, like a huge pair of pliers with wooden handles, up to the Negro. It must have been what he had called to them to bring. I cringed as he bent down over me.
"No, please, please ..." I begged.
He paid no attention. He put the collar back round my neck. Then he inserted something into the two flanges that met on the side of my neck opposite to the hinge. It was a lead pellet. He put down his whip and handed the lantern to one of the men. Holding the huge pliers in both hands, he put it down onto my collar. Suddenly he squeezed the two handles together with a grunt, squeezing the leaden pellet into the flanges. The collar was now riveted round my neck. I was chained, like the other women, to the long iron bar above me.
The Negro laughed. "That animal won’t escape now," he muttered in Lingua Franca to himself. "Unless it dies like the other one!"
He stood up and handed the rivet squeezer back to his companions, and took back the lantern. He reached down and grabbed my left arm, and turned it over. He grunted when he saw no tattooed number. He called out something in Arabic to the two men, making them laugh.
He reached down to my belly. "Belly up!" he screamed. "Raise right up, when I give you order."
Terrified I raised myself to him, just as I had seen the other girl do. When he touched me, I gave a little cry. He paid no attention. He was feeling my body hair.
"You!" he said. "Tomorrow I take all off. Tomorrow you smooth like the others. Tomorrow you tattooed with number of dead girl."
I heard one of the Arabs rummaging in the front of the waggon. He came back holding a sheet of paper covered in Arabic writing, and began to read it aloud. The eunuch held up his lantern to my head and touched my hair. Apparently satisfied, he nodded.
I realised that the paper must be the manifest for the load of women slaves. He must be comparing me with the brief description of the dead girl. Presumably he would be blamed for her death, for arriving with one girl less than on the manifest. But if he replaced her with me, and if I fitted her description and bore her registered slave number, then no one need ever know about the death of the girl. It was lucky for him that I had dark hair!
Then the man with the list read out something else in Arabic. The Negro looked down at me. "You virgin?"
His eyes were on my raised belly. I was too embarrassed, too scared, to be able to speak. Suddenly he brought the thick leather blade of his whip down across my belly. It was as if a live coal had been dropped onto it. The pain took my breath away. I had never felt anything like it. I screamed in agony.
"Virgin?" he queried, raising his whip again. "You virgin?"
"Yes! Yes!" I shouted.
The big Negro smiled and said something to his companions. Then he turned back to me.
"I check. Get over!" With his boot he rolled me over on onto my stomach. "Kneel up on all fours! Head down! Knees wider apart! Thrust bottom back! More! Now you keep quite still. You move, you get whip again. Understand?"
Kneeling on all fours like an animal on the crowded floor of the waggon I suddenly felt his hand. I jumped. My collar chain rattled. "Oh!" I cried. "Oh!" I sobbed. No man had ever touched me there before.
"Keep still, you Christian dog," the Negro growled menacingly, as he parted my body lips. I felt him beginning to probe. For the first time in my life my virginity was being checked. I could feel him exploring carefully. I was overcome with shame. Then his finger was withdrawn, He stood up.
"Good!" he said. "You now slave number 875632."
"No! No!" I cried. "You’ve made a mistake. A terrible mistake. I’m not a slave. I’m Miss Barbara Kennedy. I’m a British subject. I’ve been shipwrecked. I’m not a slave ..."
"Slave now," came the angry reply. He raised the terrifying whip menacingly. He consulted the paper again. "You slave number 875632, virgin, captured in raid on Italian coast. Tomorrow I tattoo you with number. You understand?"
I nodded, my eyes on the terrible thick hide whip. I did indeed understand. Miss Barbara Kennedy, a well educated and respectable young Irish governess had simply disappeared off the face of the earth. In her place was now Slave Number 875632, with black hair, a virgin, captured in a raid on the Italian coast.
There was no official record that I was British. The treaties between Britain and the various Barbary States, exempting British subjects from slavery, would not apply to me, even if they were worth the paper they were written on.
Would I ever see the green hills of Ireland again? Would I ever see my precious Dermot again?
| 
