'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
She blew foam from her hand, watching the bubbles drift in the air. 'The slave ship,' she said, 'will not be pleasant.'
'What will be done to me in Cos?' I asked.
'You will be placed in the Chatka and Curla, a paga tavern,' she said. 'And from there our agents will make their contact.'
'Will I understand the message?' I asked.
'No,' she said. 'You will not understand it. You will only deliver it.'
'And,' I asked, 'when the message is delivered?'
'Then,' she said, 'you will be returned to me.'
'And then?' I asked.
'Then,' she said, leaning back in the sunken bath, luxuriating in the warm, foamy water, 'you will begin your life as my serving slave, Judy.'
'Yes, Lady Elicia, my mistress,' I said.
16
A Sail
I screamed wildly in the darkness, jerking back my ankle from the edge of the sturdy mesh about me. My ankles would pull back toward me only some six inches as they were chained. I lay on my back. I clasped my shaven head in my hands. My hands, too, were chained, the two chains running to a heavy ring over and above my head, in the slatted wood of the tier on which I lay. I could lower the heel of my hands only to the side of my neck; but it was enough to cover my ears, when it became necessary to do so. I screamed and thrashed; I could tell my ankle was bleeding, from the feeling of the wound and the wetness about my shin and on the wood. I tried with my right foot to press against the wound, to stanch the flow of blood. I saw the blazing, coppery eyes of the long- haired ship urt on the other side of the mesh. I had let the shin of my left foot rest against the mesh.
'Let me out!' I screamed. 'Let me out!'
Sometimes an urt manages to force its way through the mesh, or between one of the vertical cage lids, one at each end of the cage, and the cage. The girl then, chained as she is, is at its mercy.
'Be silent,' said a girl's voice, from the next cage. I could not see her, or the others.
'Please, Masters!' I wept. 'Let me out! Let me out, Masters!'
'Be silent!' she scolded.
I tried to be silent. I twisted on the slatted wood.
'Please, Master,' I had wept. 'Put me in a deck cage!' These were small cages, lashed down, sometimes kept on the deck of a crowded slave ship. This ship, a small one, had only twenty such cages, arranged amidships in two rows, back to back, two cages high, five cages long. In harsh weather, and at night, these cages are often covered with tarpaulins; this tends to prevent undue weathering of the cage.metal due to salt and moisture. During the day the tarpaulins are usually laid aside, unless they are tied over the cages to discipline the girls. There are two major advantages to having the tarpaulins put aside. First, the sailors may then, for their pleasure, gaze upon the lovely prisoners of the cages; secondly, the girls, when they reach their port of sale, will be tanned perfectly, completely. Any girl on the ship, incidentally, unless she is certified 'white silk,' a virgin, is free to the sailors for their sport. There were no 'white silk' girls on board; we were all 'red silk.' This was not unusual. There are few virgin slaves. Their virginity usually does not last more than an Ahn beyond their first sale. It is the deck-cage girls who are most often used for the sport of the sailors. In daylight hours their charms are on almost constant display. They are not chained in the hold. They may pose and wheedle, and thrust their arms through the bars to touch the sailors. Also they are more readily available. A cage door need only be opened and the girl pulled to the deck, or thrown across the tarpaulins. 'Put me in a deck cage, Master!' I had begged. He had looked down upon me, captain of the ship. 'Chain her below,' he had said. I had been dragged from his feet.
I screamed again.
'Be silent,' said another girl, angrily.
I thrashed on the wood. I could feel the ship lice.
I could not tear at them with my fingernails; I was not chained in such a way as to permit that; this was intentional. I writhed on the slatted wood, screaming.
'Be silent,' said the first girl. 'It is not the time permitted for screaming!'
'I do not care!' I cried.
I heard a noise. I was frightened.
A hatch was thrown open, and a man descended the stairs into the hold.
Suddenly, in the dim light, falling through the opened hatch, I could see the musty tiers and their helpless, fair occupants.
The man looked about.
'She it was! She it was who screamed!' cried the girl next to me, indicating me with her head.
'No!' I cried. 'It was not I!'
'It was she!' cried the first girl.
'Yes, she!' cried several others.
I sensed the man standing behind me, on a ramp. 'I was bitten,' I said. 'I was bitten!' I twisted on the wood, trying to see him. 'Have mercy, Master!' I said. 'I was bitten!'
'It was not the time permitted for screaming,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said. 'Forgive me,' I begged, 'Master.'
There were eight slave platforms in the hold, each with six tiers. These platforms were separated by narrow aisles; also they did not adjoin the sides of the hold, thus allowing a passage between them and the wall of the hold on both the left and right side of the ship. On each tier of each platform there were five girls. There were, thus, two hundred and forty girls in the hold. A cunning mesh and cage arrangement is incorporated into the platforms. The slatted wood of the tiers, on which the girls lay, permits cage mesh to pass unimpeded from the roof of the sixth tier to the bottom of the first tier. The mesh is cleated to the wood of each tier. Each girl, in effect, has her own meshed cage, separate from that of the others. Thus, if an urt manages to enter one area he has at his mercy only one captive, not five. The top of the sixth tier and the bottom slats of the first tier are sheathed in tin, to prevent being gnawed by urts. Mesh, too, heavy and sturdy, closes off the ends of the slave cubicles formed. In the mesh at the ends of the cubicle formed, both the end at the girl's feet and that at her head, there is a tiny gate. The girl may be placed in the cage, or removed from it, from either end. She normally inches her way into the cubicle from the top end and one slaver, from the bottom, secures her ankles in their irons, then shutting that gate, and another secures her wrists in their irons, then shutting that gate. Each girl thus has to herself a small, rectangular cage area, surrounded on four sides by mesh, on the bottom by the slatted wood of the tier, and on the top by the wood of the tier above her, unless she is on the sixth tier, and then she has above her, of course, the ceiling of her cubicle, the bottom of the platform roof. She is chained in such a way as to preclude movement which might tear at the mesh or break it, thus making possible the entry of urts, which might eat at her, lowering her price, and to preclude her tearing hysterically with her hands and fingernails at her own body, bloodying herself, perhaps scarring herself, again lowering her price, in her attempt to obtain relief from the bites and itching consequent upon the infestation and depredation of the numerous, almost constantly active ship lice. The first tier is raised from the floor of the hold by some eighteen inches, providing a crawl space. The open spaces between the tin-sheathed, wood slats on the first tier are covered, from the bottom, by cleated mesh, which prevents urts from entering from the bottom. The crawl space between the floor of the hold and the first tier is cleaned once a day. Each girl, all in all, has a space private to her slavery of some twenty-five inches in width, by some eighteen inches in height, by some six feet five inches in length. In this space she is chained helplessly. Of the six tiers in my platform, I was on the fourth.
I heard the man loosen the small gate behind my head. I did not know why he did this.
'Master?' I asked.
