Beloved bonds

9 Slave Chain

The President’s Guard basked in glory. Each was personally thanked by the President, and three of them were, separately, summoned to his bed. One of these was Trudy. In post-coital conversation she was assured that Caroline’s disappearance was the work of Nicholas Nykobe or his minions. Retribution and repossession was to be swift and merciless, but in the meantime Caroline had vanished. Whilst subject to this Presidential favour Trudy the trooper came to understand the older girl’s infatuation with Khalief Abhad. Having once been impaled upon the purple Presidential phallus no girl could ever be quite the same. It was like being granted a preview of Nirvana. The younger girl was never certain where it all went within her, but she was grateful for both its advance and retreat. She had survived a major invasion.

But their glory was by no means in the past. Their deportment under fire and the accuracy of their rifles now earned them a stellar role in the invasion of such territory still held by Nykobe and his troops. It was a job too long delayed. The Zindawban Army was mobilised and on its way to a strategic meeting within enemy territory with the Guard who was being sent ahead to rout and destroy an isolated but fortified outpost which might prove an obstacle to the victorious invasion.

There was much drill and the shouting of commands. Each girl was jubilant. The W.O. had never been so happy. Morale was at its peak. In order that they arrive to do battle fresh and alert, marching was dispensed with. The twenty eager Guards piled into a brand new truck with boxes of ammunition and rifles polished to a deadly shine. W.O. Ringbolt and Captain Rulua were to catch up with them later in a Jeep. Several hours of jolting took them well within enemy country without providing a sign of the enemy itself. Inhabitants of the dusty land had prudently retreated from the vicinity of the rutted road. They had things very much to themselves until they were ambushed.

Their downfall was overconfidence and the absence of their W.O.

Not a shot was fired. The four trucks had been craftily screened from view in scrub brush. Within a minute they had taken position, one on each side, one front and rear, to surround the vehicle carrying the President’s Guard and render resistance futile. Large calibre arms pointed from all directions.

The troop dismounted. Chagrined, dismayed, frightened. They were relieved of their rifles, their truck was stripped. But the men of Nykobe were disciplined. They surveyed their catch with wide and lustful grins and some ribald chaff but there was no brutality. Trudy guessed she and her companions were not just prisoners of war. They were a valued prize.

They were counted, their names and numbers recorded, they were handcuffed, hands behind their backs. They were then lifted, bodily, back into the Zindawban transport by men who enjoyed their work. Two armed soldiers took up guard duty with the captive girls. The convoy rumbled on in the same direction.

“The driver got us lost, or else he’s one of them.” Sergeant Galla said bitterly to her apprehensive charges.

“What will they do with us, Galla?”

“How should I know!” Galla turned to their grinning guards. “Do you two know what will happen to us?”

Their only answer was hilarity and the chuckling assurance: “You not like it one little bit.”

“I’d be a guard in uniform and be handcuffed!”

Trudy hated it. The bite of the steel bands on her wrists was like a house of cards falling about her head. A lovely dream was dying. The truck jolted the girls back and forth against each other. With arms locked at their backs they could do nothing but exchange glances of commiseration.

It was early afternoon when the wheels stopped turning. This time the prisoners were handed down to stand on a well-used road on the outskirts of a town. They were marshalled together and there began the most shameful chapter of their short career as members of the military. Sergeant Galla, as was her right, was elected to lead the line . . .

It was a slave coffle! Two of the enemy dragged into view a burden of links and metal bands the troop eyed with a terrible prescience. When the first collar was fitted round Galla’s neck and locked with a resounding click they knew their fate. Four feet of chain led to the next, a captive girl was thrust forward and was similarly banded—and the next—and the next. The President’s Guard became a single file of smartly uniformed damsels joined to each other individually. The three white maidens brought up the rear. Perhaps this too was symbolic!

“We’re going to be lined up and shot,” Maisie Collins whispered bitterly. “Oh, damn, I’ve never felt this helpless!”

“But surely they’ll rape us first!” Daphne offered with ingenuous optimism.

“More likely they’ll try and convert us to their cause,” Trudy rejoined thoughtfully. “It would be quite a feather in their cap. How d’you think the troop’s loyalty would stand up to whatever they did to us to make us say yes?”

One troop of the enemy took formation ahead, another behind the crestfallen column of captives. On each side there marched a soldier who had exchanged his gun for a whip which he cracked with skill and gusto and a delighted show of white teeth.

“We march into Moghata Town,” the senior officer ordered. “My men are directed to whip any of you who decide to lag.”

The cavalcade of triumph and disaster fell into step. There was much clinking of metal links from maiden throats and a good many gasps of dismay and distress from maiden lips as the coffle exerted its compulsion on their necks. Small hands wrenched desperately at the steel bands about their wrists, but none was dilatory. Soon, adjusting to their shame, they were stepping out briskly on streets lined with vociferous and enthusiastic citizenry who ogled breasts and buttocks, chains and shame, with lustful appreciation.

It was, of course, a gala occasion. Nicholas Nykobe vied with Khalief Abhad in showmanship. In either victory or defeat the President’s Guard was a feather in any mountebank’s cap. When they reached the Town Square it became bitterly reminiscent of their day of triumph in Tulabe. But Moghata was short on population. It also lacked a brass band. There was, however, the inevitable platform.

The coffle of captive girls was lined up to face the Square. The chain linking them was locked at each end to a convenient anchorage. They constituted a safe and captive audience and a highly decorative display. There was nothing they could do but stand.

Taking swift glances back over her captive shoulder at Nykobe as he made his speech, Trudy recognised power, perhaps some sort of faith. Certainly he was triumphant. From time to time during his resounding redundancies his eye glinted in her direction. Despite her plight she thrilled and felt him as a presence. He knew she was there! She was not forgotten. Nykobe would do something with her! She was sure of it. But what!

Since the speakers delivered their oratory in the dialect, the white captives could only gauge its quality by the rise and fall of dramatically emphasised periods. The festivities were officially declared with the lighting of a sizeable bonfire, Its fuel piled where the apprehensive troop was illuminated by its flames. When the conflagration was at its peak a sonorous command from the platform imposed a hushed stillness on all.

The Guard uniform was designed for convenience. They came off easily. Privileged members of Nykobe’s Army removed them from their chained and cringing owners. Others fought with laces to remove boots and socks. It took but a little while to render the prideful troop stark-naked. None could rebel. They endured their stripping in a mortified silence. In a space of minutes they had ceased to be prisoners of war and had been reduced to slavery. Behind them the sonorous voice declaimed in exaltation as the cherished uniforms of a decadent foe were ceremoniously burned before their wearer’s eyes. The citizens of Moghata howled in glee.

“The whole lot of them will screw us,” said Maisie in morose conviction.

“It’s better than being shot, love,” said Daphne. Trudy said nothing. She agreed with both.

But their nakedness was not an end. It was a beginning. Whilst vendors of food and drink were besieged with carefree coin and a platoon of drums beat out its paean of victory, the nude units of the coffle were herded upon the platform. There they were made to stand on its outer limits as a square facing whoever cared to stare up at their breasts and hairy triangles. The crowd was encouraged to look its fill but to keep moving so that this spectacle of pride brought low might be enjoyed by all. Two of the captives who strove to turn away their female treasures were soundly whipped by the grinning attendants. After that they all stuck out their chests, separated their feet, and tried not to meet any eyes. The whipped girls sobbed but could not dry their tears.

At the end of fifteen minutes of naked exposure the twenty girls listened in shock as Nicholas Nykobe, in ringing jubilation, informed his subjects that the captives were to be turned to the advantage of the State. They were to be sold as slaves, and the money so obtained used to purchase the armaments by which freedom would be achieved. Such beauty should not languish unprofitably in a prison but should make its own unique contribution to the glory of the People’s Party.

“I told you we’d be fucked,” Maisie said without gratitude.

“But who on earth would buy us all?” Daphne demanded.

“Probably a brothel.” It was all Trudy could think of.

Like all else in this torn and troubled land the proceedings were incongruous and faintly absurd. The merrymakers retreated to their food and drink, their places round the platform taken by an oddly assorted medley of bidders, mostly Arabs. Kaftans milled side by side with worsted and gabardines in a unity of intent. They had money and wanted girls. To the chained Trudy up on the platform they emanated a force, a tide which would engulf and sweep her to a fate she could only fear.

It was announced that, to expedite what might have been a lengthy battle of bids, the girls were to be sold as a job lot, their chains went with them. It was hinted that the forces of Zindawba were not so far distant as to merit delay.

The warehouse was cheerless. Their purchaser, a business type Semitic formally attired, addressed them briefly. They were to avoid panic. They would not be killed. Most of them would be sold into privileged and enviable situations. Whilst in his own possession they would he kept well chained in deference to their maiden fears and natural impulse to escape. Rebellion would be punished. He introduced them to the lithe female colleague who stood beside him with the whip. Lilith was their Mistress, she was to be obeyed.

The troop was dejectedly obedient. What else could it be! Passivity was implicit in their chains. At Lilith’s command they extended their coffle to its utmost length and each girl bent forward from the hips to present a row of twenty girlish and variously pigmented bottoms for the approval of their purchaser.

“You will keep still while you are beaten,” Lilith commanded evenly. “You may weep if you desire. Mr. Saud believes it for Your own good that you suffer sufficiently now to ensure your rational behaviour in what is expected of you later.” She made it sound like a sensible idea for which they should be grateful.

Mr. Saud used a cane. He applied it with businesslike deliberation and some zest. His task was formidable but he obviously desired no aid. He struck Sergeant Galla’s proffered posterior a resounding thwack His progress down the line was acknowledged with gasps and moans and small cries of hurt. As he approached the end, Lilith’s voice was incisive:

“Stay as you are. Mr. Saud is not finished.”

Trudy accepted her blow in mute misery. But, as one of twenty chained and helpless victims, expostulation could yield her only extra punishment. Couldn’t the silly idiot realise they’d all been caned and whipped enough to know what pain was like! But perhaps not. After all they were an elite!

Mr. Saud’s stock in trade was girls. From them he made his living. Their responses were vital to his trade. On his second journey down the line of bent behinds his hand sought evidence, testing.

“Separate your legs properly and keep them apart. Do not protest. Forget modesty,” Lilith’s instruction was faintly bored.

Mr. Saud’s hand probed pudendums. Pussies were palmed and kneaded to reveal secretions. They were also pushed and pulled to exhibit the degree in which they were capable of rear exposure. Each exploration of a girl’s most secret place drew a noncommittal grunt and a well-aimed cut with the cane.

“Keep well bent down, girls.”

The troop bent and gasped. Trudy was thankful for the interval in which Mr. Saud went up and down the line. A quick succession of such strokes as he dealt would have been impossible to stand still to receive.

“That is all, girls. Mr. Saud believes four stripes sufficient for this purpose.”

Trudy gasped thankfully. The four had hurt like forty. But each girl had accepted them without casualties. Her sigh of relief was cut short by Lilith’s next announcement.

“Three of you are white. We have found that white girls require extra cautionary attention. The rest of you will stand still and take note.”

Daphne, Maisie and Trudy were taken from the coffle. It felt good to lose the band from about their neck. But relief was short. Their elbows were looped, drawn tight together and knotted. They were positioned in line to face their dusky comrades, their breasts tautly pointing from wracked shoulders.

“One stroke across each breast. Mr. Saud is merciful.”

Mr. Saud was NOT merciful. Trudy longed to smite Lilith’s bland complacence. But she could strike nothing. All she could do was stand still with jutting cones to receive pain. She dismissed thoughts of kneeling and pleading for mercy. Lilith would love that! Mr. Saud would probably enjoy it too. If it was just one on each—!

The slave trader had discarded his cane. He now held a whip. A short stock, several thin braided lashes of no great length. The cringing girls realised that in this whipping of their breasts, accuracy was of the essence. No doubt, by the standards that governed such things, they were in good hands.

“Stand quite still. Extend your chests. Failure will earn you an additional thrashing.”

They stood quite still.

Trudy wondered about this new pain. She was soon made aware. The thongs bit savagely at her right breast, leaving clearly defined striations she would flaunt for many days. In its turn her left twin was similarly slashed. She was possessed by pain. Her elbows scorched ceaselessly. She was led away by a firm hand upon her prisoned arm. She had walked far before she realised the warehouse and the troop was left behind.

“I will not apologise. Perhaps it is as well you are seen to suffer with your comrades.” said Nicholas Nykobe as he thoughtfully removed the ropes from about his prisoner’s elbows. “Mr. Saud can be trusted not to exceed good sense.”

“Mr. Saud hurt me a lot,” said Trudy without rancour. “I’d hate to have him mad at me.”

“That is his motive, my dear. A deterrent,” Nykobe’s finger traced the lines across his captive’s breasts. He found them absorbing. “I’m afraid I have to say I find these extremely beautiful. They affect me.”

“I’m glad you like ’em. I expect I’ll wear ’em awhile.” She looked up appealingly. “It would be nice if you took off my handcuffs?”

He chuckled at her ingenuousness. “On the other hand it would be nice for me to leave them on. Your sweet helplessness is another potency.”

Trudy deliberately twisted against her fetter to illustrate her impotence. Demurely, she inquired:

“This time I expect you really will—” She allowed a pause to lengthen. “—What do you want to call it, make me service you? You service me! Ravish—?”

“What quaint synonyms! I intend to fuck you.”

“You like the brutality of that word, I can tell,” she glinted up at him. “It’s going to be awkward for me with my arms behind my back.”

“Your problem pleases me. I’m sure you’ll cope.” Trudy knew she would. She refused to admit her excitement. Provocatively, she teased. “Remember, I’ve also got a tender bottom.”

Again the tracery of fingers along ridged skin beneath her joined hands. Her shiver and wiggle was involuntary, a physical admission of sensation beyond control. Nicholas Nykobe laughed amusedly. “Saud’s principle is sound, dear child. He gave you four to instil respect—can I do less?”

Instinctively, Trudy’s cuffed hands sought her wounds. “Oh, not four more!” she wailed. “They hurt terribly.” She looked up at him, doe-eyed. “Besides, I’m innocent, and I’m trained, and I’m behaving myself like a good girl.”

“You are also longing for me to cane your pretty little bottom.”

“Oh damn, how did you know!” Trudy grinned sheepishly. “It must be Caroline’s influence—I never used to—!” She broke off in a sudden realisation. “Where is Caroline? I don’t see why you bother with me when you’ve got her, Caroline makes me look like the ugly duckling.”

Nykobe’s features were impassive. “It is my judgment of you that counts,” he said heavily. “Let us not concern ourselves with Abhad’s whore.”

“Please don’t call her that, she’s sweet! And she hasn’t had much more to say about what happens to her than I have.” Sensing a fading mood of felicity, she asked winsomely: “Would you like me to fetch a cane or something and bend over?”

The mood returned. Nykobe chucked his new possession under the chin. “It is you who make others seem dull,” he said affectionately. “Yes, you may fetch a cane.”

The slender instrument by which she would be given pain rested, with others, on a rack. Trudy used her teeth to remove it, drop it on a desk, then grasp it with her cuffed hands. She proffered it to her lord backwards.

He chuckled at her earnest endeavour. “You could have brought it to me in your teeth, y’know.”

She flushed. “How silly! I never thought—! That way I could have knelt . . . ? Do you want me to do it over?”

“I want you to do everything over. You are a delight. But enough of teasing. Take whatever position you like.”

“You mean I can stand straight to be caned? It doesn’t hurt so much like that?”

“If you wish,” Nykobe was enjoying her sincerity. “You would be easy to indulge. You have a way with you.”

Trudy bent forward, well down, back arched, knees taut. Her rosy round rump reared rampantly in invitation.

“You do like it,” Nicholas Nykobe accused, laughing. He selected skin Mr. Saud had not already used, and struck.

“Thank you very much,” said Trudy. She did not move.

He struck again, crossing a weal. “Thank you, sir. You do it beautifully.”

Trudy was possessed. Some demon of mischief sustained her against a pain normally too great to bear. The agony was fiendish on her tight stretched skin, yet she felt nothing. Or believed she felt nothing. She did not move. She was in a trance compounded of the chemistry generated between herself and this man she had seen but once before. When Nykobe’s third stroke spanned her flesh its cruel ‘thuck!’ evoked only the sweetness of an outrageous plea.

“If the next one is the last, sir, please make it a lot harder.”

“Are you real?” His voice was almost worshipful.

“Terribly real, lord. My bottom belongs to you.” He struck her for the fourth time, harshly cutting into her softest skin. The pain burrowed, burned and burst in a flowering of anguish. Trudy Ramsay slowly straightened up and looked roguishly at the man who held the cane.

“And now my breasts, sir?”

“No, not your breasts. It is enough.”

Like corn swept by the scythe, Trudy’s knees buckled and she was suddenly writhing on the floor, her chained hands vainly seeking to assuage her wounds. It was as though the pain had been pent-up during its infliction on her flesh and was now sweeping her in wave after wave of agony. With a tremendous effort of will she achieved immobility on her back, her shackled arm awkwardly beneath her waist. Her eyes were brilliant as they sought Nykobe’s. “Now!” she gasped. “Now, now, now!” He took her as she lay in the wild abandonment of desire.

“I betcha it’s like I said,” Maisie affirmed with conviction. “She’s been taken off on the side to be screwed. Remember, she was with him that time before when she got into that jackpot with Nikola.”

“What about us!” Daphne asked mournfully. “I feel like a pound of coffee on a shelf.”

The coffle was dissolved. The nineteen girls were locked in the warehouse as individual prisoners, their necks relieved of chain. Handcuffs had been moved from back to front, not from humane intent but so they might tend their own needs. They had been fed. From time to time a male or two would enter and move among them thoughtfully, asking ages, looking at teeth, feeling and cupping vulvas with wise and inquisitive hands. The girls were merchandise. Mr. Saud believed in a quick turnover.

“Wonder what he’s asking for us.” Maisie massaged her crotch thoughtfully as though to rid it of the last male hand. “I bet it’s high. D’you notice, we’re white, the bastards maul us more than the rest.” She sighed. “Gosh, what I’d give to have my uniform and my gun!”

“And no handcuffs!” mourned Daphne. She tugged in frustration at her bond. “These damn things on my wrists drive me up the wall—and there’s no getting rid of them.” Her plaint turned into a wail of despair. “We’ll never get rid of them! We’ll always be handcuffed or chained . . . ! Oh, Maisie . . . !”

“You will both follow me, please.”

It was the imperturbable voice of Lilith. She beckoned. “Follow me and stop feeling sorry for yourselves. There are those in this land who would envy you.” She led them through passages to the inevitable door. With her hand on the knob, she turned and said, with unmistakable kindness. “Be sensible and do what you’re told. You can never escape. If you choose to be difficult your punishments will be hard to bear.” She smiled thinly and shrugged. “And it will probably be I who must inflict them.” She pushed the door open for them and announced, as might a formal butler: “Miss Maisie Collins and Miss Daphne Weir.”

“This is Mr. Amtolah,” said Mr. Saud cordially.

“He is considering your purchase.”

He was bland, without age or nationality, heavy. But he smiled and motioned to the bottles and glasses on the desk. “A drink, my dears? I’m sure it would not come amiss.” Taking their startled hesitation for assent, he poured two generous libations. “While you sip these you will stand facing me. An erect posture please, your feet somewhat apart.” He nodded as though sharing with them a pleasurable experience.

They obeyed. They stood. They gulped. They tried not to show their tremblings as two pairs of shrewd male eyes assessed their nudity. Mr. Amtolah refilled their glasses, smiling benignly at the clink of their handcuffs on the crystal. “I operate the finest brothel on the West Coast of Africa. Would you care to join my staff?” he asked with the jovial assurance of a man betting on a certainty.

“Whores!” The ugly word sprang from Daphne’s lips clothed in shocked abhorrence. “Maisie and I aren’t prostitutes.”

“We’d be no good at it,” Maisie contributed cautiously. “We don’t know anything about it.”

“Everybody knows everything about it.” Maisie held up her linked wrists. “Do we really have a choice?”

“I would prefer girls who do not have to be constantly whipped.” Mr. Amtolah shared a conspiratorial wink. “Except, of course, for the pleasure of my clients.”

“You mean men pay money to whip a girl!”

“It is a basic fact of life, my child.” The prospective purchaser smiled at her incredulity. “I notice you have been whipped today.”

“A few cautionary strokes,” said Mr. Saud modestly.

“But nonetheless charming. You find the whipping of their breasts effective?”

“It gets their attention.”

“Ah, yes, I would charge a very large sum for such a privilege.” Mr. Amtolah scrutinised four feminine breasts, each with its own scarlet stripe. He was obviously doing rapid mental arithmetic.

“I don’t think we want to be whores,” Maisie said firmly.

“I would like you to bend over the end of the desk, my dear.” Mr. Amtolah nodded and beamed at Daphne. He turned to his host: “With your permission . . . ?”

“The two girls surveyed the slim length of cane that never seemed far separate from their African lives. They exchanged desolate glances. Mr. Saud laughed at Maisie’s obvious thought. “Your turn will come, girl. Save your nobility.”

“The willingness and ability of a girl to accept the cane is an important determination in her price,” the brothel keeper explained helpfully as he used the cane to tap Daphne’s reluctant rump in the direction he desired. “Come, come, my dear! No maiden modesty. We have all seen a girl’s bottom many times.”

“But I haven’t done anything!” Daphne’s plaint was tearful.

“You are doing something now. You are slow to obey.”

The reluctant brunette put down her glass and bent forward from her hips across Mr. Saud’s desk. She stretched her ironed hands out above her head and hid her face in her arms. There came a great stillness.

“An obedient maiden is above rubies,” said Mr. Amtolah sententiously, and struck the proffered flesh with vigor. Daphne’s world burst into a conflagration of agony. She screamed and came erect, cuffed hands reaching . . .

“Lean down again, my dear.”

“I can’t! Oh, it hurts so—!”

“Down!”

“Stop it! Damn you, leave her alone!”

It was an involuntary female protest. Maisie was appalled by her own temerity. But in the silence of disapproval her courage held. She glared defiantly, her voice bitter: “That’s no way to treat a girl.”

Mr. Saud pressed a buzzer. When Lilith came his words were terse. “Whip them well. In front of the others.”

As they were ushered from the office Mr. Amtolah’s suave voice followed. “Of course, with girls like that their price would have to be extremely low—”

The door closed.

“I was afraid of this,” Lilith said regretfully.

“You haven’t had time to adjust, I’ll have to be unkind to you. Do you want me to get male help or will you obey me?”

They obeyed. After the man Lilith seemed almost a friend.

It was quick, makeshift and painful on their wrists. A rope from their handcuffs to a rafter, pulled tight to stand them on their toes. They beheld each other’s taut nakedness, ten feet apart. The rest of the captive troop clustered in a wide circle, awestruck but fascinated, dusky hands tugging at the tight metal of their bonds.

“They were disobedient and spoke out of turn.”

Lilith’s explanation to the watching eyes sounded like an epitaph. She turned to the half-suspended nudities. “Open your legs and keep them open.”

With impersonal competence, Lilith whipped the inside of their thighs, their groins, the pouting lips of their pudendums. She stepped from one to the other to give them time to stop screaming and catch their breath. As an innovation for them she cut the whip into their strained armpits. “You’ll get enough thrashings on your back and bottoms from men in the future,” she told them casually. “Now I whip you as a woman whips—knowing where . . . !”

Maisie acknowledged Lilith’s skill with screams.

She had promised herself she would remain mute. But after the first blows the vow vanished, erased by agonies etched on female secret places which no whip should know. She howled and kicked, seeing a mirror of herself in Daphne’s similar responses. The watching faces did not matter. If she was disgracing the white race what did it matter! What did anything matter except that the whipping stop and her arms be freed! In one of the pauses in their punishment she choked out brokenly: “We’ll be whores—let us be whores—whores!”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that, girl.” Lilith’s voice was without emotion. She struck again.

The reappearance of the coffle chain was good news and bad. It would chafe their necks shamefully and keep them under control. But it meant none had been sold. They remained a group. Except for the absent Trudy the troop was intact. They stood abjectly as the metal collars were locked upon slender throats. The two white girls with their striated skins, shamed and hurting, made no demur. For them the collar was better than the whip. Once more the handcuffs were switched. The girls marched from the warehouse with wrists locked behind their back, breasts pointing, nakedly available to any man with cash.

“Oh shit!” Daphne muttered. “Another march through their lousy town!”

“Killing two birds with one stone,” Maisie suggested. “Advertising for old Saud’s business, and a boost for the Nykobe Cause. We’re a prize package any way you look at us.”

“Lilith was right,” Daphne moaned. “We’ll never escape, never! Look at us now! All the world to run to, not locked up or anything, and we can’t do sweet F.A. because of these rotten chains. If the girl in front moves, we move . . .”

It was a dreary procession kept moving by the whip. The townsfolk enjoyed it. The troop tried to look proud and haughty but failed. It is hard for a girl to keep her head high when her neck is constantly snubbed by a chain on her collar. Inevitably their steps led to the Town Square. The platform had not been dismantled. It had, in fact, been enhanced by the addition of two slender poles. Six feet high, solidly vertical. Between them stood a naked girl with arms outstretched so that one of her wrists could be tied to each above the level of her shoulders. She surveyed them with evident relief.

It was Trudy Ramsay.

“She looks awful pleased with herself,” Maisie muttered.

“Wouldn’t you if you’d been screwed all night,” Daphne accused. “And I got a look at her bottom. It’s been caned again but not much.”

“You know what’s coming, don’t you!”

“You mean all those speeches, and Nykobe, and then—! Oh, Maisie, do you think she will?”

Maisie was right. The troop, after its first surprise, was bored. People all over the world were bored with the same platitudes as poured forth now. It was only when the naked Trudy was left alone upon the stage that they came to life. They knew what she would have to say, but they listened.

Trudy Ramsay brightly and cheerfully confessed to all the sins of the entire white world. She told them all in much detail. There was intermittent applause as she twisted shamefully in her bonds and dwelt upon the superiority of all things dark: particularly the Cause of Nicholas Nykobe. At the finish she happily explained how fitting it was that she, epitomising pale decadence, should be sold into slavery, her prize augmenting the coffers of the Cause.

The crowd cheered wildly.

Trudy wore her most impudent smile as she was untied from the posts and handcuffed and chained at the tail end of the coffle.

They moved forward in single file.