BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT - The new unexpurgated version prepared for the Internet - by Allan Aldiss

Another of his Harem series

Copyright Allan Aldiss

Downloaded from www.silvermoonbooks.com

The new unexpurgated version of one of the most erotic and popular Barbary series of books about the slavery of European women in the Barbary States of North Africa.

"At that time, of course, my harem was still quite small ...

there was also Marie, my exquisite French girl ..."

                  An extract from "Barbary Slavemaster"

BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Readers of my other books in the Barbary series will be familiar with how the distraction of the British and French Navies, during the long drawn out Napoleonic Wars, had resulted in a considerably revival of the Barbary Corsairs of North Africa.

            The corsair ships were left virtually unhindered to capture Christian ships and to raid the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, carrying off large numbers of young European women and boys for sale in the slave markets of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Our fictitious port of Marsa, the only North African one still under direct Turkish rule, would have played a key role in this revival, financing many of the Corsos, or raids, and providing a ready market for the sale of the captured cargoes and slaves.

            Readers may be shocked at the apparent callous inhumanity with which the North African rulers and rich merchants treated their women - and in particular their European slavegirls. But it must be remembered that these later, whilst being highly desirable sexually were also despised Christians, and hatred of everything Christian went back to the Crusades and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. To treat Christian slaves harshly, and to be seen or known to do so, was considered only right and proper - as was to own a large number of Christian slavegirls.

            Traditionally in the Barbary States cruelty, torture and oppression had always been regarded there as outward signs of strength. Mercy was evidence of weakness. No man could show pity and expect to rule.

            Moreover the position of women there was very different from what it was in Europe, even then. "God has put women in into the world," the Prophet is reputed to have declared, "for the enjoyment of men. Go ye and enjoy them." The Prophet himself was married several times and, as was considered quite normal, enjoyed a countless number of slavegirls. He taught: "He who is able to enjoy copulation, and does not do so for any reason, is not of me and he has lost his earthly paradise." Clearly, Turkish and Arab rulers were determined not to run any risk of that! ...

            Djezzar, the redoubtable Pasha of Acre, for example, was then the hero of the Turkish and Arab world. Only a few years before the time of this story, Nelson had destroyed the French Fleet at the Battle of the Nile, cutting Napoleon and the French Fleet off from Europe. Djezzar had, with the help of Sir Sidney Smith and the Royal Navy, humbled the mighty Napoleon and stopped him dead in his tracks on his march to Constantinople, forcing to retreat ignominiously to back to Egypt. Then aged over sixty he was famous for both his bravery and his cruelty. But, he was also admired for his large harem, and for the fact that eighteen of them were Christian slavegirls ...

Readers of the Barbary books will be familiar with Rory Fitzgerald, formerly an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army, and now in the service of the Sultan of Turkey, who has been sent to be second-in-command of the Turkish Janissaries in Marsa.

            In 1807, shortly after Rory's arrival in Marsa, the Turkish Empire was rocked when the Janissaries in Constantinople revolted and overthrew the progressive Sultan Selim. Within a year, his successor, the Sultan Mustafa, had also been removed and Murad, the 'Great Reformer', became Sultan, secretly swearing to get his revenge on the Janissaries.

            Murad was half French, his mother being the famous Aime Dubucq de Rivery. She had been captured as a young girl by Barbary Corsairs and sent as a present the the then Sultan. She was a cousin of the Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife.

            Would Murad allow the Barbary Corsairs to continue? Could he in any case stop them, since they were mainly based in the semi-independent ports of Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers. However, they were very dependant on the local detachment of Turkish Janissaries who provided both the boarding parties which captured the Christian ships, and the landing parties who raided the Christian coasts. And the best trained Janissaries came from Marsa which was still, through its Pasha, under the direct rule of Turkey.

            This would have been, therefore, a time of great uncertainty, not only in Europe and the Ottoman Empire, but also for the Pasha of Marsa himself.

BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT

CONTENTS

                        PROLOGUE

                        PART I - THE CAPTURE OF MADEMOISELLE MARIE DE ST. SEVRES

                        Chapter 1 - Boarded!

                        Chapter 2 - Arrival at Marsa

                        Chapter 3 - The processing of a slavegirl

                        Chapter 4 - A slave dealer meets a very special order

                        PART II - THE NEW HUMAN FILLY

                        Chapter 5 - Aroused and tested

                        Chapter 6 - Compared and branded

                        Chapter 7 - Stabled!

                        Chapter 8 - Prince Hosein discusses his new filly

                        Chapter 9 - A filly learns her new name

                        Chapter 10 - The boy stallion

                        Chapter 11 - Nose ringed and infibulated

                        Chapter 12 - Marie is trained

                        Chapter 13 - Prince Hosein shows off a filly to his friends

                        Chapter 14 - Used like a boy

                        Chapter 15 - Made to pull with her belly

                        Chapter 16 - The teams of human fillies and in-foal mares

                        PART III - THE SEARCH FOR THE FRENCH GOVERNESS

                        Chapter 17 - I Enjoy the delights of my harem

                        Chapter 18 - An erotic display for the Master

                        Chapter 19 - The slave dealer consults his records

                        Chapter 20 - The meeting with Prince Hosein

                        Chapter 21 - Found! And a deal is struck.

                        PART IV - DRIVEN BY THE WHIP AND IN LOVE

                        Chapter 22 - The races

                        Chapter 23 - Marie's team wins

                        Chapter 24 - Taken by the Prince

                        Chapter 25 - Death and disaster

                        PART V - REPLACEMENTS FOR THE FRENCH GOVERNESS

                        Chapter 26 - A change of plan

                        Chapter 27 - A choice of exotic creatures

                        PART VI - THE RESCUE OF A FIELD SLAVE

                        Chapter 28 - Marie is prepared for a new form of slavery

                        Chapter 29 - Caged

            Chapter 30 - The morning check

                        Chapter 31 - Toil, sweat and tears.

                        Chapter 32 - Cheetah racing with live slavegirls as the

                                                                                    quarry.

                        Chapter 33 - Marie is raced and rescued

                        PART VII - THE RAID

                        Chapter 34 - The Pedlar

                        Chapter 35 - The Contessa

                        Chapter 36 - Captured!

                        EPILOGUE

BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT

PROLOGUE

"I shall want you to go and bring me back a beautiful young Italian Contessa," said the Pasha.

            "What!" I exclaimed. Then I hastily added: "Your Excellency"

            The Pasha was the Turkish all-powerful Governor of Marsa and my superior. I, formerly Rory Fitzgerald of His Britannic Majesty's Foot Guards, was Hussein Effendi, still then merely second in command of his contingent of Janissaries.

            "Yes, my son, I shall want you to take a detachment of your Janissaries, and capture me a young Contessa," continued the Pasha of Marsa earnestly, stroking his greying beard, his fierce eyes gleaming. "I want a really aristocratic, as well as beautiful, girl. The sort of girl a man would really take pride in owning, as well as being one who would give her Master pleasure. A beautiful young Contessa - that's what I need!"

            "A Contessa?" I queried.

            "Yes. But first you must find the French governess who will lead us to her and who, alas, slipped through my fingers before I could get hold of her. And now getting her back is going to be a delicate matter - and you are the only man I can trust to do it."

            A Contessa and now a French Governess! Was there no end to the sensual needs of this remarkable old man? It was well known that, as well as his three Turkish wives, his harem also contained thirty or so beautiful young European women.

            With his wealth, the Pasha could indeed have the pick of Marsa's famous slave markets, and would often sell on a girl and buy in a replacement. A girl with the Pasha's brand on her belly would sell very well, for the black eunuchs in charge of the Pasha's harem were renowned as strict and highly effective trainers of even the most reluctant white women.

             The Pasha would also periodically present one of his girls to a delighted retainer. It was a simple and very effective way of binding a man to him.

            Either way, the Pasha's cast-offs were highly regarded, and the idea of having a woman in your harem who had previously been in the harem of the Pasha himself was itself both intriguing and satisfying.

            I knew that the Pasha also invested in purchasing captured women reputed to be from rich European families, and for whom there was a chance of obtaining a very large ransom. Whilst the ransom negotiations dragged on, the Pasha would enjoy the woman. And indeed, if the negotiations took too long, then he would threaten to send the woman, back to the bosom of her family, well and truly pregnant by one of his giant black guards.

            "But what has capturing a Contessa got to do with me?" I asked. My job was to train Janissaries, not go dashing about the Mediterranean looking for women.

            " Because this is so important and I can't rely on any else. Don't you see - a present from your Janissaries of a titled and beautiful young European woman, as a slave for his harem, would persuade the new young Sultan both that our Janissaries are loyal and that Marsa is a jewel in his Empire. "

            "Oh!" I exclaimed, feeling rather foolish. The Pasha was indeed a cunning old fox.

            "Being half European himself," the Pasha went on, "our new Sultan will appreciate a well educated and intelligent plaything - just as his father, Sultan Abdul Hamid, may he be enjoying the houris of Paradise, enjoyed his mother. With your own European background you should understand these things even better than a Turk!

            The Pasha paused for a moment. "But just how loyal to the new Sultan are your Janissaries?" he asked, "How affected have they been by the revolts of their colleagues in Constantinople?"

            I collected my thoughts. Originally the Janissaries had all been recruited from tribute boys in the Christian provinces of the Turkish Empire in the Balkans and the Caucuses. Periodically Turkish officers would visit the Christian provinces and seize one in four of the little boys - the most intelligent and strongest. They were taken back to Constantinople to become the personal slaves of the Sultan, their Christian origin soon forgotten. The cleverest would become his governors and diplomats. The toughest would become his elite core of troops - the dreaded Janissaries.

            Originally sworn to celibacy, they were now allowed to marry and had become a sort of self perpetuating Praetorian Guard, both subservient to the Sultan and controlling him. Then Sultan Selim had started his own rival army - the New Army - trained by French officers. This had infuriated the Janissaries and led to his overthrow. But the Janissaries in North Africa were a very separate body these days.

            "Provided the Sultan does not send any of his New Army here," I answered, "then I think that the loyalty of our Janissaries will continue to be unquestionable."

            "Good, because you must rely on them to help you carry out my plan of seizing a suitable aristocratic young woman. The fact is that our whole future will depend on the new Sultan appreciating what we are loyally and discreetly doing here by profiting from the activities of the Barbary Corsairs, without officially involving him or the Sublime Porte in Constantinople - but with our Janissaries playing a key role."

            I caught my breath. I was being caught up in a web of intrigue that was not of my asking. I had been quite content just training my Janissaries to be the best disciplined forced in all North Africa. The Pasha was quite right, it was indeed detachments of his Janissaries that the Rais, the Corsair Captains, and their financial backers, often from Marsa itself, begged for when planning a new Corso, or raid. This had brought much money into Marsa, to the Pasha, and onto the Sultan in distant Constantinople. It had also brought a steady stream nubile young Christian girls and boys to the slave markets of Marsa.

            Yes, I thought, the present of a young Italian aristocratic girl would indeed emphasise, to the new Sultan, the role of both Marsa and of his Janissaries. It would also emphasise that the Christian slaves they captured these days were different. There was little demand for young Christian male slaves now that the old Corsair galleys pulled by oars manned by Christian slaves, had been replaced by fast sailing vessels - the dreaded Polacca-Chebecs, with their mixture of European style square sails and Arab style lanteen sails.

            These vessels could outsail almost any ships - largely because they were light and did not carry a heavy gun armament. Like all pirates, the Barbary Corsairs wanted to capture a ship, and its cargo and any young female passengers, intact and not to sink it. Hence the importance the importance of the Janissary boarding parties that I had spent long hours training.

            But though the market for strong white male slaves had gone , there was still a strong demand for young white women. There was also a demand for castrated white youths. Indeed thanks to the success of the Barbary corsairs in recent years, Marsa had become one of the main slave markets of the Turkish Empire - supplying white women and white eunuchs for the slave markets of Damascus, Cairo and Constantinople itself.

            Here in Marsa itself, white women were now common as pleasure slaves in the higher class brothels, and in the harems of the wealthy merchants, financiers, Raises and landowners. And these men also, of course, had their coteries of castrated white page boys.

            Moreover, sturdy European peasant girls, perhaps judged to be unsuitable for sale as pleasure slaves but often still attractive, were relatively inexpensive to buy in in the slave markets of Marsa. So much so, in fact that they had even partly replaced negresses, expensively brought all the way across the Sahara, as labourers on Marsa's highly profitable farms and estates, and as trained skilled workers in its lucrative carpet factories.

            The owners of these white girls had also learnt that the half caste progeny of these white girls, known as Haratin, were much superior to those produced by their negress slaves, and provided a profitable additional source of income, particularly if the white women were crossed annually with giant Dinka negro guards and overseers.

            Indeed, the supply, sale and use of white women slaves had now become an inherent part of the rich economy of Marsa, just as black slaves had become an inherent part of the very different economy of much of the New World. Moreover, just as the rich plantation owners of the southern states of America and the West Indies were determined to keep their black slaves, so too, I knew, the rich merchants and landowners of Marsa, and its Turkish Governor, were anxious that the supply of European white women slaves should continue ...

            The Pasha's voice interrupted my reverie.

            "I know you have only recently become a Moslem," he said, his eyes now twinkling, "but you must by now have realised the sheer delight that a good Moslem can have have from a well stocked harem of European women - and the excitement of acquiring a new unusual addition to it. I do not think our new Sultan will feel any differently! ... Incidentally how is your own new harem coming along?"

            I blushed with embarrassment. I certainly enjoyed the ladies. Indeed it was because of being discovered in bed with a Lady in Waiting to Queen Charlotte that I had had to flee London and seek service with the Sultan. The Sublime Porte had been delighted to employ a young British officer with recent military experience and had sent me to Marsa to help train the local Janissaries. But first I had had to become, at least officially, a Moslem.

I remembered how, arriving in Marsa, I had found that my official residence contained a harem wing, and my predecessor, before returning to Constantinople, had strongly recommended that I should stock it well.

            "The troops will expect it," he had explained, "especially as you were previously a Christian. Having a harem of captured European slave girls would be a way of showing that you had put aside your former religion. And not only would it impress the troops, but also the rich merchants who are our primary customers by hiring detachments of our Janissaries for the Corsos they are financing. A man without a harem of captured Christian girls is suspect here."

            "But how do I start?" I had laughingly asked. "And who pays for the girls? My Turkish army pay will hardly allow me to be a regular visitor to the slave markets, even if prices for European slave girls are lower then ever!"

            "Don't worry," had been the reply. "I will leave you Matrak, my black eunuch."

            "Black eunuch?" I had said.

            "Yes, you must have a black eunuch to run your harem for you and Matrak is very experienced in supervising white women - and in dealing with any recalcitrant ones. Just leave it all to him. He will find the girls for you - and without ruining you."

            Matrak had done just that, and already I was the proud owner of two very attractive young white women.

            Paula, the tall tawny haired Greek girl from Ionian Islands, had been bought by Matrak quite cheaply at a time when prices in the slave markets very depressed following a succession of highly successful Corsos.

            Francesca, a tempestuous young married women from Naples, had been captured when the ship, taking her from Amalfi to see her relations in Naples, had been captured by Barbary pirates. It had been a detachment of my Janissaries that had boarded the ship which was also found to have a very valuable cargo. The ship had been taken back to Marsa for the cargo to be sold, and the delighted merchants who had financed the Corso had made a profit of several hundred percent. Delighted they had presented Francesca to me, as a little sign of their gratitude.

"Just remember the basic rules of having a successful harem," the Pasha had later told me when I had gained his confidence. These rules had become engraved in my mind.

            "Firstly," the Pasha had explained, "don't let your girls even see another man. In this way they will soon fall in love with you even if they are pining for a lost lover or husband in Europe - and even if you are old and ugly like me!"

            The Pasha had laughed.

            "Secondly, don't allow any little naughty straying fingers. White women are notoriously sensuous. So you must make sure that your black eunuchs supervise them constantly, especially at night, and even in the baths or when apparently innocently walking together in the harem garden. They must not be allowed to play with themselves or with each other. By all means allow them to kiss each other or even train them to play with each other in front of you, but your black eunuchs must instil such a fear of their whip that your girls realise that you and you alone are now their only source of pleasure, and that to have any relief they must first compete to catch your eye."

            Again the Pasha had given a cruel laugh. "Most white women are such passionate creatures - even they haven't always realised it before finding themselves locked up in a harem under the constant supervision of a black eunuch. Controlling their natural sensuality, through fear of your black eunuchs' canes, is half the excitement of having a harem."

            The Pasha stroked his beard reminiscently. Then he went on.

            "And the third rule is don't get too involved with the running of your harem. Leave your black eunuchs to cope with all the tantrums, and jealousies that are inevitable when women are shut up with each other. That's their job - and you must give them a free hand to enforce strict discipline in your harem with their canes. They soon become very expert at it, standing no nonsense from even the prettiest young lady. Provided they produce your women, whenever you want them, adoring you and anxious to please you, then you need not enquire too closely into your black eunuchs methods. But fear of the black eunuchs is certainly the sign of a well run harem, just as fear of their black overseers by young white women labourers is a sign of a well run farm or carpet factory."

            The Pasha again laughed.

            "My women are certainly terrified of my black eunuchs and yet they all adore me!"

            He paused for a moment.

            "Finally," he continued, "keep your women ignorant of what is going on in the outside world, so that each is only thinking of you, of catching your eye, and of pleasing you so much that you will choose her again and again. It's too late to keep them illiterate in their own European languages, but don't let them learn to read or write Arabic. Don't let them read any European novels full of good looking heroes or see pictures of other men. You must be their only hero, their whole life must revolve round you and the harem must be their entire world ..."

            The Pasha had smiled and had patted my head in an avuncular manner.

            "And if you follow these simple rules, then you will enjoy a happy and well disciplined harem with the women all madly competing for your favours."

            "Thank you, Your Highness," I had murmured, feeling rather embarrassed.

            "So much depends on your chief black eunuch. I hear you have kept on Matrak as yours." The Pasha smiled. "An excellent choice - and an old friend of my own chief black eunuch ..."

"Now to return to the business in hand. " The Pasha's voice interrupted my reverie. "You remember Barbarossa, the great Barbary corsair, two hundred and fifty years ago?"

            I had indeed heard many stories of this highly successful and terrifying Barbary pirate who had ravaged the coasts of Europe in a succession of daring raids and who had been appointed by the Sultan as his Admiral. There was the well known story of how he had captured the wife and daughter of the Governor of Palermo and had then kept them on board his flagship for his own private use. Then when they were both well and truly pregnant he had returned them to the distraught Governor with a note saying that they if they produced sons then they must be brought up as strict Moslems - or else he would return to seize the women again.

            Then, in 1534, after devastating the countryside around Naples, Barbarossa had led an attack on Fondi, seeking to capture its ruler, the Countess Giulia Gonzaga. She had been celebrated for her beauty, piety and learning, and Barbarossa wanted to give her to the Sultan as a spectacular addition to his harem. However the Countess had managed to escape on a fast horse still dressed just in her nightgown ...

            "But this time," said the Pasha guessing my thoughts and giving my knee a friendly tap, "the prey will not escape - because you will personally be in charge of her capture. It is for this reason that I have sent for you today."

            "But who am I to capture?" I stammered.

            "That we do not yet know?"

            "What!" I cried out in astonishment.

            "We must plan it all with great care," replied the Pasha. "Of course, we don't want to abduct such a well known person that the European powers are forced to take action against us. Just a beautiful but rather obscure Contessa will do! And she must be abducted quickly and quietly. So you see the whole operation must be carefully planned and executed, which is why you will be personally in charge. I will arrange for a corsair ship with a reliable Rais, but you must go as the Aga of Janissaries in command of the landing force. Remember, I want the Sultan to be really impressed by this addition to his harem!"

            "But Your Highness," I persisted. "Where am I to find this beautiful but relatively obscure Contessa?"

            "Well, my son, listen carefully. Several months ago, Hassan, the slave dealer here in Marsa, confided to my own chief black eunuch that he had recently bought a job lot of European women that had been captured in a raid along the coast of Italy. Included amongst them was a very pretty blond girl."

            The Pasha paused for a moment.

            "Now Hassan always has the women he buys interrogated before displaying them for sale. In this way he can get a better price for them by describing their former background to potential buyers. On this occasion, Hassan told my chief black eunuch, one of the girls had turned out to be well educated and to have been a governess in the household of a rich and beautiful, but recently widowed, young Contessa from Naples.

            "Oh" I said, still not sure what was in the Pasha's mind.

            "At first he had thought that the rich young Contessa who had employed the girl, might perhaps ransom the girl. But it came out that that on the contrary the Contessa hated her as a rival for her husband's favours and, when he died, she had sent her away - only to be captured by one of our corsair ships. So the beautiful Contessa had no love for the French governess, and the girl had little love for the Contessa."

            I leaned forward. I could see now what the Pasha might be leading up to.

            "This Contessa sounded just what I was looking for, but unfortunately, I was away at the time and, by the time I heard the story, the captured governess had been sold"

            The Pasha shook his head sadly.

            "Apparently, the son of one of the rich Emir's in the interior had sent Hassan an urgent and detailed order for a girl for which this French girl matched perfectly. So Hassan had decided that since the Emir's son was offering such a large sum for just the right girl, then a bird in the hand was worth two in the desert, as we Turks say. So he had not bothered to have the girl trained and prepared for the slave market, but instead had sent her straight off to the Emir's son."

            The Pasha paused.

            "But Hassan had often wondered just what the Emir's son had wanted the girl for, and why he was willing to pay so much for a girl that matched his detailed specifications without even seeing her. He also used to wonder what price such a beautiful blonde girl might have sold for in the slave market ... and whether the girl's story about her Contessa was true."

            The Pasha looked Rory in the eye.

            "But I wonder just who was the beautiful rich young Contessa and where she can be found? ... So there you are, my son. A clear lead to just the sort of woman we're looking for."

            "But, Your Highness ... how .... " I began

            "No 'buts' ... get the details of the governess's sale from Hassan and then just go off and find her. Bring her back here, so that we interrogate her and get all the information we need so that you then go off, seize her former Mistress and bring her to me for sending onto the Sultan ... Oh yes, I think the Sultan's going to be delighted by this new aristocratic addition to his harem! But, first of all, you must get hold of the governess."

            "But, Your Excellency," I protested, "just how am I expected to get hold of a girl who has recently been brought, presumably at considerable expense, by a rich young Prince, and who is now safely locked up and hidden away in his harem?"

            The Pashas looked at me craftily.

            "Ah!" he said. "It may not be as simple as that!"

            "Simple!" I cried. "Once a slavegirl enters a rich man's harem she's lost to the outside world . Surely, Your Excellency, getting her out will hardly be simple?"

            "What I mean is," replied the Pasha mysteriously, "I doubt if she's in a harem at all. Certainly Hassan was pretty sure that she was not intended for one."

            "Not bought for the harem?"

            "Apparently not," replied the Pasha. "I suspect it's more to do with the old Roman amphitheatre our there. For centuries now, the local Caids and Emirs have used it for what they call their Roman Games - and to amuse their retainers."

            "Roman Games! What does that mean? Gladiators?"

            "No!" laughed the Pasha. "I don't think that would appeal to the Arab or Berber sense of humour."

            "What then? A modern version of throwing Christians to the lions?"

            "Not quite, but I expect that would be very popular. No, I think it's chariot racing - something which I know has gone on since Roman times."

            But, Your Excellency," I exploded, trying to keep my temper, "what has chariot racing got to do with our French governess?"

            "Ah!" smiled the Pasha, obviously amused at my impatience, "perhaps they also use teams of girls to pull their chariots."

            "What!" I gasped.

            "Well, I'm only guessing, but certainly the tradition is that the Romans here put on displays of chariots being pulled by teams of female slaves, as well as horses - and after the Arab invasion, then the local Caids and Emirs certainly continued the tradition, using black slave women. Perhaps, now that European women have become so much more easily available, they're now using white slaves. It would be a popular spectacle. Perhaps I ought to think about introducing it here, if we Turks start getting too unpopular!"

            The Pasha stroked his grey beard reflectively.

            "Yes, I can see that owing and training a team of well matched female chariot slaves could be as absorbing and training a team of matched horses - as would be breeding from them, too. After all, we train white slave women here to pull our private galleys - so what's the difference? They just haven't got the sea, or any lakes, where they are!"

            The Pasha paused.

            "Indeed, I had already heard that the Prince and his rich young friends had been getting up to all sorts of ways of enjoying their new found wealth - wealth that has come from the French Army and British Navy vying against each other to buy our North African corn and bullocks ... Anyway you'll just have to find out for yourself. It should certainly be easier for you to get hold of her than if she had been immured in some rich man's harem."

            "Buy, Your Excellency," again I objected, "if the Prince has gone to so much trouble and expense to acquire her, then he's hardly likely to agree to let me have her, even if she's not intended for his harem.

            "Of course not, but you'll soon find a way." His glance told me that it would it worse for me if I did not! "Perhaps you'll be able to offer him a couple of replacements ... Anyway, get the details of the girl's sale from Hassan and make certain you'll be able to to recognise her. And keep it all secret - we don't want to alert the Contessa to any possible danger."

BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT

PART I

THE CAPTURE OF MADEMOISELLE MARIE DE ST. SEVRES

1 - BOARDED!

Marie looked out of the glass port in her tiny cabin.

            Governesses returning home in disgrace could hardly afford large cabins. Indeed, she knew she was lucky to have a cabin at all for the small coastal brigantine, as well as carrying a valuable cargo of silks and cottons, was carrying half a dozen other pretty young women. They were taking passage from Naples to try their luck in the fleshpots of Genoa - and the gallant young officers of French Army who were now stationed there. Two, clearly pregnant, and the mistresses of French officers, were their way to rejoin their lovers.

            There were also several peasant girls going north to seek work in the wine vineyards.

            The mountainous coast of Tuscany was eerily outlined in the evening twilight as the vessel slid slowly through the calm sea. In the distance Marie saw the strange looking ship that had been slowly getting closer since noon. The friendly young Second Mate had told her that with it's lanteen sails it was probably a ship out Algiers, one the Barbary Ports. However, there was no need for any alarm, he assured her, for such ships frequently brought grain from the rich plains of North Africa to feed either Napoleon's armies or the British Navy blockading the French Fleet.

            It was now two years since the shattering victory in 1805 of the Royal Navy over the French and Spanish Navies at Trafalgar, and since then the remnants of the French Fleet in Toulon had scarcely dared to go to sea.

            But the British, now masters of the sea, just as Napoleon was master of continental Europe, continued to be preoccupied with the close blockade of the French naval base of Toulon - and the Moslem rulers of North Africa continued to take advantage of the situation by trading with both adversaries, for both needed their grain. Meanwhile the Barbary corsairs continued to raid the now often defenceless Christian coastal villages of the Mediterranean and to capture its shipping.

            A sudden gale of youthful female laughter swept in through the open port. Evidently up on deck several of the girl passengers were flirting with the younger members of the small crew.

             Marie sighed. For three years she too had laughed and flirted with the widowed Conte de San Luca whilst looking after his young daughter. The daughter herself of a now penniless French emigree family, who had escaped from France at the time of the Revolution, she had found life hard in Naples. So at the age of eighteen, she had been only too delighted to accept the position of Governess to the amorous Conte. He had lost no time in seducing the pretty and vivacious French girl, whose long blonde hair made her an unusual sight in Naples.

            Marie had expected the rich old man to marry her and been dismayed as it gradually became clear to her that a Neapolitan Conte might well sleep with a delightful young French Governess in his employ, but would certainly not marry one.

            Then two things had happened.

            Firstly the Conte had suddenly married the equally gorgeously blond young Carolina, a well known beauty from the Neapolitan aristocracy. But Carolina was no fool and she was a determined young woman. She had soon guessed that the unhappy Marie was her husband's Mistress and was determined to get rid of her as soon as possible.

            Then, her chance had come a year later when the Conte, returning from a late night amorous assignation in a dubious part of Naples had been robbed and killed, leaving the popular Contessa Carolina de San Luca rich. Not only was she now the proud owner of her late husband's palazzo in Naples, but also of his large estate along the coast including the pretty village of San Luca itself with it's restored castello , which provided a delightful escape in the summer months from the heat and smells of Naples.

            The beautiful and now widowed young Contessa had wasted no time. She had sent her young step daughter off to her aunts, and dismissed the now unemployed Marie. How had Marie hated that stuck-up bitch!

            Meanwhile Marie's parents had accepted Napoleon's offer for French emigree families to return to France. Marie was now on her way to rejoin them in Provence where she hoped she could start a new life - away from all the wounding memories of Naples, and away from the hated young Contessa.

It was a moonless night. No one aboard the poorly crewed and well lit barquentine had noticed that the darkened Barbary ship had made more sail and was now only a few cables astern. A sudden little gust of wind brought her right up alongside. The watch on deck screamed as the black painted ship suddenly loomed up on the starboard side.

            It was all over in seconds. A well trained boarding party of twenty armed Janissaries, their scimitars gripped between their teeth, swung from ropes onto the barquentine's almost deserted decks. They then rushed up onto the poop deck where the terrified Officer of the Watch and the equally scared Quartermaster were cowering. They were slaughtered out of hand.

            When the Captain and officers came panting up from below to see what was going on, they were unceremoniously flung overboard. Only the youngest members of the crew, still boys, escaped following them.

            Then having seized control of the ship, the corsairs began to seek out the passengers and to examine the cargo.

It had all been done remarkably silently, and Marie was still asleep in her bunk when the door burst open and two dark skinned Arabs, dressed in turbans and voluminous trousers, pulled her, screaming and just wearing her nightdress, out into the corridor and onto the deck. Here there was no sign of the crew of the ship. She was astonished instead to see, now secured alongside, a black painted ship with a mixture of square and lanteen yards, with their sails brailed up.

            Before she had to time to take in what was was happening, the two Arabs dragged her across the deck of the brigantine and onto that of what she now realised be that of a corsair ship - presumably the innocent looking ship they had sighted earlier in the day.

            She was taken up in front of a smartly dressed Turkish looking man wearing a turban and a long robe. He had swash-buckling moustaches and a fierce eye. He was evidently the Rais, or Captain, of the corsair ship.

            A pretty young white boy was standing alongside him holding up a lantern.

            Also standing alongside this terrifying looking man was huge black African dressed in just a pair of red Turkish pantaloons with a white felt conical hat on his head.

            Behind them stood a burly looking Arab with what looked like a pile of chains at his feet. He was holding a strange looking instrument, like a pair of large squeezers.

            The Rais looked closely at her as, terrified, she struggled unavailingly in the arms of the two Arabs, screaming to be let loose. Then he stroked her long blonde hair approvingly and, turning to the African, he nodded.

            The African stepped forward and, in a sudden gesture, ripped down her nightdress, leaving her standing naked. Appalled she tried to hide her body with her hands, but the now grinning Arabs held her tight. The Rais glanced at her her small firm breasts, her slim waist, and her flowing hips.

            Then he turned to the huge African and pointed enquiringly with a finger at her gently swelling stomach. The black man stepped forward and began to run his hand expertly over the wriggling girl's naked belly, bending down to examine it closer. Finally he straightened up and shook his head.

            "A pity," said the Rais in Turkish. Shame-faced with with embarrassment Marie was mystified. She would have appalled if she had understood his next words. " A pretty blond woman like this is going to be worth a lot, but she'd be worth even more if she was also carrying a child. But see if she is still a virgin - that would also put her value up considerably!"

            The two Arabs kicked her legs apart and forced her down so that her knees were now slightly bent. They held her more tightly than ever.

            The African came behind her and, holding her with one hand on her belly put the other down between her legs. Marie gave sudden scream of protest and horror. But clearly the African was very experienced and quickly established what he was seeking.

            Again he straightened up and again shook his head.

            "So!" laughed the Rais. "A double pity! But even so, with hair like hers she'll still fetch a high price. And, knowing the slave dealers of Marsa, I'd be surprised if they didn't have her covered, as they say, before they offer her for sale. Even if they don't, we certainly don't want to risk her trying to harm herself before we get back to port. So cage her like the pregnant ones!"

            The African gestured to the two Arabs to lead her, now silent and ashamed, over to the burly Arab. He picked up a pair of wrist manacles, linked by a short length of chain, from the pile of chains. Quickly he fastened them onto the wrists of the still unprotesting Marie. Then he inserted a lead pellet into each manacle and squeezed it tight with his instrument. He stood back. Marie was now chained and it would take much hammering and the use of another special instrument to free her.

            Then bent down and fastened a set of similar manacles round her ankles. Both sets of manacles were lined with velvet to prevent them from chafing.

            The two Arabs released her and the African led her, hobbling, over to where a group of women, naked and chained like herself, were standing in horrified silence in the half darkness.

            Marie recognised several of her young fellow passengers, all looking as cowed and ashamed at their nakedness and chains herself. Evidently the corsairs had long before learned that stripping and chaining a captured white woman, and forbidding her to speak, was a simple way of ensuring her their docility.

            Shocked, she saw that the group included the two pregnant young women.

            She was about to say something to a particular woman with whom she had struck up a shipboard friendship. But her friend raised her manacled hands to her face and put her finger to her lips, pointing with a scared look at another burly African who was watching them carefully. He carried a short whip.

            "Yes, woman," he said to Marie in a strangely high pitched voice, speaking in the local lingua franca of the central Mediterranean - a sort of bastardised Italian and Arabic that Marie found she could easily understand., "No talking!"

            He raised his whip menacingly. Marie slunk into an terrified silence.

            Soon three more naked and chained women, all equally horrified and cowed, were thrust into the group.

            Then, when apparently no more suitable young women could be found on board the barquentine, the two Africans gestured to the women to go down a companion way that led down into the hold of the corsair ship.

            In the dim light of a candle, Marie saw that round the sides of the hold were shelves, like platforms, hanging on chains from the deckhead. Lying chained on the platforms, were a dozen naked young European women - evidently captured from previous attacks on Christian ships or villages.

            They lay with their feet towards the edge of the shelf, and were held there by a long chain which was threaded through the big links in the middle of several adjoining girls' ankle chains. Thus by unfastening one securing chain, the white women's black overseers could release a group of several young women on one shelf, and take them one group at a time to be exercised in a specially screened off part of the upper deck, or to be to be fed and washed.

            At other times they could be released to answer calls of nature - using the big open-topped conical shaped tubs which stood in the corners of the hold. The wider ends of the tubs rested on the deck so that they were not upset by the roll of the ship. They were lifted up out of the hold and emptied over the side twice a day, before being replaced partly still full of sea water.

            Marie remembered with a shudder seeing a drawing of a somewhat similar arrangement of shelves in European slave ships used for carrying African slaves across the Atlantic. Mon Dieu, she thought, as she saw the the two negroes lifting up groups of girls onto empty shelves and passing a chain through their ankle manacles, she was going to be treated just like that!

            But there was a difference. The drawing had shown simple uneducated African men and women being chained down naked onto their platforms by cruel looking white seamen, carrying short whips. But here it was white women, many well educated, who were being chained down naked onto similar platforms, and not by white men but by equally cruel looking black men, also carrying short whips.

             The Africans might well be eunuchs specially embarked to take charge of all women captured during the Corso, but they were still terrifying to look at with their blood shot eyes and faces decorated with tribal scaring.

            Marie looked with dismay at the shelf onto she was apparently about to be chained down by her feet. Then suddenly she was grabbed by the two black eunuchs.

            "You special! You blonde!" one of them grunted in his high pitched Lingua Franca. "Rais want sell you for plenty money on arrival. He not want risk you harming yourself. You go into special cage - like pregnant girls."

            Marie saw a stack of long low wooden cages in the centre of the hold. They were some two metres long, one metre high and one metre wide. There were six cages, stacked in two lots of three, one above the other. There were already two girls lying on their backs in the top two cages.

            Before she could say anything one of the Africans let down the square end of one of the cages in the middle row. The two of them lifted her up and thrust her, wriggling and protesting, down into the cage. Quickly one of them went to the far end of the cage and let down a square in that end. Then he fastened her ankles manacles to the end of the cage whilst the other African fastened her wrist manacles to the roof of her cage just above her head.

            She was, she realised, now held down helplessly on her back. Just how helplessly she only realised when the two Africans went round to the side of her cage and slid back several of the bars. She was quite unable to do anything as they again checked that she really was neither pregnant nor a virgin.

            She had to lie there, longing to push away their probing hands, with her her chained fists opening and closing in frustration above her face. She saw that the roof of her cage was made of slatted wood. Through the gaps in the wood, she could see the body of the girl above her. She felt similar slats underneath her own back and buttocks, before one of the black eunuchs lifted up her bottom so that his colleague could feel her up her better. Desperately embarrassed she blushed silently.

            She saw that hanging below the slats under the buttocks of the girl above her was a black bowl. It would, Marie realised with a shock, catch the girl's wastes. Presumably there was another one hanging in the cage below her to catch her own wastes.

            Satisfied, the two Africans closed the side of her cage again. Then they repeated the whole process with Marie's two pregnant fellow passengers, putting them into the other cages. But, in their case, when the Africans slid back the bars at the sides of their cages to feel their bellies, it was to check that their infants were still kicking away, as their mothers lay chained helplessly on their backs, unable now to get at the little creatures they were carrying - creatures that would greatly increase the value of their young mothers...

            Soon Marie was to learn that not for her, or the other caged women, were the short daily little runs round the shrouded off part of the upper deck where the black eunuchs used their whips to make the other chained young women run awkwardly run round and round, before being hosed down, fed and watered.

            No, as the Rais had said, she was a particularly valuable piece of merchandise and was to be kept lying on her back, like the pregnant women, unable to touch her body. This lasted for three three days as the corsair ship, followed by the captured brigantine, now sailed by a Barbary prize crew, made its way to Marsa. It was in Marsa that the Rais felt that he would get the best prices for both the valuable human and material cargo that he had found onboard the brigantine.

            Meanwhile the two black eunuchs would feed Marie and the other women in the cages by dropping down the end of the cages behind their heads, and spooning nourishing food into their mouths. Then sliding back the bars at the side, they they would encourage each blushing girl to perform into the little bowls hanging below their cages, and then proceed to them all over like nurses giving a patient a blanket bath.

            Such then was Marie's introduction to her new life as a white slave in Barbary.

2 - ARRIVAL AT MARSA

Lying in her cage, Marie noticed that the motion of the ship had stopped. There was a sudden jolt as the corsair ship secured alongside. But where were they?

            The hatch covers were removed and sunlight now streamed down into the hold in which the women were chained.

            Over the next few hours a succession of hard faced, apparently wealthy Arabs, wearing well-cut grey robes with a hood, were ushered down into the hold. They were slave dealers deciding whether to make a bid for any of the captured women.

            They were mainly small dealers who specialised in different types of young white women. Quite apart from those who gave special training to pretty ones to sell as high class pleasure slaves for use in harems and luxury brothels, there were others who bought plain but intelligent girls to be trained to work in the carpet factories that played an important part in the economy of Marsa, or who bought strong girls to work on rich men's farms and estates, or buxom girls who would be sold later when in milk, or particularly graceful girls who would be trained as dancers ...

            The women who had been chained on the platforms were now lined up. They had been washed, smartened up and given combs and brushes with which to arrange their hair, and kohl with which to outline their eyes. One of the black eunuchs holding a list in his hand wrote a Lot Number in Arabic numerals on each woman's forehead. They were still naked and their wrists and ankles were still manacled. The two black eunuchs, now dressed in their smartest robes, and carrying short decorative canes, walked up and down ensuring silence and obedience.

            But Marie and the pregnant women were kept lying chained in their cages.

            The young women soon learnt that on a barked order from one of the black eunuchs they had to kneel on all fours at the front of their shelves. The dealers would walk slowly down the terrified line of women, feeling the weight of a hanging breast with a knowing look, running an experienced hand over the arm and shoulder muscles of the plainer girls to judge their strength, touching the softness of a cheek, putting their hands into a woman's mouth to feel her teeth, smelling her breath and noting the brightness of her eyes, and noting down the Lot Number of the women who caught their eye.

             It was all very humiliating for the women, kept kneeling on all fours like animals being inspected at a fair. But the slightest sign of backing away from the examining dealers, or of daring to brush away their hands, was rewarded with a screamed shout of rage from one of the black eunuchs and several painful cuts from his cane.

            Even more humiliating was when one of the dealers would turn to one of the ship's black eunuchs and, pointing to a particular woman, nod his head. The eunuch would then raise his whip threateningly and bark another order. The woman would then have to part her knees widely, separating her thighs. The eunuch would grip the woman's hair to hold her still, whilst the dealer would reach with his hands down between her outstretched arms, and under her belly to part her beauty lips and test the responsiveness of the blushing girl's beauty bud.

            Then they would go over to the cages and slide back the bars on the side to feel the firmness of each girl's breasts before knowingly and expertly kneading her belly, and probing down between her legs whilst the black eunuchs held her ankles apart to give the dealer better access.

            Marie was horrified at the succession of strange hands that ran their way up and down her helplessly chained body and then up inside it. It was degrading enough to be examined like an animal by these well dressed dignified Arab men, but many of the slave dealers were also accompanied by their own black eunuchs. Making a show of not wanting to sully their hands by intimately examining a dog of a Christian woman, they would tell their black eunuch to inspect the girl for them. Marie found it infinitely more degrading to be inspected by a brutish, uneducated negro, even if it soon became clear that he was an expert in assessing the bodies of young white women ...

            Then suddenly the Rais came down into the hold himself with one of the slave dealers, Hassan. The Rais was accompanied by the pretty white boy that Marie had seen when she had first been dragged before the Rais. Now she saw that the slave dealer was similarly accompanied by two pretty white boys, dressed like pages.

            Apparently Hassan had made an offer for all the women on the shelves as a job lot, and the Rais, anxious to get back and continue his Corso, raiding the coasts of Italy, had accepted his generous bid in order to save time of haggling over each woman with the various smaller dealers. .

            "How are you finding that Scandinavian boy that you sent to me for gelding and training," laughed Hassan. "Is he making up for the lack of women when you at sea?"

            "Yes, it was a great success sending a pretty cabin boy to you - and getting back a trained male concubine!" replied the Rais with a laugh.

            "Yes," said Hassan jovially, "cabin boys certainly seem to respond very well to being gelded and make ideal page-boys, or Garzons as we call them. You corsairs and we slave dealers have one thing in common - it is important that we handle pretty captured Christian women in a completely detached way. For both of us they are merely valuable merchandise whose beauty must not be spoilt if we're going to sell them really well. And what better way is there to keep completely detached than to be have a couple of pretty boys to keep you satisfied!"

            He pointed to his two youthful attendants with a laugh.

            "Yes, the gelding of captured white boys is a very important part of my business. There's a big market for good-looking young white eunuchs, both from men who prefer boys and from men who have harem but like to have a good looking, richly dressed, boy attendant, whom they can show off in public, and yet who they can also keep, thanks to being gelded, in attendance on them when they visit their their harems."

            The slave dealer paused and put his finger to his nose in a knowing way.

            "And, you see, it's not only rich Arab and Turkish men who buy them, but rich widows as well. Indeed, I have a special line in what we call a 'Widow's Consolation'- a good looking Christian boy whom I castrate just when he's barely on the edge of manhood, with his manhood erecting eagerly, but when his body is still nice and soft. Being castrated they stay like that for ever! They may have nothing to ejaculate, but they can certainly satisfy a woman almost indefinitely - and without her running any risk of becoming pregnant. And as they've still got# their boy's voice, a woman can take him round with her and everyone will assume that he's just another harmless eunuch boy. It's wonderful! I even sell them back to Europe to be the page-boys of the wives of rich men - and the husbands never suspect what's going on!"

            "You'd sell even more of them," laughed the Rais, "if they could be used to in the harems of the rich instead of black eunuchs."

            "Yes, you're right and I've actually encouraged several of my clients to do just that - but it's never really worked. These Christian sluts just run rings round white eunuchs and soon there's no discipline in the harem at all. No, the Turks learned centuries ago that it's far better to use ignorant, brutish, black eunuchs., specially chosen for their ugly appearance, to control the headstrong white women in their harems. Christian girls seem to have a natural fear of them, and they, in turn, stand no nonsense from white women in their charge."

            The slave dealer paused for a moment.

            "You see," he added, "I think there's an element of the black eunuchs getting their revenge, on the white women in their charge, for all the thousands of blacks whom the whites have taken off from Africa to be slaves in North and South America negroes. They don't mind so much being the slaves of us Arabs, for we largely use them in positions of authority: as guards, as overseers of white women labourers and as black eunuchs in charge of harems. They reckon they're much better off then they would have been back in their primitive villages!"

            "And," interrupted the Rais, "they seem to develop a sort of sixth sense about anticipating the whiles and secret desires of white slavegirls, and so keeping them pure and frustrated for their Master."

            "Yes," went on the slave dealer, " and as they are very good at making sure that their Master is the only man the women ever see, even a newly captured white girl soon starts jealously competing for his favours - even if he is old enough to be her grandfather."

            "Yes," added the Rais with a smile, "and when the Master is not in his harem he can rely on his black eunuchs to keep an eye on what his women may try and get up to behind his back."

            "Discipline!" cried Hassan. "The stricter the discipline imposed by a rich man's black eunuchs, the more pleasure he will get from owning a harem of European girls. Our whole harem system depends on the frustration, jealousy and strict discipline imposed by the black eunuchs.

            "And on us corsairs providing a steady supply of fresh white girls!" laughed the Rais. "But I quite agree: white eunuchs are no use in a harem. Far better use them when they grow older as their Master's confidential clerks and stewards - their sexlessness ensuring their complete loyalty to their Master ... But anyway, I'm afraid I haven't got any pretty cabin boys for you this time, but I thought you might like to have a look at these little creatures who I haven't included in our deal."

The Rais led the eager dealer over to the rack of cages.

      "I think this one would reach a very high price with her long blonde hair and blue eyes."

            "Blue eyes, you say," repeated the slave dealer. "Blue eyed girls are very rare here in the Mediterranean and sell very well"

            The Rais undid the the side of Marie's cage, and invited Hassan to stroke her long honey-coloured hair, and lift up her eyelids to get a better look at her eyes. Then he put his hand down onto her belly ...

            "No, I'm afraid she's not in an interesting condition," laughed the Rais. "But as she also not a virgin, I expect you'll soon correct that when you get into your slave pens!"

            "Maybe!" replied Hassan, as the Rais lowered the grill at the side of Marie's cage. "There's certainly a great demand for white girls in milk amongst my mainly rich and elderly clients, especially those who are going on the Hadj to Mecca. They like to take their own supply of drink! And the taste of a white girl's milk is particularly sought after - especially that of a blond woman."

            "Well have a look at these others then, " said the Rais. "They're already in an interesting condition and you'll be able to sell them in milk quite soon!"

            The slave dealer now examined the pregnant girls, also tied down helpless in their cages. He ran his hands over their swollen bellies and breasts. Then he turned back to the grinning Rais.

            "Yes, several of these would make excellent , shall we say" travelling companions. Yes! I can see all sorts of interesting possibilities for these creatures ... How much more would you want to include them in the consignment?"

            The two men began to bargain like horse dealers haggling over a group of horses. Then suddenly a bargain was struck ...

            Hassan's own team of black eunuchs now came on board. They carried whips and were lead by a big intelligent looking negro - Hassan's chief overseer or women handler. Although he was officially a slave he was not a eunuch. However, he he had proved himself invaluable in handling and processing frightened women, especially white ones, who were being prepared for sale. He was adept in training them to show themselves off to their best advantage in order to raise the highest price.

             He spoke a little broken Italian, as well as the lingua franca, and this too was useful when handling valuable female merchandise. Another of his invaluable traits was that he was not sexually interested in women of any colour. His preference was for gelded white boys and youths. Thus, although he was not a eunuch, Hassan felt that his women were completely safe with his chief handler and willingly gratified his desire for white eunuch boys from stock awaiting sale ....

             The women on the shelves were now released and made to line up. Marie and the other caged women were also released and put in with the others. They were all carefully counted. Then their ankle manacles were removed.

            Hassan came over and looked carefully at Marie's wrist manacles and those of several of the other women. He noted the velvet lining which both kept the manacles snug on the girls' wrists and prevented chafing. He also noted the system of lead sealing pellets which held the manacles closed and which would be difficult for the girls to unfasten without a special tool.

            "Your manacles don't seem to rub and yet they very securely fastened," he said to the Rais. "Can I buy the women with the manacles still on? It will save having to put new ones on them."

            The Rais laughed. "Of course! But it'll cost you extra. We pride ourselves on our slave manacles."

            "They're still very important in my business," said the slave dealer. "In my grandfather's day we mainly dealt in strong young Christian men, destined to become galley slaves. There was always the fear of a slave revolt, and by law groups of white slaves had to be kept chained. But, nowadays, you corsairs have replaced your galleys with fast sailing ships and so there's no demand for young white men - only for young Christian women and boys, both of whom are easier to control - and to keep cowed. The risk of a slave revolt is now much less, but the law is still in force - so these women will have to be kept chained."

            "Well, we corsairs find that that although manacling a girl's wrists may not really effect a girl physically, it certainly does mentally. It makes them far more submissive - and that's important onboard ship."

            "And in the slave market!" added Hassan. "It's all rather a nuisance, but it's good for the sluts. It keeps them submissive and eager to please - indeed you'd be surprised at the number of men who even like to keep chains on the Christian slavegirls locked up in their harems, never mind those labouring on their estates or in their mills or carpet factories ... Yes," he mused, "the fact is that there's something very satisfactory about the sight and rattle of a white slavegirl's manacles or collar chains! And keeping a Christian girl chained certainly seems to bring out a natural, but artificially suppressed, longing to be dominated by a strong and ruthless older man - like her Master!"

            "Yes," said the Rais, "the Christian way of life often gives a woman a sense of equality with men that is completely at variance with her natural in-bred subservience."

            "Well, here in the Orient, we know better!" said Hassan with a grin. "The Turks say, 'Chain a woman, and you get an adoring slavegirl'. It's very true. Constantly reminded of her lost freedom, she often now positively revels in being the hopeless slave of a so-called cruel and powerful Master."

            "Yes," said the Rais, " it's strange how quickly they often become much happier and contented in their new life as one of several well disciplined concubines of a rich and strong minded man, than they were as the spoilt and bad tempered only young wife of a hen-pecked poor European husband. And is being bought here as a concubine in a slave market, really much worse than an arranged marriage in Europe?"

            "I quite agree," said the slave dealer. Then, after a moment's thought, he added: "I've always said that it as if being made to serve a strong willed and wealthy man satisfies some inborn desire in a white woman. It must go back to the days of cavemen, when a woman needed to be protected by the most powerful man in the tribe, even if he was much older than her, and even if she was only one his many women."

            Marie may not have understood a word of this conversation but she found herself strangely excited at what should have been the terrifying thought that she was clearly a valuable commodity which was soon going to be taken ashore and sold, to begin her new life as a slave.

            Then pulling herself together, she began to wonder whether she would have a chance to call out her name on the way to Hassan's establishment in the hope that her whereabouts would somehow trickle back to her parents? But Hassan was clearly used to taking full precautions with the women he bought for re-sale. He turned to his overseer and spoke in Arabic so that the women would not understand.

            "I don't want any of these Christian sluts trying to call out whilst you are marching them through the City!" he grunted. "Make sure they are properly muzzled."

So it was that, moments later, poor Marie had a leather gag thrust into her mouth. It was attached to a flat piece of leather that went right over her mouth and was fastened tightly by a strap at the back of her neck. She could now barely make even a little moaning noise, and the other women were soon in the same state.

            The women were made to turn so that they were standing behind each other in two lines, and each woman was given a long black shapeless shroud, called a burka, to cover her nakedness. The burkas had a small piece of lace in front of the eyes, through which the women could just see.

            The burkas also had little slits at the side level with each girl's chained wrists, and the black eunuchs now fastened a long length chain to the outside manacled wrists of the girls in each line.

            Each woman in the right hand line was now chained by her right wrist to the right wrists of the woman in front of her, and each woman in the left hand line was similarly chained by her left wrist. Under their burkas each woman's wrists were still loosely chained together. Otherwise, they were naked under their burkas.

            Marie found herself chained to the end of the left hand line. The pregnant girl who had been in the cage above her was chained to end of the right hand line.

            Cowed, Marie felt quite terrified by it all: the humiliating examinations, the whips and shouts of the black eunuchs, the way the the Rais and the slave dealer treated the sale of the women rather like the sale of a group of animals, the way they had all been muzzled like wild dogs, and the way she, like all the women had been naked and chained ever since the brig was boarded. These awful chains! My God! she thought, these Barbary corsairs and Arab slave dealers certainly take great care that we captured Christian girls don't escape. Obviously we must be a very valuable merchandise. But to be bought by whom and for what purpose? She gave a little shiver of fear.

            Suddenly with sharp cries and cracking of whips the slave dealer's black eunuchs drove first the right hand line, and then the left hand line, up onto the deck of the corsair ship and then down the gangplank onto the sandy dockside.

            After days in the swaying dark hold, Marie felt weak and blinked behind the lace veil in the bright sunlight as she and her companions were urged along by the eunuchs whips. Stumbling, twice she almost fell, and twice a eunuch's whip caught her across the shoulders.

            Peering with difficulty through the tiny lace strip in front of her eyes, Marie saw the figure of a woman, also hidden in a black burka. She was standing bolt upright and stock still, like a well trained circus animal, behind a donkey. A length of light chain ran back from a ring on the saddle of the donkey and appeared to be fastened to the front of a collar round her neck. Two young black boys, carrying long whippy canes stood on either side of her, ready it seemed to punish her for the slightest movement. Each was holding a length of chain that appeared to be fastened to each of her wrists.

            She was, Marie would learn, a lead girl - a slavegirl who had already been well broken in, and could now be used to lead a coffle of unbroken girls. But all that Marie could think now was how humiliating it must be for the lone woman to be chained to a donkey and disciplined by two young black boys armed with canes.

            Each of the chained lines of girls was formed up behind this lead girl. The outside wrist of the leading girl in each line was fastened to one of the chains that led back from the lead girl's wrists. Marie, the rear girl in the left hand line, now found herself standing alongside the rear girl of the right hand line, and one of the black eunuchs now fastened her right wrist to the left wrist of the other rear girl.

            The chaining of the coffle was now complete. The outside wrists of the women in each chain were linked to the one of the wrists of the lead girl and the inside wrists of the rear pair of each line were also linked. Escape was impossible and the coffle would now have to learn to move as one cohesive mass.

            The black eunuchs stood in a menacing circle around the two lines of chained women, their whips at the ready, as if expecting an attempted mass escape.

            Hassan's black overseer cracked his whip menacingly. The two lines of veiled women froze with fear.

            "You Christian sluts!" he shouted in broken Italian, "you now all coffled together and when I next crack whip, you will all fall to knees and drop heads humbly to the ground. Look!"

            He shouted an order at the lead girl. Instantly she gracefully slipped to her knees and lowered her burka covered head to the ground in a position of complete submission.

            "Now you copy her when I crack whip ... No! Wait for it ..."

            The whip cracked. Still terrified Marie slipped to her knees and bending forward lowered her head. But as she did so she heard the noise of a whip being applied by a watching eunuch across the buttocks of a girl who, outraged at the way they were being treated, was daring to defy the chief black eunuch's order. Again she heard the whip fall. A little moan came from under the girl's burka and then too she fell to knees, driven down by the eunuch's whip.

            "So perhaps we had better practice that again!" came the sneering voice of the overseer. "This time when I crack whip you will all jump up again - and when I say jump, I mean jump! Black eunuchs will be watching out, with their whips, for the slightest sign of hesitation."

            After a long pause, clearly intended to keep the young white women scared, he cracked his whip. This time there were no laggards.

            Satisfied, he then put them back into into their kneeling position. But this time a protesting Marie was slow to lower her head right down to the ground. She was rewarded by a black eunuch thrusting her neck down with his foot, whilst he applied his whip to her rump. She would not protest again!

"I see your black eunuchs have started teaching these Christian sluts proper obedience," called down the Rais from the ship.

            "Yes, indeed," laughed Hassan. "With my system of training, we'll soon have them docile enough for the harem of the Pasha himself!"

            "And make yourself a handsome profit!" shouted back the Rais.

            "Of course," replied the slave dealer grimly, "or else there'll be some pretty sore backs-sides amongst these dogs!"

            Then he came down the two lines of women, checking for himself that each woman's outside wrist was securely chained to those of the the women in front and behind her, and feeling through her burka that her muzzle was firmly in place.

            Satisfied, he told his overseer to carry on, rather like am Army Officer might instruct his Sergeant Major. The negro ordered the coffle to jump up again.

            "Now we practice running behind donkey!" shouted the overseer. "When donkey starts to trot, you all start to run - keeping in line. Any girl who lags behind will feel whip. And when donkey turns to the left, the lead girl will pull with right wrist and right hand line of women will all feel outside wrists pulled forward. This is signal to wheel round to left behind donkey. If donkey turns to right, then left hand line will feel outside wrists being pulled forward as signal to wheel round to left. Each pair of women will wheel in succession, turning in same place as the lead girl. Now we practice before going into city."

            Then he mounted the donkey and gave it a sharp kick ....

            Amidst much cracking of whips, and after several rather painful false starts, the coffle soon learnt to run at a fast trot behind the donkey and the lead girl, wheeling to the left and right behind the donkey as steered by the lead girl. Two black eunuchs now ran cracking their whips on each side of the coffle of white women and the two young black boys brought up the rear - applying their long canes to Marie's rear at the slightest sign of her not keeping up.

Finally the Overseer was satisfied with his control of the coffled women. He set off towards the town. The coffle was now made to run through the narrow twisting and filthy streets of Marsa to the establishment of Hassan.

            Chained and muzzled, Marie felt even more frightened and humiliated - as well as out of breath. She had no idea where she was - just presumably somewhere in North Africa. Anxiously and curiously she tried to peer around her through the lace veil, as she was driven on by the whippy canes of the young black boys.

            What she saw seemed like a scene from drawings she had seen in her childhood of the Arabian Nights. Bearded men in striped coloured robes, led or pushed heavily laden donkeys down the narrow streets. Turbaned shopkeepers stood at the narrow entrances of their shops, shouting their wares. Shouting boys wearing red fez caps squatted on the cobbles alongside piles of fruit, of fresh dates and of vegetables. They passed a few heavily veiled women, escorted by negro slaves.

            But little attention was paid to the coffle of chained and veiled white women. It was as if such a sight was an everyday event.

            The coffle was driven on down the winding lanes of whitewashed houses. They went through narrow arches that linked both sides of the street, and past little flower covered terraces that looked down on it.

            Hassan had recently acquired an old slave dealer's establishment in the old soak of Marsa and had restored it to its former use. It was here that the group of chained women, was halted before a large wooden door, heavily strengthened with iron bolts and bars.

            One of the black eunuchs shouted in Arabic in his high pitched voice. A grill in the door opened. A black face looked out. The grill slammed shut again and a moment later the heavy door creaked open. The group of women were driven through it.

            Marie saw that they were in a bare outside courtyard. Facing them was another door just as heavy and just as strong as the one they had just come through. With a thud, the outside door was shut behind them and heavy beams slid across to secure it shut.

            Under her burka Marie shuddered. Where was she? What was going to happen now?

3 - THE PROCESSING OF A SLAVEGIRL

The second door suddenly opened and then with several cracks of the black eunuchs's whips, the coffle of white women were urged through into a much larger courtyard.

            A fountain played prettily in the centre of the cobbled yard. Numerous windows looked down into the courtyard from whitewashed walls. They were all heavily barred with black iron bars. Two grilled doors led away to different parts of the large building and towards one of these the line of women was led. Through the other Marie saw a line of white youths. They were walking awkwardly. She remembered the pretty boy attendants of the Rais and Hassan. She wondered if perhaps they were they recovering from being castrated before being sold?

            Led by Hassan's negro overseer, the coffle of women passed through the grill, and on into a long tiled room. Along one side was a low bath filled with warm soapy water. Two strong looking negroes stood by it, large sponges in their hands. To one side stood two more negroes.

            The captured women were all overawed by their surroundings, Marie included. None of them spoke. All of them were wondering what was going to happen to them now.

            A negro went down the two lines of veiled women unfastening the chains that linked their outside wrists.      "Take off your burkas," shouted the big negro overseer suddenly in Italian. The women felt ashamed and uncomfortable at being seen chained, muzzled and and helpless by the huge negro and his tough looking negro assistants. But there was a sudden crack of a whip, and Marie and the other women quickly obeyed, pulling their shrouds off over their heads.

            They were now all standing shamefaced and naked, except for their muzzles, their collars and chain, and their wrist manacles.

            Marie now saw that they were standing underneath a simple rail from which hung chains. The rail dipped down over the big bath and then continued round the room dipping down again over various sets of stools alongside which more negroes stood waiting to process the new white slave girls who had entered Hassan's establishment.

            "Raise your arms," ordered the overseer. Hesitantly the women obeyed. Immediately the two negroes standing to one side came up and began to fasten each women's manacles to one of the chains hanging down from the rail. Marie started to back away but was suddenly held by the two strong negroes. Almost before she had realised what was happening she two was chained to the overhead rail with her arms held above her head.

            Soon all the women were standing below the rail with their arms held above their heads each linked to a pulley that ran along the overhead rail. Marie felt helpless and humiliated.

            "Now listen carefully, you young sluts," said the overseer in a harsh voice. "You now in the house of Hassan, the leading slave dealer of Marsa. You going to be processed and this must be done quickly as another group of pretty young white women will be arriving shortly."

            There was a chorus of horrified little moans.

            "Silence! Silence!" shouted the negro. "You are simply slaves. How dare you try to speak!"

            The moans died away. "But first, each of you will be beaten."

            There were horrified gasps from the women. But the overseer held up his hand.

            "You will each be beaten to teach you that you are now a slave. You will each be beaten with this leather paddle."

            The negro held up a thick leather square attached to a flexible cane handle. He brought it down with a crack against the side of the bath. The noise made the women shiver with fear.

            "You will each be given four strokes. You will find it very painful. If you try to speak without permission again, or if you are slow to obey an order, you will receive twelve strokes of the same paddle. Just remember, next time, twelve strokes!"

            This announcement had been received in horrified silence by the women. Marie was aghast. She really was a slave. Naked, she was now going to be beaten! Beaten by a big negro overseer! Pride overcame her shyness.

             "You have no right to treat us like this," she longed to cry out. But her muzzle held her lips tightly shut . "We are delicate white women. You are beasts. You are fiends. You are ... "

            The overseer saw her lips trying to move behind her muzzle. He came slowly up to her.

            "So we the pretty blonde woman wants to meet the paddle, does she? She wants to be taught a lesson in obedience, does she? And perhaps taught a lesson in humility, as well!" He suddenly smacked her face hard. "Well, I warned you you would get twelve strokes if you tried to speak without permission - and that's just what you're now going to get - as a lesson to your little friends."

            He turned to the other negroes and spoke in Arabic.

            Marie found herself pushed forward, her arms held tightly outstretched above her head. "No! No!" she tried to cry out. Desperately she tried to pull her chained hands down to protect her body.

            She was pushed ahead of her companions until she stood at the edge of the bath. She was now standing on the tips of her toes as the black overseer pulled her chain to raise her arms even higher. Her whole body was taut. She tensed as she saw him raise the paddle high in the air. The other women looked on in silent horror.

            The overseer lowered his paddle, and slightly adjusted her chain, lowering her very slightly so that her buttocks and her belly were slightly more relaxed. Then he raised the paddle again, and brought it down with a splattering noise across Marie's soft white bottom.

            The pain was atrocious. She screamed. There was a long silence. Then came the next stroke. More pain. Another scream. A long silence. And then another stroke. And so it went on, and on ....

            "No! No!" Marie was trying to scream. "No more please! ... I'll do what I'm told. I'll do anything you want ... But no more please ... ouch! ... No more please ... ouch!"

            But her thrashing went on quietly, slowly and remorselessly.

            The last of the twelve strokes fell. The negro stood back. Marie was weeping helplessly. The pain had been terrible but the humiliation of being thrashed naked in front of her companions by a black man was even greater. Through her tears she eyed the overseer with fear and something new, respect.

            "As I was saying," said the big overseer in a slow voice, "each of you will be given four strokes of the paddle by one of my assistants." He smiled at the negroes and handed the paddle to one of them. "If you make any trouble, like our blonde lady did, then you will get twelve strokes. I think you will all behave like good little girls now, huh?" he laughed cruelly.

            "Then you will each go through the bath and be washed. Then we will do something to each of you so as to make sure that potential buyers can get a better look at the part of you they are most interested in ... You will then be examined to see if you are a virgin or a widow, yes, widow! All young women sold by Hassan are sold as virgins or widows."

            He paused. "Were any of you girls married or engaged to be married?" he demanded. "Well?"

            Several of the young women rather tearfully nodded.

            "I recommended that you forget your husbands or lovers pretty quickly - you'll never see them again - unless you come from a rich family who would be willing to pay a ransom to your new master of perhaps a ten or twenty times what he paid for you. Yes, a ten or twenty times! Ransoming can be a good business! But anyway you will each represent a valuable investment for your master, even if you are sold as a mere farm labourer or mill girl, for you'll soon have acquired new skills. Moreover you will also be producing for your master every year a half caste Haratin progeny, or perhaps two - for our Black Guards make fine studs. And then your Master will either rear or sell your progeny at a profit. So it would not pay him to let you go, except for a high ransom."

            He again paused to allow his words to sink in.

            "And if you are sold as a pleasure slave, kept locked up in the harem of a rich man, then your master will certainly not part with you until he has tired of your body and then he'll want to get a high ransom for you to pay for your replacement, or replacements - as will your owner if you are bought to be put to work in a high class brothel!"

            Put to work in a brothel! thought Marie. My God!

            "So," went on the overseer, "you'd all better just forget about being ransomed unless you really do have some very rich relations. But I warn you that if you tell us that you do have very rich relations and your future master pays higher price for you in the expectation of making a lot of money out of ransoming you, and then it turns out that no ransom is forthcoming, then ... "

            The big negro tapped the paddle suggestively. "Then all I can say is that I would not like to be in your shoes! Your Master will be furious. He will work you harder than ever in order to try and get his money's worth. Or in his anger he may simply have you killed - or, if you're lucky, given to his black guards for their sport."

            Once again there were horrified gasps from the women. Marie's brain was racing. Who would pay a ransom for her? Her family certainly couldn't. And the Contessa wouldn't. That bitch would be delighted that that her former rival was now out of the way now as a slave in Barbary.

            No, she thought, she must resign herself to her new fate: a life of slavery. She remembered what the negro had said about labourers. Mon Dieu! Would she end up labouring in a field just like the black slaves in America?

            "Soon your Master, Hassan the slave dealer, will himself come and select what type of slave girl you will be trained and sold as ... "

            Again there were gasps and sobs.

            "So if any of you have particular skills - either in bed or out of it - you'd better say so - it may increase the price Hassan asks for you and hence, perhaps, how you are treated by your future Master. Strong sturdy girls will be selected as field slaves. Big breasted girls could find themselves being bought to become milk slaves or wet nurses."

            This was greeted with gasps from behind the women's muzzles.

            "Girls with clever fingers," then went on the big negro, "and who are naturally good at sewing, might find themselves being trained to work in the carpet factories. Those of you who are exceptionally pretty will be trained as pleasure slaves, ready to be sold to private harems or leading brothels."

            There were more gasps from behind the muzzles.

            "In all cases, just remember that potential buyers will also be assessing your ability to carry and deliver large mulatto progeny after being crossed with a giant Dinka Guard. Field slaves and even mill girls chained to their looms are all expected a deliver their progeny every spring and the same even applies in many harems - for even here a slavegirl expecting a little black Happy Event is considered to be even more attractive - and many a Master will enjoy mating a a Christian girl, against her will, with one of his black slaves."

            There was now a shocked silence as the big negro, waving his paddle menacingly, went on.

            "So, if any of you widows have already successfully delivered any progeny, as proof of your fertility, then you'd better tell us. It will increase your value and hence the asking price we shall be demanding for you."

As soon as the big negro had finished speaking, two others seized Marie and pulled her into the bath.

            The pulley on the overhead rail, to which her chain was attached, ran down to where the rail dipped down over the bath, enabling the negroes to push her down struggling into the water and then to start soaping her all over. Meanwhile, the next young woman, a pretty dark haired girl of eighteen from Naples, was being given her four strokes of the paddle by the big negro in charge, whilst the next woman was being made ready by another negro for her beating and bath.

            Marie emerged spluttering from the soapy water, still muzzled and with her chained hands still held above her head. The two negroes pushed her out of the bath. The eighteen year old girl, Gina, her bottom smarting from the four strokes of the paddle, was then bundled into the bath and the next young woman was given her first thrashing.

            Marie was now held by her wrists, standing up in front of an negro barber, a gross fat looking man who was seated on a low stool. Nonchalantly he quickly fastened Marie's ankles to two rings set in the floor and which held her legs wide apart. She felt desperately ashamed and degraded at having to display herself to this hideous man. She longed once again to cover herself with her hands, or to cry out in protest, but of course was quite unable to do so.

            The negro barber dipped a large brush into a pot of shaving soap and applied it to her body. Then carefully and expertly he shaved off her body hair with a long razor with one hand, whilst with the other he held the skin of her mound and body lips taut. Twice he repeated the process, and then washed away the soap, leaving Marie as bare and smooth as a little girl. Marie had not dared to move a muscle for fear of being cut by the razor, but the shame had been overwhelming.

            The barber got up and sat down on a stool in front of the eighteen year old girl who now, in turn, had her ankles fastened wide apart to another pair of rings in the floor. Looking about her, Marie saw that there were several pairs of rings in the floor so that several women could be held in the same shame-making position at a time. No attempt was made to release Marie's legs and she wondered what next was going to be done to her.

            She did not have long to wait for another negro, this time one carrying a pot of needles, came and sat down on the stool in front of her. He had a book in his hand. He looked at it, ticked a number that was listed in it.

            Then without saying a word, he turned to Marie and started to tattoo some Arabic writing and numerals neatly onto the side of her now smooth and bare mound.

            Marie looked down in horror as he carefully and delicately inserted his needles into her skin and re-dipped them into the ink. She was being indelibly marked with the slave dealers sign and her slave number! Hassan liked to boast that he had a record of every woman who had passed through his hands and that he would take back any woman bearing his mark and number who had proved to be unsuitable, and and replace her with another.

            With her hands held above her head, there was nothing that Marie could do to stop the negro from marking her for ever as a slave who had been sold by the House of Hassan. Indeed the memory of her recent thrashing very effectively curbed her natural desire to even give a little moan of protest.

            The fact that the men who were processing the frightened and naked white women were mainly gross looking negroes was clearly deliberate, Marie realised. The women were all much more cowed by them, than they would have have been by white or even Arab men.

            Meanwhile the processing of the other women was continuing. Each of them, whether she was a young girl scarcely out of school, or a pregnant young mother, had to watch in dread as the young woman in front of her was given her four 'warning' strokes of the paddle. None of them dared to cry out or protest, for fear of receiving the additional strokes that had been given to Marie. Each was bathed and washed, and then tied standing with her legs wide apart for the humiliating shaving and tattooing.

            At last Marie's tattooing was completed. The negro looked down on the smooth bare white skin now neatly decorated with Hassan's sign and Marie's registered slave number. He got up and sat down in front of the other waiting women and began to repeat the elaborate process.

             But still Marie was not released. What further humiliation could be in store for her?

            Then another negro, who seemed to be a sort of clerk, sat down on the stool in front of her. He had a small book like a passport in his hand. On the cover of the book he wrote down the number tattooed on Marie's belly. He looked carefully at the colour of Marie's hair and of her eyes and entered these with bold Arabic writing into the little book.

            He looked carefully around her body for any sign of scars, or birthmarks, of moles, or of any other identifying signs and wrote them in the book, even parting her buttocks for a closer look. Then, humiliatingly, he examined Marie to check that she was not still a virgin. Finding that she was not, he looked carefully for any signs of the stretch marks that would have shown that she had born a child. Finally he measured her bosom, her waist, her hips and, most embarrassingly, the length of her body lips - noting it all down in the little book.

            Then raising his whip and putting his finger to his lips in a warning gesture, he unfastened her muzzle. She eased her mouth, but did not dare to speak. She had already learned that in Barbary white slavegirls only speak when spoken to!

            Then, speaking in the lingua franca, he asked Marie about her family background and of her job with the Contessa. Clearly he was trying to find out whether anyone would be interested in reasoning her.

            Then Marie blushed as he asked a series of intimate questions about her bodily functions and monthly cycle, again writing the answers in the little book. Then he went over to the eighteen year old girl, leaving Marie standing there shamed and embarrassed, the little book lying at her feet.

            A few minutes later the negro clerk gave an eager cry. He had confirmed that Gina was indeed still a virgin. The huge negro in charge of the processing of the women came over. To the young girl's deep humiliation he too checked that her virginity. He then called over the barber. He pointed at the girl' body.

            Marie was surprised to see that the barber now had a needle and thread in his hand - a needle with a sort of hook. Marie watched horrified as he deftly began to sew up Gina's young body with a leather cord while she cried and sobbed with the pain.

            Then the two ends of the cord were joined together in a special seal which hung down from the girl's body lips which were now tightly sewn together. The seal was to be the slave dealer's guarantee of virginity - until the seal was broken and the cords were cut. It was a scene that was repeated several times as some of the frightened younger girls, and some of the older ones as well, were confirmed as virgins.

            Marie was appalled at the way these awful negroes handled the group of frightened white women as if they were just prize cattle being got ready for a cattle sale.

            "We are women, European women, you can't treat us like this" she longed to call out. But remembering her thrashing she did not dare do so - even though her muzzle had been removed.

4 - A SLAVE DEALER MEETS A VERY SPECIAL ORDER

Abruptly the big door leading into the processing room was thrown open.

            There was a sudden silence. The big negro overseer, his assistants, the tattooist, the barber and the clerk all respectfully stood up.

            Into the room stepped a tall cruel looking Arab, dressed in a heavy brocade Arab robe and a white turban. Marie recognised him as Hassan, the slave dealer himself.

            Silently Hassan gestured for his staff to continue their ministrations. Then, accompanied by the big negro overseer, and by a pretty painted white youth who appeared to be his secretary, he walked down the line of naked women who had already been processed, and who were standing helplessly with their hands still drawn up high above their heads.

             The overseer would point out the salient physical features of each woman whilst the youth read out, in a falsetto voice, extracts from the little book that lay at each woman's feet. Then Hassan would carefully look at the naked young woman from several angles, occasionally lifting up a chin or a breast with his hand or feeling the curve of a buttock. Hassan spoke to each women, judging her intelligence and education, before barking out his decision to the youth to note in each girl's little book.

            Two short stocky peasant girls he assessed as potential labourers to be sold off as soon as they had rested from their journey.

            Apparently, Marie understood, white girls were popular with rich landowners as field slaves or labourers. They were quicker and could be made to work harder by their black overseer's whip than many of the traditional black slave women. A good strong Christian girl could be sold for a good price as a field slave.

            For reasons of hygiene, the heads of field slaves were traditionally always been kept shaved. Thus, Hassan had found that he could get a better price for a white girl being sold as a field slave if her head had already been shaved, rather than leaving that to her future Master. Perhaps it was also that the girl's individuality was reduced, and her physical strength was made more apparent, by the removal of her crowning glory. It was easier for a buyer to assess her potential as a simple labourer or beast of burden, without being distracted by the girl's prettiness.

            Certainly the barber came immediately over, and sitting on a stool began to shave the two sobbing girls' heads. Horrified, Marie saw that one of them was Gina, the nice young peasant girl, with whom she had struck up a friendship on board the brigantine. And now because she had stocky legs she was going to be sold as a bald headed slave field labourer! Thank God, she thought, for my pretty ankles and slender waist. But would her fate be any better even if she was bought for her beauty?

            Marie looked on with mounting shock as Gina's long tresses fell to the floor, leaving simply a bald and shining cranium. Hassan nodded approvingly. The two girls now looked strangely alike and strangely sub-human - more suitable, Hassan felt, for women who were intended for a life of hard labour.

            The overseer patted the slightly swollen belly that Gina's companion was showing.

            "All the better," said Hassan. "It'll increase her price on the block. Big landowners always look to get an additional annual cash crop of babies from their white field slaves. So not only will a buyer be buying two slaves, but being pregnant will also show off her fertility.

            "And this other slut's got pretty good child bearing hips," Marie was horrified to understand the overseer to say as he degradingly ran his his hands over her friend, Gina's belly. What awful fate awaited Gina? Would she ever see this nice friendly girl again?

            The group moved on to an intelligent looking girl who Hassan earmarked to be sold as a household servant, having first undergone a few weeks training in how to serve wealthy Arab ladies. There was always a good demand for European maidservants, for rich Arab women enjoyed showing off their wealth to their friends - whether it was a diamond broach or a pretty European slave girl.

            Another girl had claimed to be experienced in needlework. Hassan decided that she should be sold as a potential mill girl for one of Marsa's famous carpet factories. He held regular monthly sales of such girls whom the larger mills periodically found surplus to their requirements.

            Here again the fact that this girl was pregnant too, indeed heavily pregnant, would increase her value since mill owners, like land owners, traditionally planned to obtain an annual crop of babies from the mill slave girls whom they kept chained to their looms. Normally they were just covered by their negro overseers, but a girl who was both skilled, and shortly due to produced a pure white child, would be of particular interest. A mill owner might even keep the child, castrated it was a boy, to be trained from a young age to use the natural skills that he would hope that it had inherited from its mother or would learn from her.

            Several really pretty, slender, and vivacious girls however, were next earmarked by Hassan to be sold as pleasure slaves.

            They would first undergo a thorough training in how to please a man, in how to move seductively, in how to stand before a man, in Arab dancing and singing, and in how to beautify her face and her body. Only then would they be exhibited privately to the black eunuchs in charge of the harems of wealthy Arab merchants or landowners, or to the owners of high class brothels, before being auctioned at Hassan's small weekly sales of well trained white slave girls.

            Here again Hassan was delighted to find that one of them had a distinctive little swell to her belly - for to oriental eyes, pregnancy enhanced the beauty of a girl. Rich men liked to have a a couple of pregnant girls in their harems. They would not, of course, themselves father a child from a mere Christian slave, but forcing a girl to carry the child of a black slave was an amusing diversion - as would be having a girl carrying the child of her now long lost European husband.

            Hassan then paused for a long time before a really buxom young woman.

            There was a steady demand by the wives of rich merchants and landowners for white wet nurses. Their milk was considered to be so much better and sweeter than that of other women. But many wealthy men, particularly older ones, were also keen to own milk slaves for their own private use. The milk of a white woman was widely considered to be an excellent cure for many ailments - and an aphrodisiac into the bargain. This girl would clearly make a superb milk slave and was very pretty into the bargain.

            " When will she be ready for mating," he asked.

            The white youth looked at the details in her little book. "Any day now, Effendi," he replied.

            "Right!" said Hassan coming to a decision. "Then in that case have her mated with the pigmy tomorrow and the next two days. He often throws twins or triplets, and a litter of little half-breed pigmies will really bring on her milk. But also start her training as a pleasure slave."

            He turned to the white youth. "Note down! If she takes we'll keep her until she drops her litter and her milk is flowing well, and then sell her privately as a special item to pay for her nine month's keep. I can think of several rich old men who would pay a very high price for a girl like her in milk. And if she doesn't take, however, then we will sell her quickly as a pleasure slave. There's plenty of brothel owners s who would pay well for a girl with breasts like that".

            Hassan now moved onto Marie.

            He stood for a long time admiring the long blond hair, blue eyes and nude body of the highly embarrassed French girl. But he was also taking in her long strong legs, her intelligent cast of features, her long blonde hair, her strong-looking thighs and her firm breasts. Here indeed was a really valuable item of merchandise!

            Marie felt herself blushing under the harsh professional gaze of Hassan. What was he planning to do with her, she wondered anxiously.

            The big negro lifted up her breasts and let them go to show Hassan their resilience.

            "She will make a superb pleasure slave," he murmured.

            But the sight of her now quivering breasts made Hassan suddenly remember something.

             He snapped his his fingers impatiently. The young white youth, apparently a eunuch, put down Marie's little book from which he was reading aloud to his Master. The slave dealer said something to him in the lingua franca and the boy ran off, returning moments later with a letter written in Arabic.

            Hassan read it carefully, looking up at Marie's body frequently as he did so.

            The young white boy produced a tape measure. Marie felt that she would die of shame as the boy carefully measured her height, the inside length of her legs, her waist, her hips, her neck, her breasts, and even the distance between her nipples and her navel and the length of her beauty lips. He called out each measurement to Hassan who, with an increasingly eager smile, checked it against something written in the letter.

            The measurements completed, Hassan again read Marie's little booklet and made a further notation in it. Then he clapped his hands.

            Marie, her eyes lowered with embarrassment, was mystified as to what was going on, but clearly she seemed to measure up to something that the letter required.

            A little wooden cage was brought in. Marie's wrist manacles were unfastened from the overhead chain.

            Then, to her horror her muzzle was replaced.

            She was now led over to the little cage. She saw that it had a solid floor, roof and sides but that the front was open and barred. The top of the cage was opened. She was made to stand in it and then roughly pushed down. The top was closed and locked. She found herself kneeling on all fours in a little cage about a metre and a half long, a metre wide and a metre high. The bottom was padded.

            "What are you doing to me? Why am I in this cage? Please let me out! Please!" she longed to cry out behind her muzzle as she gripped the solid bars of the her cage with her chained hands.

            Suddenly two curtains were roughly drawn across the bars of the cage. She could no longer see out.

            Moments later Marie felt the cage being lifted up and carried out of the room. Then she felt it being put down. She could not see where she was. At first she could hear voices, orders, male voices. Then she was left alone in her cage.

            For a whole hour she was left alone.

            She discovered that the padding on the floor of the cage was gently sloping towards the middle where, right under her haunches, there was a small opening some six inches square covered by a metal grille. In the centre of the grill there was a small circular opening that was open to the earth beneath the cage. With a shock she suddenly realised its purpose. With an even greater shock she realised that this cage was evidently a travelling cage, and cleverly designed to house a women for an extended time.

            Her horrified discovery was interrupted by the return of voices, of rough laughing male voices. She felt the cage being lifted up high, she heard an animal grunt. She realised that the cage was being fastened to something. She heard another animal grunt and then felt the cage sway up into the air. Because of the curtain across the bars of the cage she could see nothing.

            Squatting awkwardly in the cage Marie managed to look down through the grilled opening onto the ground. At first she just saw the cobbles of the courtyard of Hassan's establishment. Then she suddenly saw an hairy animal's feet moving in time with the swaying of her cage. She realised that it must be a camel's foot. Her cage was strapped to the side of a camel! She was being taken away, but why? And where to? And to whom?

            The questions raced through her brain as she tightly hung onto the bars of her cage as it swayed violently. Looking down through the little grill, she saw that the cobblestones had given way to a stony track. Soon it became a sandy one. Several hours later all she could see beneath the cage was sand. They were in the desert! Where was she being taken to? How long would it take? Naked and muzzled in her cage she felt frightened and alone.

            Suddenly the swaying stopped. She felt the cage being lowered to the ground. A small trapdoor in the top of the cage was opened. Two pairs of black hands were thrust down. One gripped her head, the other removed her muzzle and thrust a water bottle into her mouth. She drank eagerly. The liquid seemed to contain something refreshing and sustaining. As well as quenching her thirst, it also partly satisfied her hunger.

            Then without a word, the water bottle was removed, her muzzle was re-placed, and the top of the cage was closed again.

            She could hear distant voices, but after being watered no one came near her. Peering through the grill in the quickly darkening twilight, she surmised that her cage was resting on strong wooden legs about a couple of feet above the sand.

            Later that night she learnt to use the grill and its opening for the purpose for which they were evidently intended, carefully [positioning herself above it so that her wastes fell onto the sand below the cage.

            The next day, to her acute embarrassment, she saw through the grill in the bottom of the cage, black hands which were gripping sticks which poked at her wastes. She heard voices, apparently discussing them, like grooms might examine and discuss the wastes of a prize mare. Apparently satisfied the unseen black men went off.

            Soon, however, she was again watered by another pair of black hands, and the same swaying journey continued.

            Soon she lost count of the hours, and even of the days, as she crouched behind the bars of her cage, like a caged animal occasionally being watered, and now also having a crust of oil soaked bread thrust into her mouth as well.

            One day, she suddenly noticed that they were no longer travelling over sand, but over cultivated ground, over well laid paths and tracks, and then over the sort of flat stones found in the courtyards of palaces.

            The swaying ceased. She felt her cage being lowered to the ground. There was a murmur of approaching voices. She heard the grating of a key in the lock above her head.

            Then the roof of her cage was flung open. She saw a black man's hand thrust into the cage groping for her hair.

            Suddenly she was pulled up out of her cage. Her thoughts raced. Where was she? Why had so much trouble being taken to bring her here? Who had arranged it all?

BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT

 PART II

THE NEW FILLY

5 - AROUSED AND COMPARED

Achmed, the black Head Groom to the young Prince Hosein, the son of the Emir of Zanda, reached down into the cage, gripped Marie by the hair and pulled her up.

            It was the first time that she had stood on her feet for several days, it was also the first time that she had seen the sun. She stood there, blinking in the bright sunlight, for nearly a minute. If she had not been held up by Achmed's strong arm as he gripped her blonde hair, her knees would have given way under her.

            Achmed looked her up and down with mounting approval. Then he pulled her right up out of her cage and set her down on the ground, still holding her up by the hair.

            Marie felt her legs becoming strong again. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the bright sunlight, she looked around. She saw that she was in the stables courtyard of what appeared to be a large white painted, castellated, castle set on a hill. Down below was a large cultivated valley and beyond, set on another hill, was another large white painted castle.

            Through an archway she heard the neighing of horses. A black groom was leading round a magnificent looking Arab horse, it's coat gleaming in the sun.

            In one corner of the yard, gleaming under a simple roof was the hot fire of a blacksmith's forge. A huge half naked negro was shoeing a horse held by a young Arab boy. His heavy hammer was resounding down on the anvil as he hammered the red hot shoe, which he held in one hand, with a pair of tongs into the right shape.

Marie gave a gasp as she noticed that, across the courtyard, was a good looking young man dressed in spotless Arab clothes and seated on a white Arab horse. Under his turban his dark eyes gleamed menacingly. His face was long and thin. He looked kind but also ruthless. His saturnine looks made him an attractive man. He was Prince Hosein.

            Behind him also on horses were three startlingly good looking Arab youths, for the Prince, like many Arabs, enjoyed both boys and women.

            On either side of his horse were two young women; one black and one white. They were stark naked except for brilliant white running boots, white gloves and a white leather flap that hung down from a white belt strapped tightly round their waists. The flaps just covered the girls' intimacies and were brightly decorated in green with a crest - the crest of the family of the Emir of Zanda.

            Each girl was veiled with a blue cotton mask. It completely hid her face except for two little slits for her eyes. The mask hung down below each girl's chin and was secured by a leather strap running over the top of her head. At the back of her neck, this was fastened to two other straps leading back from the side of the mask. Clearly the mask would not easily slip off, and yet would shield the girl's features from prying male eyes.

            Evidently the Prince did not mind outsiders seeing the virtually naked bodies of his girl attendants, but drew the line at them seeing their faces.

            Fastened to the strap going over the top of each girl's head was a high plume of red and white coloured feathers - the colours of the House of Zanda.

            A shiny brass collar had been riveted round each girls' neck. This by itself was shocking enough. But Marie could hardly believe her eyes, for a ring on the front of each collar was attached to a long light chain. And, quite unbelievable, the other end of each chain was fastened to a ring on the back of the decorated saddle of the Prince's horse. All four girls, as if they animals, were actually chained to the Prince's saddle!

            Each of the two negresses carried in their gloved hands a decorated umbrella which they positioned to keep the sun off the young prince.

             The two white girls also wore a white leather bandolier which went over their right shoulders and under their left arm. Fastened onto the bandolier, between their shoulder blades, was a white leather message pouch - for these were messenger girls, constantly available, as the Prince rode around his estate, to have their chain unfastened, a message put into their pouch and be sent off at a brisk trot to deliver the message to one of the Prince's estate managers or neighbours.

            Marie saw with a gasp of horror that all four girls had had their heads shaved - shaved and polished! Their bald craniums shone like polished leather on either side of the coloured plume that rose above their heads. The combinations of the mask-like veils and their bald heads gave them a strange sub-human look - a look that was also made highly erotic by the contrast between their almost stark naked bodies and their veiled faces.

            A sudden flurry of wind lifted the girl's flaps.

            Horrified Marie saw, that like herself, all their body hair had been removed.

            She also saw the neat zig-zag lacing, like those of a shoe, that showed that the body lips of each girl had been carefully sewn up - just like those of the eighteen year old girl in Hassan's establishment. As in her case the ends of the laces were joined together in a seal that hung down prettily between each girl's thighs.

            Clearly these strange black and white women, with their near naked bodies and their veiled faces, were used by the Prince to impress lesser mortals with his authority and wealth.

The young Prince snapped his fingers. A young black groom ran up to hold his horse. Another ran up and unfastened one of the black umbrella bearers from his saddle. The white messenger girl on the horse's near side, still chained to the saddle, dropped onto all fours at the side of the horse, keeping her back beautifully straight and her head proudly raised.

            The Prince dismounted, stepping onto the girl's naked back and then onto the ground. The released black umbrella girl carefully kept him sheltered from the sun. The white girl remained on all fours at the side of the horse, ready for the Prince to step onto her back again when he remounted.

            The other white girl remained standing silently at attention on the other side of the horse, whilst the remaining black girl kept the now empty saddle sheltered from the hot sun. Clearly they were a well disciplined and well trained team. Indeed, although Marie did not then know it, the Prince enjoyed training slave women to work together in a team.

            The Prince followed by the nearly naked black umbrella girl, still holding her umbrella above his head, strode across to where his Head Groom, Achmed, held Marie up by her hair.

             She was cowering at the shame of her nakedness, her chained hands alternatively trying to cover her breast and her now hairless belly. From under her lowered eyes she saw that the cruel looking young man had stopped in front of her.

             A groom ran up with a comfortable armchair. He bowed to the young man who then sat down looking around with a disdainful air. The black girl moved her umbrella so that he was still completely shaded from the warm sun.

            Achmed now pushed Marie forward until she was standing right in front of the young man seated in the chair. She lowered her eyes in embarrassment. She could feel him looking up and down her naked body as if he was judging a horse. There was a pause and then telling Achmed to pull her head back by her hair, he looked her straight in the eye. Marie could feel herself blushing with the shame of being seen naked at such close quarters and in public by this young man whom everybody was treating with such respect.

            The Prince gave an order in Arabic. Marie did not understand, of course, but suddenly one of the young black grooms, one of Achmed's assistants, seized her wrists and forced them back behind her neck. He quickly fastened her wrist manacle to her neck with a leather cord. She was now more displayed than ever as Achmed held her upright with her body arched back.

            The Prince gave an order, and Marie gasped as her head was pulled yet farther back by her hair. She could now only see the sky. To keep her balance she had to part her legs wide and bend her knees. She realised that she was now now displaying herself quite shamefully.

Suddenly Marie felt something touch her, touch her intimately. She tried to struggle but she could not move. With her head held back she could not at first see what it was. Then as it moved up her belly to her breasts and to her chin she saw that it was the seated young man's long riding switch, testing and probing the firmness of her body.

            Marie felt even more humiliated and degraded as the tip of the whip slowly descended again, playing with her nipples, her navel, her belly and then more intimately with her exposed body lips. She started to breath heavily.

            Then she felt Achmed, the Head Groom, standing behind her and holding her head back, actually reach forward with one hand and part her beauty lips for the probing tip of the Prince's whip. Oh the humiliation. But even worse was the realisation that she was responding to the young man's whip - she was beginning to become feel moist. It was all too shame-making. She could feel the blush spreading down from her cheeks to her neck and to her breasts.

            The Prince smiled as her saw her body lips glisten. Marie tried to close her legs together but Achmed kicked them open again. In complete silence the gentle insistent tickling and probing with the tip of the whip continued ... and continued.

            "No! No! Please no. Not like this, please," she found herself gasping behind her muzzle. .

            But the tickling continued - as did Marie's gasps.

            Then suddenly just as Marie felt she was about to climax, the cruelly smiling Prince withdrew his tantalising whip and sat back. He gave an order in Arabic, "Fetch the white mare, Fateful."

            A young black groom ran off through the archway that apparently led to the stables. Achmed slightly released his hold on Marie's long hair, letting her stand up straight again.

            Feeling desperately ashamed Marie dropped her eyes to the ground, she could not bear to look the young man in the face, not after what he had done to her with his whip. She longed in vain to drop to her knees, to hide her aroused body or to run right away from these awful people. But she was still held upright, still displaying herself so shamefully to this young man whom she now both feared and respected.

            Marie glanced hesitantly up at him. Her own pathetic nakedness, and the erotic near nakedness of the young man's white and black female attendants, contrasted sharply with the young man's elegant smart white robes, making her feel yet more ashamed. She saw that the young man was looking at her with a triumphant smile - smiling after the humiliating inspection to which he had forced her to submit.

            The young man reached forward and patted Marie's cheek as if he were patting his horses neck - as if she were of no more account that a mere animal.

6 - A NEW GIRL IS COMPARED AND BRANDED

A few moments later the stable lad who had gone off through the archway returned leading, to Marie's astonishment, a tall blonde white women of about thirty who was as naked as herself. Was it imagination, she wondered, or was there a slight unusual curve to her belly? Surely she could not be ... pregnant?

            She saw, however, that a complicated leather bridle had been fitted over her head holding a bit in her mouth. Yes, this white woman had been bridled and bitted like a horse!

            High at the top of her bridle was a ring through which all the women's long hair had been passed so that it hung down her back in a pretty 'pony tail'. Any hair on the side of her head that was too short to pass through this ring had been shaved off, giving her a strangely erotic look .

            Marie saw that where the bridle held the bit in the woman's mouth were two metal rings fastened to the ends of the bit, like a real horse's bridle. To one of these rings was fastened the leading rein which the stable lad held in his hand. To Marie's horror she saw that, quite separate from the bridle, a large shiny metal ring hung down from the women's nose, over the bit in her mouth, and down to her chin.

            Marie watched open mouthed as the black boy led the woman out towards them. With one hand he led her by the leading rein attached to the strange bridle fastened round her head, and with the other he controlled her movements with a leather riding whip.

            The young groom gave a word of command and tapped her buttocks with his whip. Immediately she started to walk in an exaggerated and unnatural way, raising each knee slowly high in the air and then kicking her lower leg forward so that her whole leg was quite straight and parallel to the ground. It was an extraordinary display of disciplined womanhood.

            The groom then gave her another tap and reined her back. Immediately she started to run, prancing with her knees raised high in the air and almost standing still as the groom held her back with the rein that led to her bit.

            Marie heard a slight jingling noise as the wretched woman was led, prancing, towards her. Part of the jingling came from the metal nose ring clinking against he gleaming metal rings at the side of the bit that was held in her mouth.

            With a sudden shock, however, Marie saw that part of the jingling noise was coming from something metallic hanging down between the woman's legs close to her body. It made a little tinkling noise with each movement of her legs. She could not properly see what it was.

            Marie could also see that the women was slavering at her mouth as her boy groom held her prancing and panting. Marie turned to look at the young man. Surely he would not approve of a woman being so harshly treated - and just like an animal. But to her horror she saw that he was watching the prancing woman with an approving smile. Clearly he was enjoying watching her being put through her paces by the young groom.

            Marie saw that the young man's eyes were constantly returning to the prancing woman's slightly swollen belly. Mon Dieu, thought Marie, not even these awful people could actually treat a pregnant woman in this way! But anyway why was she pregnant?

            The woman had now been led up alongside Marie. The groom gave her a tap with his whip across the front of her naked thighs, and instantly, like a well trained performing animal she stood stock still.

            Marie looked at her in amazement for she seemed so extraordinary like a slightly older version of herself. She was the same height and the same build. They were both natural blondes with blue eyes and straight golden hair. They had the same full but firm breasts, the same slender waists, the same slender necks and wrists, the same full bellies and hips, the same long legs and strong thighs, the same shapely buttocks ...

            Looking down Marie saw that the other women also had had her body hair removed and also had Arabic numerals tattooed neatly on one side of her bald mound. But there was something different. She had noticed above the big archway and on the tunics of the groom and on the white flaps of the young man's female attendants, what seemed to be the symbol of the place; a circle containing a zig-zag line. She now saw with a shock that right in the middle of her mound, to one side of the the Arabic numerals, the woman had been branded on the belly with the same symbol. And the brand mark was bright green in colour.

            The young man gestured for the other woman to stand closer to Marie, and then for them to stand back to back with their naked buttocks and shoulders touching. He looked at them closely and then rose from his chair and walked slowly round them, obviously comparing them both and discussing them both with Achmed. Horrified Marie saw that the two men were pointing to their breasts, their bellies, their shoulders and their blond hair.

            Then the other woman was made to stand facing Marie so that the exact height of their shoulders, their heads, their nipples, their navels, their bellies and their knees could be compared. Both women stood quite still facing each other.

            Marie could feel the other woman's belly pressing into hers. So she really was pregnant!

            Marie saw that the other woman was almost as nervous as she was herself, her breasts rising and falling in an agitated fashion just like her own. She caught the other woman's eye. There was a flicker of sympathy, of understanding, but she could not speak because of the bit in her mouth.

            Marie saw the cruel young man give a nod of approval. The other woman was then led back in her prancing trot to the archway, and disappeared from sight.

With her hands still tied behind her neck, Marie was now led by Achmed across the stable courtyard to the covered blacksmiths forge. Why, she wondered, had she been brought here.

             She saw that the young man who seemed to be the owner of this castle had followed her. Somehow she felt that this was going to be a significant moment. Did she belong to him? Was she his slave? Would he be supervising what was now going to be done to her?

            Marie had seen that the other white woman had a shiny wide brass collar round her neck, just like the young Prince's black and white female attendants. She now saw Achmed pick up a similar collar. He held it in front of her. She saw that there were strong looking rings attached to the collar both at the front and the back. She saw that there was Arabic writing engraved on one side. Then Achmed held up the other side for her to see. There was an engraving in Roman letter. Appalled, she read in Italian, 'The property of His Highness, Prince Hosein'.

            Achmed pointed at the cruel looking young man. Clearly he was Prince Hosein. She gasped. He was her owner! She cried out again. "No! No! Don't make me a slave, please." But no one paid any attention.

            The collar was placed round her neck, it fitted tightly and came up high under her chin, making her keep her head up the whole time. Two brass rivets were placed in the join of the collar. At a word of command from the young prince, Marie was made to kneel down by the anvil so that the rivets could be hammered in. The only way the collar could now be removed was for it to be cut off her or for the rivets to be knocked out. She was now an owned slave. Owned by the Prince!

            Marie had also noticed that the other white woman had her wrists enclosed in a sort of black leather bag. Now she too had to clasp her fingers and thumb tightly whilst black leather tight fitting gloves were passed over them and tied up at the wrist. With a shock she realised that she could not now use her hands at all. She was helpless. But why had this been done to her?

            She was now fastened to a post in the forge standing on a platform, half a metre high, with her hands tied above her head and around the post. She did not realise it, but this was to keep her belly taut for what was now going to be done to her.

            Marie watched Prince Hosein, the man whom she now realised was her Master, go up to the forge. There were several irons of various sizes being heated. She saw him pointing to one. The blacksmith fitted some Arabic numerals to it and thrust it back into the fire.

            The Prince now came over to Marie as she stood naked tied to the post. He had a piece of coloured chalk in his hand, he stooped down and felt her belly. It was the first time that she had felt her Master's hand on her body. Held tightly to the post she could not move away.

            Looking down between her breasts, she saw that the Prince was feeling the tautness of her belly and thighs. His hands were strangely exciting. She saw that he was smiling as he touched her. He looked up at her. She blushed with embarrassment, knowing that her body was giving away the excitement induced by her Master's touch. This seemed to please him.

Indeed, the Prince thought, this girl is already behaving like a slave girl. Her reactions were those of a well trained slave girl in the presence of her Master. Now he was to stamp his dominance on her for ever. With his chalk he made a circular mark just below the girl's navel. He nodded to the blacksmith and stood back.

            Suddenly Marie realised what was going to happen. She was going to be branded! She remembered the brand she had seen on the other white woman's belly. She screamed behind her muzzle. She tried to cry out. She struggled to get away. But all to no avail. The cruel looking young man, her Master, the man who had inspected her, the man to whom she had had to display herself so wantonly, had decided that she was to be branded!

            The Prince was now smiling cruelly as he stood watching the half naked negro blacksmith coming slowly towards Marie, a red hot brand in his hand - the brand of a circle with a zig-zag inside it and just below it Marie's slave number in Arabic numerals.

            Briefly she had thought the young man might be a kind Master, but now he was smiling as he watched her hopeless struggle to avoid the brand. She hated him!

            Suddenly the blacksmith lunged forward, driving the brand onto the ring outlined in chalk on her belly. She screamed with pain. The brand was kept on her. She screamed and screamed. At last the brand was removed. Marie collapsed in her bonds.

            Then the Prince came and looked carefully at the brand and nodded with approval. It had been neatly done. The circular mark was neatly in place just below the navel, with the slave numbers equally neatly displayed above her now hairless mound.

            He congratulated the blacksmith and said something in Arabic to Achmed, who began gently to rub a green ointment onto the raw brand. This contained pigment so that the brand would have a bright green colour. The ointment would also delay the healing process so that a good clear scar would be formed on her soft white skin.

            The young Prince now turned on his heel. Achmed and the blacksmith bowed. The young white girl kneeling by the side of his horse straightened her back. He stepped onto her, put his foot into the stirrup and effortlessly swung up into the saddle.

             Even Marie still in dreadful pain from the brand on her belly could not help noticing his strong athletic figure. For a moment she found herself mentally putting herself in the position of the young white girl humbly offering her back for her Master to use as a mounting block. Would it be thrilling to be used like this, she wondered.

            Then she remembered how he had smiled as he marked the position for her brand ... how he had evidently enjoyed watching her being collared, gloved and branded ... how he had enjoyed bringing her to very peak of arousal and had then stopped.

            She hated him! ... She hated him! ... But she could not forget that she was now marked for ever as his property - and numbered. He was indeed her Lord and Master.

7 - STABLED!

An hour later the pain of Marie's branding had considerably eased. She had been kept tied to the post to stop her getting at the brand.

            Now a belt, a sort of leather girth was fastened round her waist and buckled at the back so that she would not be able to get at the brand. It was a belt that she would get to know well, for it was fitted at the side with little buckles that were intended, whenever required, to hold her wrists helplessly to her sides. With her elbows back and bent, and her fingers encased in the tight black gloves, she would be quite helpless, just as she now found she was.

            She longed to rub the brand to ease the pain away but she was quite unable to get at her belly, nor, as she was soon to learn, at the more intimate parts of her body.

            Achmed now produced a bridle similar to that that she had seen the other white woman wearing. Taking off her muzzle, he slipped the bridle over her head and began to adjust the straps to ensure a tight but comfortable fit.

            A soft leather strap was fastened round her head at the level of her forehead. Two other straps were fastened to it and went over her head: one went from her forehead to the back of her head; and one from above one ear, over her head, and down to above the other ear.

            Another strap came down to the bridge of her nose where it divided in two, with each part leading down to a ring at the corner of her mouth. A long soft rubber bit was attached to the rings and was kept tight in her mouth by a strap that was fastened at the back of her neck. Two other straps went down from the rings and were tightly joined under her chin.

            Marie found that, once again, it was impossible to talk. She tried to spit the bit out but it was held tightly in her mouth.

            Running down from the strap round her forehead were two other straps that led down just behind her eyes, to the ring. Two big leather blinkers were fastened to them level with her eyes. She realised they were similar to the blinkers used on nervous and highly strung racecourses to restrict their vision. Now they were being used on a nervous and highly strung young woman!

            She felt her hear being pulled through a small ring on one of the straps on her head, it now fell down her back in a pretty 'pony tail' just like the hair of the other white woman.

            Although she did not yet know it, the women's bridles were worn night and day, with only the bits being temporarily eased at feeding times.

            Achmed removed the bit from her mouth to adjust the fit of the bridle. Then he held the bit up in front of her and motioned for her to open her mouth. She shook her head desperately. She had by now realised that it was no use protesting, clearly Achmed spoke no Lingua Franca or Italian or French, but she was certainly not going to wear a bit! It would make her just like an animal.

            And anyway, why did they want her, and the other white women to wear a silly bridle? She shook her head again.

            Achmed simply shrugged his shoulders. He reached out and gripped her nose tightly. Soon she had to open her mouth to breath and with an experienced movement he thrust the bit between her lips, securing it tightly behind her neck. The bit was quite soft in her mouth but it was firm and, like the bits often used with difficult horses, had a flange that bore down on her tongue to prevent her getting her tongue over it.

            Marie was now very effectively gagged. She found she could only make little whinnying noises.

A quarter of an hour later, bridled, gagged and with her gloved hands fastened to her waist, Marie was now led by Achmed across the courtyard and through the big archway. She had guessed right, it led to the stables.

            On either side of the high central passageway were loose boxes each containing Arab horses. But between each loose box was a small stall some two metres square. Tethered by a collar and standing on the straw in each stall was another naked, bridled and bitted woman.

            The horses carried the brand of the Prince on their hindquarters. But the women carried it on their soft bellies - and it was a prominent bright green.

            Several of the women were negresses but, she was appalled to see, several were white women: tall, blond, well built, white women, strangely like herself and the other white woman with whom she had just been compared by the young man she now knew to be her Master. Some of the women, she noticed with a shock were clearly pregnant, with their brands marks wildly distorted by their swollen bellies. But they too were tethered and bridled.

            She was also horrified to see, hanging from the women's noses were big brass rings, just like the one she had seen on the woman outside in the stable yard. They were so degrading! They gave the women a sub-human look. Thank God, she thought, they had not tried to put one on her, But she was Mademoiselle Marie de St. Sevres, and no one would dare to treat her like that! Or would they?

            Marie turned to run, to escape from this awful place, from the terrible sight of women, white women, even pregnant white women, being kept stabled, naked like horses.

            With a laugh Achmed let her go, for his assistants, the young black grooms, had closed the high iron grill in the archway that led to the stables and was the only way out. Marie ran to the gate. With her hands tied to her sides she could not even shake it. She collapsed sobbing at the feet of the heavily barred gate, she was beaten and she knew it.

            Slowly Achmed came back towards her, his hands outstretched like a man catching a runaway horse. She shrank back. Would she be whipped? But Achmed understood the fear of horses and of women when they were first put into a stable. Gently and encouragingly, he lifted her to her feet. Gently and slowly he led her again down the passageway.

            Horses looked at her curiously through the bars of their loose boxes. The tethered women in the open stalls, bridled and bitted, all turned and looked at her as she passed. They could not talk, but several made little whinnying noises of welcome - something which made Achmed smile with approval for he liked his stabled women to behave like mares.

            Marie passed a young groom mucking out a loose box, putting the wet and dirty straw into a wheelbarrow and spreading fresh straw. To her horror she saw that on the other side of the passage another young groom was doing the same in a stall in which a beautiful young white woman was tethered. The woman turned and looked at the new arrival. They exchanged a look of sympathy and understanding. Being both gagged by their bits there was nothing else they could do.

            Achmed now led Marie into an empty stall. There was fresh straw on the floor. At the back of the stall a big ring had been fixed to the wall and from this hung two strong chains, one just over a metre long, and one much shorter. Achmed picked up the longer one and locked it onto the ring on the front of Marie's collar. Then he left her. She had been deliberately left alone in her stall to settle in by herself.

            Achmed's heavy footsteps as he made his way down the passage died away. Marie heard the young grooms who had been mucking out trundle their wheelbarrows, also down the passageway. She heard the heavy gate, that barred the archway, creak open to let them out and then slam shut.

There was now quiet in the stables. Marie realised she was all alone, all alone in her small stall with a dozen horses and a dozen naked bridled and bitted young women. The quiet was only broken by the tread of a horse moving about in his loose box and the rasping noise of a horse tugging at its hay hanging in a haynet; by the clinking of a woman's chains as she moved about her stall; by the slurping noise of both horses and women drinking from their water buckets; and, to Marie's great embarrassment, by the splashing noise of both horses and women staling onto their straw.

            Slowly Marie came out of the state of shock which had been induced by her being put into the Prince's stables. Her brand still smarted, but there was nothing she could do about it. She noticed a bucket of water standing in a corner of her stall. Eagerly she fell to her knees. She made as if to scoop the water up into her mouth with her hands, but of course her hands were fastened into the side of her belt.

            Humiliated, she lowered her head into the bucket and began to suck the water into her mouth, past her rubber bit, making the same slurping noise that she had heard earlier. She drank deeply, but slowly, and then feeling greatly refreshed she stood up and looked around her.

            The walls of the small stall, dividing it from the adjoining horse boxes was some six feet high, so that she could not see into the boxes whilst the horses could see into her stall. Her tethering chain confined her to the back of her stall, though by experimenting she found that when lying down on the stall she could almost reach into the passageway with her feet.

            Across one back corner of her stall was a triangular shaped feeding trough. It was shallow so that a woman could lower her head into it and eat up all the food placed in it, even with her hands fastened to her belt. The lining of the trough was metal and shiny. She saw that it was empty. After several days of only a liquid diet while crossing the desert in her cage, she felt ravenously hungry.

            She saw that a semi-circular open drain ran down the middle of the stall under the straw, leading towards the passageway. Clearly any liquids running down the shallow drain would drop into another open drain that ran down either side of the passage way. Marie blushed with shyness as she suddenly realised the purpose of these drains.

            Just as all the stalls for women were deliberately separated from each other by a loose box for horses, so each stall faced a loose box across the passageway and not a stall. Marie found that since she was confined by her chain to the back of the stall she could not see into any of the women's stalls on the opposite side of the passageway. Each women was therefore kept out of sight from any of the other women. Thanks to her bit she could not call out to other women and, thanks to her physical separation she could not even communicate with her neighbours by little sighs, winks or grunts.

            Each woman was all alone when in the stables, and now Marie had understood why the women had made little subdued noises at her when she had passed along the corridor. They had been genuinely pleased to see another woman, for it was clear that there were no female grooms. Even the horses she saw were uncut stallions. The only female that a stabled woman might see was another stabled woman - and then not in the stables.

Suddenly there was a noise of banging and slamming as the stable gateway was flung open and a feeding trolley was pushed along the passageway by two of the young negro grooms. The trolley held several containers of food.

             For the sake of convenience horses and women were fed much the same sort of food and at the same time. The local food fed to horses; well watered bran mash, sliced raw carrots and a sort of turnip, together and their chopped green tops, were fed to both, as was boiled barley. Whereas the horses got their oats, crushed but raw, the women had their oats also crushed but boiled in the form of a thick porridge which Achmed was convinced was the ideal basic food for a stabled woman in training, just as raw oats were the ideal basic food for a stabled horse in training.

            Eventually the trolley stopped at Marie's stall. She saw one of the young black grooms scoop various mixtures into a bucket. Then, dipping into a big container he added a big scornful of porridge which he dumped onto the other items already in the bucket. He picked up the bucket and without a word emptied it into her feeding trough. Then he went up to her and loosened the strap at the back of her head that kept her bit in place.

            Marie felt a feeling of great relief as the corners of her mouth were no longer forced back by the bit and she was at last able to close her mouth. The bit now hung slackly between her lips.

            Marie turned towards the groom and was about to open her mouth to try to speak, when she saw him put his finger to his lips in an unmistakable warning gesture. Then he pointed to the horsewhip that hung from his belt. The message was quite clear: no talking! Then he pointed to her trough and held up five fingers and then pointed to her bit. Clearly he was warning her that she had only five minutes to eat up her food before he would return and tighten her bit again.

            She longed to shout out her name and call out to the other feeding women, to ask where she was and why they were being kept in this stable, instead of being treated like the attractive women they really were. Slave girls, perhaps, but not animals! But the young groom seemed to have anticipated her thoughts, for he remained standing at the foot of her stall, looking at her, his horse whip in his hand as if daring her to call out.

             With the memory of her thrashing at the slave dealers still fresh in her memory, Marie was too frightened and too hungry to do anything except lower her head into the trough and start lapping and guzzling up the rather revolting mixture - a mixture with which she would become well used to in future. She could hear similar noises coming from the other women and horses.

            The five minutes was soon up.

            Marie had eaten most of the food - she had been so hungry she would have eaten anything. But when the young groom came to tighten up her rubber bit again, he saw that the trough had not been licked spotlessly clean. Angrily he pointed with his horsewhip at the little specks of porridge and bran mash still left. Then seizing her hair he pulled back her head. With her hands securely fastened to her sides, her breasts and belly was completely exposed, he brought his whip hard down across her breasts and then across her belly. She screamed and he thrust her head down into the trough again.

            Sobbing Marie now licked the trough until it shone while the young groom stood over her impatiently tapping his whip against the palm of his hand as if waiting to give her another couple of strokes. Marie had learnt the hard way. She must eat up every scrap of food given to her and her trough must be left shiny as new.

Half an hour later the grooms returned with another trolley. This time it was the grooming trolley. The stallions were strapped and whisped. They were groomed with soft body brushes. Their manes and tails were combed and pulled with strong horse combs and brushed until they shone. Their docks and genitals were cleaned with big sponges and water brushes. Their eyes were cleaned with small sponges. They were groomed until their coats gleamed.

            The women were similarly massaged and rubbed to tone up their muscles. Their hair, hanging down their backs, was also combed and brushed until it shone. Any hair not long enough to pass through the ring at the top of their heads was ruthlessly shaved off, leaving the sides of their heads quite bald and shiny. The soft parts of their bodies, their breast, buttocks and bellies were covered with a special cream polish and then rubbed until they too shone.

             They too had the big sponges passed between their legs and a special depilatory was applied to remove any signs of returning hair. Their eyes were painted and outlined with kohl to give the appearance of a beautiful woman. They too were groomed all over until their skin was shiny.

            Marie had to submit to this embarrassing and humiliating attention from the young black groom who seemed to be in charge of her. Bitted and tied as she was, she had no alternative. But she was even more embarrassed when he returned to muck out her stall, and indicated to her in embarrassing detail just how she should proceed in future so as to keep her stall as hygienic as possible.

It was now getting dark. Marie wondered if her wrists would be released from her waist belt for the night. But in fact the belt was called a night stable girth and had been specially introduced into the stables in response to the young Prince's strict instructions that the stable women must not be allowed to touch themselves at night. All their energies were to be devoted to his service, he had ordered, and not dissipated on unauthorised self pleasure. The stable women were to be kept frustrated and pure.

            That night as Marie lay curled up on the straw, the silence of the stables only disturbed by the occasional tinkling of a woman's chains as she turned over in her sleep, or by the noise of a horse getting up and shaking itself, she thought over what had happened to her. The poverty of her youth in Naples. Then the apparent joy of being appointed governess to a rich household. Her seduction by the Conte and the subsequent hatred of the Contessa. Her dismissal by the Contessa and her subsequent capture by Barbary Corsairs. The awful processing in Hassan's establishment. Her strange and sudden selection and despatch across the desert. Her terrible experiences today. The clever way that both the slave dealer and now her Master used frightening negroes to control white women ...

            Why, she asked herself again and again, had her owner put her into the stables? Why did he keep a large number of women, including white women, living like horses? She had been prepared for a terrible fate as an attractive slave girl, but not this!

            Why did the white woman, with whom she had been so closely compared, walk and run in such a strange way? Why was her young Master, the Prince, so keen on comparing all aspects of her body with that of the other woman? Why indeed did the white women, whom she had briefly seen, look so alike and so like her? Why were some of them pregnant? And pregnant by whom? Would she made pregnant too? Mon Dieu!

            Surely that cruel looking young Prince, to whom she apparently now belonged, would not be interested in keeping his concubines in these stables? But if she was not to be his concubine, then why had he apparently taken so much trouble to acquire her?

            Her thoughts turned to the young Prince himself. He was now her Master! She wore his name on the collar riveted round her neck. Above all she carried his brand on her belly. The very thought made her feel excited and she longed for her hands to be freed. Was this why her hands were kept tied to her waist? And why were her hands kept helpless in the fingerless black gloves and bag? Was it to make the women feel like animals? Was that also why they had to feed like animals? Was this also the reason for the degrading nose rings that the other women had to wear? At least she did not to wear that!

            But why did her cruel and handsome young Master want her, and the other women, to feel and behave like fillies? She could still feel the heavy high brass collar riveted round her neck with its humiliating inscriptions. Why did her Master make all the women wear such a collar? Why were they all branded with his crest? Was he just cruel or cunning, or both?

            She had heard that slave girls naturally came to love their Masters. Could she ever come to love a man who had treated her so terribly?

8 - PRINCE HOSEIN DISCUSSES HIS NEW FILLY

That evening Prince Hosein sent for his Head Groom.

            "Well, Achmed, what do you think of my new acquisition? She seems such a pretty and vivacious little thing that I wouldn't mind taking her into my harem!"

            "Oh, no, Your Highness ..." the black groom started to protest.

            "Don't worry, Achmed! Racing must come first! And I've got enough white women in my harem for the time being. But, seriously, how's my new filly settling down? Do you think I've made a good buy? She certainly cost enough! But I must admit that Hassan, our slave dealer, did a good job in finding a replacement for Fateful. She certainly looks just like her, which is very important if we are going to get the maximum handicap for a well matched team. But do you think she'll fit in with the others?"

            "Yes indeed, Your Highness, I think she's going to be very suitable," replied Achmed smoothly. "She resisted the bit at first, but that's only to be expected in a shy and high strung young white girl. She also showed a little temperament and tried to run away when she first saw the stables, but that's a good sign - for Your Highness doesn't want a team of dull, placid white fillies."

            "No indeed, Achmed, not if we're going to win any races with them. But is she eating up all her feed properly?

            "Oh, yes, Your Highness. Her journey in the cage across the strip of desert had obviously left her very hungry. Her groom has now taught her to lick her trough thoroughly clean. And she's had her first grooming, and her first lessons in being stable-trained - it's rather like house training a new puppy."

            "Well I hope you've kept her wrists firmly fastened to her belt. Even with their hands encased in the special black gloves these white women still tend to misbehave if they're given half a chance - especially when they are alone at night. You know my views of that sort of thing. I wont stand for it. I want complete purity from my fillies and mares."

            The Prince's voice had become increasingly angry as he spoke.

            "Don't worry about that, Your Highness. You can sure that all her energies will be devoted to working for you. Once infibulated, she'll be kept as pure as driven snow - with no relief allowed until she is due to be put to the stallion."

            "Good. Now, as you know, I shan't want to race them as an all in-foal team until next spring when the present team will have dropped their foals."

            The Prince paused for a moment.

            "Oh I was so angry when my father insisted that he wanted Ferocity back just after we'd had her covered for the in-foal team - and just so that he could take her with him as a milk slave when he goes on the Hadj to Mecca next year. I particularly asked him to use another slave girl but he insisted that that a blond girl's milk has a unique taste. And as the increased availability cheap white women slaves, captured by the corsairs, forced us to close down our white slave breeding farm a couple of years ago, he had no other blond woman immediately available. But, of course, you know all about that as you were his slave breeding master in those days."

            " Yes indeed, Your Highness, those were happy days ... Your father's grandfather had established some excellent white slave breeding lines and the annual crop of little white slaves, kept for ten years or so, used then to sell very well in the slave markets of Marsa. It was a great shame when the increasing numbers of white women slaves, and white boys, captured by the Barbary corsairs made it no longer profitable to breed them ... It was a fascinating enterprise and one that gave your father as much pleasure as breeding his horses."

            "Well, Allah be praised," laughed the Prince, "that we are now richer than ever, thanks to the French army and the British fleet both competing for grain from Barbary - and so having to stop the white slave breeding enterprise hasn't affected us financially. Anyway the demand for Haratin half-black slaves continues, and we still breed plenty of them!"

            The Prince paused.

            "Of course," he went on, "my father always had a soft spot for Ferocity and only lent her to me, to make up the numbers for my in-foal team. So there was little I could do but give her back and quickly have Fateful covered by her nephew as her replacement and Hassan to send us a new identical girl.

            The Prince paused again. His face became more serious looking.

            "Now, returning to this new filly, a lot hangs on quickly getting her really fit and pulling her weight. I want my team of matching white fillies to be as fast as my team of black ones and the white in-foal team. What with them, and the two teams of horses, my friends are going to be very jealous!"

            "And we're going to be kept very busy, Your Highness, getting them all fit," said Achmed with a frown.

            "Oh don't worry, Achmed, your methods have worked very well in the past! ... Incidentally, it was very interesting seeing the new girl and Fateful together. It's remarkable how alike they are. Hassan certainly found a girl that fitted my specification exactly ... Oh, incidentally, have you given her a name yet? I don't want to call her by the number that Hassan had tattooed onto the side of her belly - even if it is her official name."

            "I thought, Your Highness, that, as you like to give them English names since England is the centre of racing, and since you like them to have names beginning with the English letter F, that perhaps Fanciful might be suitable."

            "Good! Start training her to answer to her new name right away. And when will her real training begin?"

            "In two days time, Your Highness. Meanwhile she must remain tethered in her stall. I want to keep her quiet whilst the scar on her brand starts to form and the green paint starts to become assimilated into the scar tissue. I also want her stomach to start adjusting to the new food and for her to settle down quietly to stable life. This way, she will see the other blonde women, the black team and the horses all being taken out to be exercised, and she will start wanting to be taken out as well. A willing filly, Your Highness, is worth two that have to be driven on by the whip!"

            "That's not what Sheik Osman says," laughed the Prince. "He insists that there's no point in wasting time being kind to white fillies, and that the only thing they understand is the fear of the whip! I don't agree with him, but he may be right - several times his team of white women have beaten ours ... Incidentally, when will you be putting my painting in her stall for her to moon over? I caught her already looking at me several times, half with hate, and half with interest, the little minx! I'm sure they go better for me if they are in love with me! "

            "Tomorrow, when she is being kept bored in the stables, Your Highness, would be the ideal time to introduce her to your picture. Do you want the usual inscription in Lingua Franca?"

            "Yes indeed. It seems to work well ... Now, when you start training her, keep her single for several days and then we'll try her out with the team. Oh, and Achmed, don't spare the whip at this stage. It will make her respond all the better to my more gentle driving!"

            "Of course not, Your Highness."

            "That's an essential part of my way of training white women. It's quite different with horses or black women, but to get the best out of a white woman, it is essential to have her harshly treated by the stable staff, so as to make as great a contrast as possible with the more kindly treatment she may later get from me her Master. It seems to make them fall in love with me, and then yearn for me and be willing to strain every muscle of their bodies, just to please me. And that's the way to win races!"

            "Indeed, Your Highness, indeed!" murmured the negro

            "Good!" laughed the Prince. "And, by the way Achmed, she is a very attractive girl, I don't want any of your randy young stable lads getting at her. When are you going to infibulate her? I don't want her getting into foal yet a while - and certainly not by some ugly young negro groom."

            "Your Highness, I had planned to do it the day after tomorrow, when she's recovered from the shock of being branded. After that," Achmed laughed, "you need have no fear of her getting into foal unexpectedly. Only I have the key to the special padlocks." He pulled out a cord that hung round his neck. A tiny key hung from it.

            "Right! Go ahead," agreed the Prince. "You see, along with the rest of her team she could be a valuable brood mare, once she's proven herself racing. I want to put her to our proven boy stallion this autumn at the same time as the rest of her team - so that they can all be entered next spring as our new all in-foal team all due to foal at the same time. That'll get them a better handicap that our present in-foal team who are in different stages of pregnancy. I think I'll then race them for as long as possible - though I don't think we'll risk doing what Sheik Osman did - two fillies dropping their foals on the course!"

            "Indeed, Your Highness," laughed Achmed. "That was rather a startling sight! But may I make a suggestion about how best to get them all in foal at the same time?"

            "Of course! It's going to be very important."

            "Well, Your Highness, instead of taking them one by one into the mating box at when we think is the best time for each one to conceive, I suggest we keep all four them locked up in the big mating box with the stallion boy for a month."

            "Good Heavens! But won't they scratch each other's eyes out" laughed the Prince.

            "Not we keep each of them chained to a separate ring in each of the four walls," replied the head groom.

            "But how about the stallion boy, how's he going to get at each of them."

            "Oh I'll keep him fastened on a long chain to a ring in the centre of the box, with his hands free so that he can reach and mount all of the women."

            "But how will he know when to cover which woman?"

            "He won't," laughed Achmed. "But being such a randy and virile young stallion he'll cover each of them so often that they'll be bound to conceive."

            The Prince joined in the laughter.

            "And when will you start this?"

            "As soon as the more important races are over, Your Excellency. You'll still be able to take them out and harness them to your chariot during this mating month. Their bellies won't yet be showing."

            "Right then!" agreed the Prince. "It'll be fascinating to watch each girl at first trying to resist being mounted and then, driven by mutual jealousy, trying to catch the boy's eye, so that he mounts her next and not the others - forgetting what's going to be the result. They'll be back in their own stalls when they first feel their progeny kicking and realise what has happened - just like real brood mares!"

            "Indeed, Your Highness, indeed," came Achmed's suave reply.

            "Well," went on the Prince, "that way the future in-foal team should go on winning plenty of races. Meanwhile, when the present in-foal team have dropped their foals we'll race them as fillies and then have them all covered at the same time as well, ready to take over again as the in-foal team.

            Achmed nodded in agreement.

            "And Your Highness, "he said, "at the same time as having her infibulated, I should also like to have her nose ringed, like the others. It does have such a great effect on a white filly under training - like her brand and her collar. She stops thinking of herself as a woman, and becomes more willing to accept her training - especially if we fit up a little mirror in her stall, so that she sees herself with a ring the whole time."

            "Alright, Achmed. I'll try and come and watch, if I can spare the time."

            "Do please try, Your Highness, especially for the infibulation. It makes a great impression on a young white filly if she is made to feel that her body is being locked up at her Master's orders, and can only be opened up again on his orders. It makes a woman feel that she is utterly dependant on her Master, and therefore more ready to perform well for him."

            "Very well, have her ready for it all at six tomorrow evening!"

9 - A FILLY LEARNS HER NEW NAME

Next morning at dawn, Murad, the young black groom who was now in charge of Marie, came down the passageway of the stables with the other young grooms. They brought their feeding and grooming trolleys. It was time for Morning Stables.

            Emotionally and physically exhausted by events of the previous day, Marie had slept soundly curled up on the straw of her stall, her head near the end wall so that the heavy chain fastened to her collar also lay partly on the straw. She lay to the right of the little open channel that ran down the centre of the stall under the straw. She also lay partly under the manger that was fastened across the corner and near her water bucket.

            The night before, Murad had again made embarrassingly clear to her the purpose of the central channel that ran down to the passageway, using unmistakable sign language. He had then even more embarrassingly made it clear that she should use the straw covered left hand corner of her stall, which her chain also allowed her to reach, for another even more intimate and private purpose - though clearly with the stall open to the frequently busy passageway, the word private was hardly appropriate.

            Murad now stirred her with his foot, making her wake up with a start. She looked around for a moment as if in disbelief. Through her stiff leather blinkers, she saw the tiny straw covered stall, the manger, and the young boy groom standing over her, a feeding bucket in his hand and a short dogwhip hanging from his belt.

            She felt the heavy Night Chain fastened to her neck, the strange gloves that immobilised her hands, the way her wrists were were fastened helplessly to the belt round her waist, the leather bridle strapped round her head, the bit that was held firmly but gently in her mouth, and the itching from her brand.

            She remembered her degrading treatment the day before, her bridling and bitting, her incarceration in these awful stables, and the cruel but strangely attractive smile of the young Prince, her Master. Above all she remembered the terrible pain and humiliation of being branded.

            Murad stirred her again with his foot, this time angrily indicating that she should stand up. He put his free hand on to the handle of his dogwhip. Marie understood the threat only too well. It was with that dogwhip that he had thrashed her the evening before across her breasts and belly. Hastily she started to get up, feeling awkward because of her strapped hands.

            Murad emptied the contents of his small bucket into her feeding trough. His superior, Achmed, the Prince's Head Groom, was a great believer of the old axiom of 'feed a horse a little and often'. But he also believed in applying the same rule to the women in his stables.

            Achmed also did not like either a horse or a woman to be exercised on a full stomach. So the first morning meal was a very light one; a mixture of a little oat porridge for energy, bran for roughage and to act as a laxative and some sliced carrots, apples and dates for general health.

            Murad now slightly loosened Marie's bit just as he had for her evening feed the night before. Once again he put his fingers to his lips and pointed to his dog whip.

            "Keep silent! Remember, fillies don't talk!" he said in Arabic.

            Marie did not, of course, understand his Arabic. But she understood his gestures only too well. She shuddered with fear as she remembered how he had thrashed her when she had failed to lick her trough clean and spotless the night before. Eying the dog whip anxiously, Marie put her head into the trough and noisily started to slurp up her food. Then she started to lick the trough until it shone.

            The threat of being thrashed by a mere boy was of course deeply degrading to Marie, a grown woman. But her fear was equally real. She was therefore greatly relived, when satisfied by the immaculate condition of her feeding trough, Murad tightened up her bit so as to keep her properly gagged and then went off to see to his other charges - he was responsible for two other horse, a mare and a gelding, and two women, Marie and the older woman she had seen the previous day.

            As he stepped back onto the passageway, Murad turned and pointed down to the channel at Marie's feet and then to the straw on the left hand corner of the stall, opposite her feeding trough. His meaning was clear and he laughed as he saw her blush with embarrassment. But her embarrassment that was even greater a few minutes later when a familiar feeling told her that she would now have to comply with the young boy's explicit orders, despite the lack of privacy.

            Feeling more and more like an animal, and less and less like a lady, Marie squatted down first just above the channel and then in the corner.

            A quarter of an hour later, her boy groom returned to her stall. She blushed again as he went to inspect the left hand corner of her stall and, satisfied, put a tick in one of the columns on the large blackboard that was fastened on the wall of her stall, where it could easily be read by the grooms in the passageway.

            Each woman's stall had a similar blackboard. They were divided into vertical columns for each day of the week, and horizontal columns covering the woman's different bodily functions, instructions as to feeding, whether in season or the next date when due, and so on.

            The human mares and fillies were deliberately kept illiterate in Arabic so that they could not understand what was being written about themselves - any more than the horses could understand what was written on their boards. But to Marie it was only too embarrassingly clear what the boy was now recording for Achmed's attention.

            Murad now made her stand facing the wall at the back of her stall with her legs straddling the shallow channel. She had noticed that the wall ring holding her long heavy neck chain, the Night Chain, also had another much shorter chain, known as the Day Chain, hanging from it. Murad now picked up the shorter chain and fastened it to the ring on the front of her collar and then unfastened the long chain.

            Marie was now held tight up against the wall, her naked breasts and belly pressed against it. She turned her head to try and see what was going on behind her, but because of the blinkers on her bridle she found she could not properly see behind her. She could hear Murad mucking out the dirty wet straw, and once again began to blush with embarrassment.

            She blushed even more when Murad ordered her in Arabic; 'legs apart!', and when she did not understand, kicked her legs apart. Then he began to groom her intimately. It was bitterly degrading for a young sensitive white woman.

            It was even more humiliating when, unfastening her chain and refastening it to the ring at the back of her her collar, he made her turn round and face him. She was now held with her naked back and buttocks pressing against the wall. He made stand with her legs wide apart and her knees bent.

            Then it was the turn of the rest of her body to be groomed..

            First, he rubbed her all over with a special oil to firm up her muscles, especially those of her thighs and shoulders. When the oil had been well rubbed into her, he began to rub a polishing cream into the soft parts of her body; her cheeks, her breasts, her belly and her buttocks. Then, holding her body with one hand, with the other he began to polish her skin with a soft cloth until it shone. It was of course embarrassing having all this done to her by a boy, but Marie could not help taking a secret pride in her now gleaming and glossy skin.

            Next Murad began to clean her bridle with saddle soap and polish it, and to make up her eyes, her eyelids and her eyelashes.

            Murad hung a mirror on the wall. Marie was horrified to see the sub-human appearance that her bridle gave her. But she was also fascinated to see how erotic it was with her big painted eyes shining excitedly behind the blinkers of her bridle.

            Murad now fastened a printed drawing onto the wall of her stall. She was startled to see that it was a picture of her Master, the young handsome Prince. He was wearing his usual spotless and immaculate white Arab dress. He had a look of strong manly vigour, of clear determination and of a strong dominant will, that coupled with the cruel glint in his eyes, made her catch her breath.

            Murad pointed at the picture and Marie saw that something had been written on it - in lingua franca. Astonished, Marie read, 'For little Fanciful from her Master, Prince Hosein.'.

            Marie gasped. Then Murad pointed at her and at the inscription and said, slowly, with a strong Arabic accent, "Fanciful! Fanciful!"

            Marie stood there half uncomprehending, half hoping she did not understand correctly.

            Murad then quickly unfastened her short Day Chain from the back of her neck and refastened her long Night Chain, then he stepped back towards the passageway.

            "Fanciful!" beckoning her towards him with a finger. Was he teaching her to answer to her name, just like puppies are similarly taught? She was appalled. Had she really been given the name Fanciful? That wasn't a name for a young woman. That was the name for a pet animal, a bitch, a horse! She was furious. She paid no attention to Murad.

            Again he called "Fanciful!". Again he beckoned her with his finger. Again she ignored him.

            She was ignoring his orders! This was sheer impertinence. He quickly unfastened his dog whip. He stepped forward, raising the whip, he brought it down across the front of her thighs. The pain was terrible.

            Marie collapsed onto her knees, doubled up with the pain and the shock. Murad waited. He waited a full minute. Then he motioned her to get up again. She knew she had to do so. She knew that she was beaten. Trembling as she stood up, her painted eyes blinked piteously behind her blinkers.

            She was ready to obey now, to come when called by her name. But Murad waved his finger and shook his head. Slowly he indicated that she must turn round and face the wall. Suddenly she knew that she was going to be punished. She fell to her knees at his feet, looking up at the boy in supplication. She a grown woman, silently begging a mere boy not to thrash her for her disobedience.

            Murad let her kneel there. He let her lower her head to his feet, and then look up at him again, tears in her eyes, tears of fear. Then silently he repeated the gesture for her to get up and turn round. It was no use, she would have to submit to punishment. He held up four fingers. She was to be given four strokes.

            Feeling quite helpless, Marie stood up in the stall. She turned and faced the wall again, Murad made her bend over, presenting her buttocks for his dogwhip. She scarcely she knew whether she was more frightened by the thought of what was going to happen to her, or humiliated at it being done by a boy.

            With his hand Murad made her arch her back, hold her head up and open her legs. He felt her buttocks, her soft white buttocks, as if seeking the right place, and then stepping back brought his dog whip down hard across her bottom.

            Unable to cry out because of her bit, and unable to soothe the fire in her buttocks with her hands, Marie jumped up, her buttocks juddering convulsively. Murad just watched her, and then after a minute he made her take up her position again. He made her adjust it until he was quite satisfied.

             Behind her bit she was trying to scream "Alright, alright, I'll answer to the name of Fanciful, but don't beat me any more." But she knew she had three more strokes to come. And she knew that she deserved them.

            The little charade was repeated three more times. Three more times her buttocks felt as if they were on fire. By the end she was desperate, desperate to obey this boy who had such complete power over her.

            Murad stepped back.

            "Fanciful!" he called, and again he beckoned her. This time she rushed towards him. He pointed to his feet. She fell on her knees. He held the whip to her lips. Dutifully she kissed it.

            "Fanciful!" he called out. She raised her eyes. He gestured her to the back of the stall. Quickly she scuttled back on all fours. He then repeated the whole scene. Again he called her. Again she rushed towards him. Again she fell to her knees. Again she kissed the whip, and again she crawled back.

            Marie had learnt her new name. Marie had also learnt obedience.

            Her attitude to her boy groom had already been one of fear and respect after the mild thrashing she had received the night before. Now after this slow and methodical caning, her attitude was one of abject servility. The black boy seemed to be utterly indifferent to her as an attractive young naked white woman. To him she seemed to be merely a mute and helpless animal.

            Such were the thoughts racing through her as trembling and sobbing she was again fastened to the wall by the short Day Chain, attached to the back of her collar, so that she was now once again facing the passageway.

            Then, chained, she was left alone standing in her stall.

10 - THE BOY STALLION

Time passed slowly for Marie.

            Tightly tethered like an animal, her hands secured helplessly to her side, there was nothing for her to do, nothing that she could do, except watch what was going on, through her blinkers.

            She saw several horses and women being led out of their stalls and boxes, down the passageway and past her stall. She saw young black grooms hurrying past her carrying various well polished articles of saddlery and bridles.

            She noticed that many of the women had been put into different types of bridle. She also saw that they wore white leather boots, rather like running shoes. She saw that the women, both black and white, all had beautiful well developed and glistening bodies. Like the horses, they appeared to be in the peak of condition. What was it all for, she wondered.

            When not looking at what was going on in the passageway, Marie could not help turning her blinkered eyes to the picture of her Master, with its humiliating inscription.

            But was it really humiliating, she asked herself? The fact that he called her 'little Fanciful' was in a way rather nicely reassuring. She was a grown up and educated white woman, but somehow she found that her Arab Master's use of the world 'little' was rather comforting and reassuring. It made her feel dependant on him. It made her feel that he cared for her and assumed responsibility for her - as indeed he had, she then reflected bitterly, since she was his branded slave, kept like a filly in his stables for a purpose she could only guess.

            Indeed, she was still baffled as to why he would want to keep a group of young white women and negresses in his stables - and why would he want some of them to be pregnant?

            She had seen several blonde tall young women of her own build and stature, she was now surprised to see a blonde white youth being led along the passageway. She saw that he was also naked except for a bridle and bit. A similar stable girth to her own was strapped round his waist, and like her, his gloved hands were buckled to the girth leaving him helpless and unable to touch himself.

            The groom in charge of him was older than the boys in charge of the horses and women. He stopped the white boy in front of Marie's stall. Marie saw that the boy's eyes were looking at her naked body, just as hers were fixed on his.

            She saw that just as her body hair between her legs had been removed, so had the boys. It made him look like a little boy, just like the removal of her own hair had made her look like a little girl. She wondered if he had been castrated - she had learnt from the corsairs that the slavers usually castrated young white slave boys. Then as if in answer to her question, the groom made the youth turn sideways onto her. What lay underneath the youth's manhood looked quite normal to her unsophisticated eyes.

            She felt deeply embarrassed again by the way the white youth continued to stare at her body over his shoulder, and indeed by the way she was also staring at his. She was even more embarrassed when she noticed the way his helpless young body was reacting to the sight of her nakedness. She tried to turn away to hide her body, but chained as she was by the short Day Chain fastened to the back of her neck there was nothing she could do to avoid exciting the youth more.

            Marie lowered her eyes in shame, but she could not stop herself from glancing out of the corner of her eye at his body again. Standing as he was sideways onto her she was horrified to see that his randy manhood was becoming rapidly erect. It was the first time she had seen anything like that. Her affair with the elderly Conte had been very different, very discreet, very sophisticated. This was all too awful and animal-like.

            The youth's groom now laughed and led him away. The boy stallion was certainly interested in that filly! He noted in his mind carefully that she would make an excellent 'teaser' to first arouse this stallion should he ever show reluctance to perform properly with a particular mare or filly. Knowing what the Prince was planning to do with this young stallion, he felt that such a teaser might soon be very useful.

            Marie was greatly relieved when the white youth was led away. His nakedness and obvious arousal had had a similar effect on herself, an effect that she feared that her own young groom would soon notice. She heard the gelding in the box next to her suddenly snort as he caught her scent, the scent of her arousal. She blushed yet again.

            The white youth had reminded her of someone. He seemed to have a definite look of someone she had seen. Suddenly she realised who it was - the slightly older woman whom the Prince had paraded alongside her on her arrival the day before.

            Was the youth her son, Marie wondered?

            How awful for the woman to be kept as an animal in the Prince's stables with her son - and for the boy to be kept with his mother.

            But why would the Prince want to have both in his stables?

            She gave a horrified gasp. Surely, she thought, the woman could not be pregnant by her son! But she had heard of such things going on in breeding stables - and this did seem to be just that!

11 - NOSE RINGED AND INFIBULATED

            As had been planned, Marie spent a quiet morning in her stalls.

            As had also been intended her thoughts were largely taken up by the Prince, her owner, who's picture was so disturbingly on the wall of her stall. When not thinking of the Prince, she could not help thinking of the white youth, who's arousal had also been so disturbing for her.

            As the morning passed, the horses and women started to be taken back up the passageway again to their loose boxes and stalls. Marie saw that they were all dripping wet as if they'd been put through a water dip before being brought back to the stables. She also saw they looked fairly exhausted, and she wondered what sort of exercising they had undergone.

            Her slowly healing brand was itching terribly. She longed to scratch it. She longed to rub it against the wall. But, of course, chained tightly by the back of her neck to the wall , and with her hands still, fastened to her girth belt, she could do neither.

            Soon it was time for the mid day feed - a much more substantial one that the morning one. Marie had her Day Chain unfastened from her neck and replaced with the long heavy Night Chain so that she could reach down into her feeding trough.

            It was now the heat of the day and both horses and women were encouraged to lie down on their straw and rest for a couple of hours before the evening exercise period, when once again Marie was left alone in her stall chained up by the short Day Chain.

            And so the day continued, the typical life of a racing stables - but of a racing stables not only of horses but also women, both black and white ...

That evening, in accordance with Prince Hosein's orders, Marie was taken out of her stall, down the passageway and across the stables courtyard to the forge. She tried to scream again when she saw where they were taking her. She tried to run away. But she was tightly held. Terrified, she thought that she was going to be branded again.

            She was again made to mount the platform in the forge, and again was tightly fastened to a post. But this time her ankles were chained wide apart and her head was fastened in a sort of vice that made it impossible for it to move at all. She was left standing there, trembling.

            Now what horror where they going to do to her? Surely her Master would stop them - then she remembered how with a cruel glint in his eyes he had watched her being branded.

            Suddenly there was a clatter of hooves in the yard. She saw Prince Hosein ride up on his white horse. Once again two naked white girls ran by his stirrups and two black girls held umbrellas up over his head. The naked stirrup girl on the near side, knelt down again on all fours, offering her back once again as a dismounting block. Marie saw her eyes glistening in fear behind the eye holes of her leather veil.

            Achmed greeted the Prince respectfully. Even Marie, chained helpless in the forge, could not help being affected by the aura of wealth, power and sheer ruthlessness that seemed to surround her handsome, but cruel young Master. He seemed to be able to do just whatever he liked and had the money to do it.

            He came into the forge, impatiently tapping his whip against the palm of his hand. He came up to her. She blushed crimson at being seen like this, at having to expose herself to this young man.

            "Fanciful!" he called. She gave a little whimper behind her bit and tried to turn her head towards him. The Prince smiled. His new filly knew her name.

            Then speaking in Arabic to Achmed he stretched forward and started to feel her intimately and carefully, slowly stretching and parting her body lips. She could not stop herself becoming more and more aroused. It was too awful!

            The Prince stood back and nodded at Achmed. She saw Achmed go to the brazier and pick up a long thin needle. With a gasp she saw that the point was red hot. He came slowly up to her. She felt his hand pulling apart her most intimate flesh.

            "No! Not there," she tried to scream.

            Then suddenly there was a little pricking and burning sensation. Because her head was gripped by the wooden vice, she could not see down. She could not see what was being down to her. She could not see Achmed threading the little ring through the tiny hole. Then she felt heat. But she could not see as he brazed the ends of the ring together.

            Achmed stood back, looking pleased. Prince Hosein reached forward and tested what he had done. She felt something metallic pulling on her flesh, her most delicate flesh. The Prince satisfied, nodded again to Achmed.

            The whole process was repeated, but on the other side. Marie could not see, but two little rings were now hanging prettily alongside each other.

            Achmed handed the Prince the little padlock. She felt him hold the rings and then lock them tightly together with a snap of the padlock. She did not know it but her body had now been effectively sealed.

            Then a little bell was fastened so as to hang from a short chain from the infibulation rings. The Prince flicked his fingers to make the little bell ring and the little rings and padlock tinkle. Marie suddenly remembered the metallic tinkle that had come from between the other woman's legs the day before. Now whatever it was, had been done to her as well. It was sore. She felt Achmed rubbing ointment into her. It was to keep the holes open and to allow the rings to turn in them.

            Then it was the turn of her nose.

            Horrified she saw the red hot needle brought up to her face and then held to her nose. She tried to turn away, but the vice held her head quite still. With one hand Achmed lifted up the tip of her nose. She could feel the heat.

            Suddenly he drove the needle through the separation between her nostrils. It hurt desperately for a few seconds then he pulled the needle away. He picked up a big brass ring with two needle like ends. He threaded one end through her nose. Then, as before he brazed the two ends together and he put the same ointment onto her nostril. She was sobbing with the pain.

            The Prince strode away to his horse. The naked white girl made a back for him to mount. He rode away, the two white girls and the two black girls running at the side of his horse.

            Marie was left tied in the forge for half an hour, while the pain in her nose and between her legs gradually subsided. Then she was taken back to her stall. She wanted to touch the ring in her nose now that she could feel it lying on her chin. She wanted to feel what they had done to her between her legs. But with her hands still fastened to her stable girth she could not do either.

            There was a new mirror in the stall, a long mirror. She looked in horror at the face that stared back at her with the degrading nose ring now lying around her mouth giving an even more sub-human look to her face. She glanced down. She could see in the mirror the little rings, the padlock and the bell. She realised that the inner lips of her body had been locked together. Access to her most intimate parts had been closed. She blushed as she realised what had been done to her. She blushed again as she realised that the key to the padlock was now held by Prince Hosein's Head Groom.

            Suddenly she felt desperately dependant on Prince Hosein.

            The Prince was her Master. He had complete control of her, and controlled access to the moist intimate part of her body. The little bell that now rang between her legs with the slightest movement of her body seemed to proclaim the very fact of his ownership.

12 - MARIE IS TRAINED

Achmed began Marie's training the following day.

            The first step was the temporary replacement of her gentle stable bridle and bit by the harsher version that was used for driving. Like her stable bridle, this consisted of a headpiece that came over her head, from the back of her neck, to her forehead, and then down to the bridge of her nose where, giving her an animal-like look, it divided into two.

            Each part then led to a ring at the end of a special new bit. As before, Marie found that her mouth was kept slightly open by the bit, whilst the the pressure of the strap that went under her chin prevented her from further opening her mouth. Again as before, a long strap went back from each of the bit rings to the back of her neck where they were buckled to the strap that went over the top of her head, thus keeping the whole bridle taut and the bit tight in her mouth.

            The bridle was fitted with blinkers so that she could only see immediately in front of her. The strap that went over her head was also fitted with a short leather tube through which all Marie's hair was passed to give a pony tail effect. Any hair two short to reach this tube had already been shaved off during her grooming periods.

             However there was a difference in that this strap was fitted with a socket above the forehead, into which Murad inserted a pretty plume of feathers, like the ornamental shako often worn by carriage horses.

            Long driving reins were fastened to rings at the bottom of a lower rod, or curb piece - the bridle was clearly designed to enable complete control of a woman to be readily obtained by quite gentle movements of the reins.

            Unable to cry out or protest, Marie gave an animal-like snort of horror as she looked at her bridled and bitted face in the mirror. It was all so humiliating and undignified.

            This driving bride was, of course, uncomfortable for a woman to wear for very long. It was only intended to be worn whilst she was being paraded, exercised or raced.

            Before taking Marie out of her stall, Murad tightened up and carefully adjusted this new bridle. Marie felt the extension piece of the bit pressing down on her tongue. Then the young negro gave a gentle tug on the reins and instantly the extension piece hit the roof of her mouth, making her wince - she was now closely controlled by the reins.

            Murad now led the naked Marie down the passageway, past the still tethered other horses and women, and out across the courtyard. She blushed as the little bell hanging from her infibulation rings tinkled merrily.

            She was led towards a large menage, or riding school. It was nearly a hundred yards long and about fifty yards wide, with a high roof and walls some ten feet high - high enough to prevent both women and horses from being distracted by seeing what was going on outside. Between the top of the side walls and the roof, the sides of the menage were open to the breeze so as to cool the sweating horses or women being put through their paces inside.

            Murad led Marie into the arena of the menage through a close fitting door in the side wall. When it closed behind her, she felt she was imprisoned in the menage, for there seemed no way out. She looked around her with dismay as she realised that she was now in a riding school, very similar to the one in which her former lover and employer the Conte had schooled his horses. But this time it was not a horse that was going to be schooled

            The floor was a typical mixture of sand and sawdust, carefully raked to remove any lumps and to distribute the inevitable droppings from both horses and women who had been exercised in it. On one side of the menage there was a viewing gallery above the wall fitted with comfortable seat from which visitors could look down and watch the horses or women being licked into shape.

            Along the opposite side was a series of cavelleti, low jumps which were used to teach the horses and women to balance themselves, and to judge their strides correctly when jumping. Marie saw that Achmed, the black Head Groom, was driving a young Arab horse over the cavelleti. In one hand he was holding a long lunging rein which was attached to the horse's bridle, and in the other a long carriage whip.

            Achmed cracked the whip and obediently the Arab horse started to jump over the line of cavelleti. He nodded with approval and lowered his whip. Murad ran up and caught the sweating horse, unfastened the lunging rein and coiled it up. Then he led the horse out of the menage, closing the door carefully behind him.

            Marie was left standing all alone in the menage with Achmed. He went up to her, gave her a little reassuring pat and then took her to the centre of the empty menage. He led her driving reins back over her shoulders and fastened them to a ring at the back of her stable girth. Marie was now forced by the pressure of the bit on the roof of her mouth to hold her head back and to keep her chin up, making a pretty picture of a woman holding herself in an unnaturally alert and strained position. The reins were in fact acting like the bearing reins used when breaking in a young horse.

            Achmed then clipped the long lunging rein onto one of the rings of her bit and stood back several yards, still holding the long carriage whip in his other hand. Marie was petrified to realise that she was going to be lunged, and just as she herself had seen the Conte lunging a horse in a similar menage to teach it the basic movements of walking, trotting and cantering at a steady pace.

            She was even more mortified when she saw Prince Hosein enter the veiling gallery with some young friends. The Prince was pointing at her as he talked to his companions. Once again, she blushed from her cheeks to her breasts at the thought of being seen naked by these elegant young men, and of them hearing the tinkling of her little infibulation bell as it hung down between her legs.

            Suddenly Ached's whip cracked just behind her buttocks. She started forward at a run, terrified. But the whip then cracked in front of her forcing her to slow down. Marie stopped and stood still, turning her head to look enquiringly at her trainer through her blinkers.

            Achmed smiled. The girl had learnt her first lesson. She must depend on her driver and his whip for instructions - not her own inclinations.

            "Walk on!" ordered Achmed in Arabic in a quiet voice that made clear his intentions. At the same time he touched her left buttock gently with the leash of his whip and made a clicking noise with his tongue - the international signal used by men to tell a horse to move on.

            Marie found herself stepping forwards on her left leg. With her head held back by the bearing rein, and her hands still held at her waist by the straps of her stable girth, she made a proud sight, her breasts thrust well out in just the way Achmed wanted. He continued to hold the lunging rein tightly in one hand, and the long carriage whip in the other as he made her walk steadily round and round him in a big circle.

            "Whoa!" he called out as her left leg was about to come to the ground. He caught her softly across her belly which was still sore from the branding. Marie stopped instantly. She found herself bringing her right leg up to her left leg.

            "Heels touching! Front of your feet apart!" Achmed shouted, flicking her feet with his whip until they were just right.

            "Knees straight!" He flicked the front of her legs with his whip. Marie straightened up.

            "Keep your eyes looking straight ahead!" The whip flicked painfully across her shoulders. She was now standing rigidly at attention - waiting for the next order.

            "Walk on!" Achmed ordered, again touching her left buttock with the whip.

            "Whoa!" he again called out with just a little flick of his whip.

            Soon she was bringing her right foot smartly up to her left foot, ankles touching, feet pointing apart at just the angle that the Prince insisted on. Soon the negro no longer had to touch her with his whip.

            And so it went on for several minutes, until he had her walking and stopping perfectly to his orders. She realised that the whip was always ready to punish her for the slightest fault. Desperately she concentrated on the negro's orders, learning their meaning, learning to obey them instantly and correctly.

            Achmed now felt that she was now ready for the next lesson. He gave a signal to Marie's groom, Murad, who was now standing respectfully, his arms crossed, at the back of the viewing gallery.

            Murad immediately disappeared. A few minutes later, the door into the menage opened. Murad came in, leading Marie's stable companion, Fateful, the woman with whom she had been so closely compared by Prince Hosein on the day of her arrival. Marie saw that Fateful had also been put into a driving bridle with the driving rings fastened in the small of her back to act as bearing reins. A long lunging rein had been fastened to her bridle.

            Marie watched as Fateful was led into the centre of the menage by Murad who was also now carrying a long carriage whip. Her infibulation bell was also now tinkling with every step. She was made to stand alongside Marie.

            The two women exchanged glances, though with their bits pulled back tight into their mouths they could not even smile at each other.

            Once again Marie was struck by how like her this other woman was, not merely her face and hair but also her body. She looked a slightly maturer version of Marie, with slightly fuller breasts and a slightly plumper belly. Marie noticed some slight stretch marks on her belly. She wondered if the other woman was indeed the mother of the white youth whose nakedness had so embarrassed her the day before.

            "Bow!" Achmed ordered in Arabic.

            Marie saw the other woman turn on one ankle towards the gallery in which the young Prince Hosein and his friends were seated, and bring her other foot up level to the the first one. Just like a soldier on parade, she thought. She remembered stories of how the father of Frederick the Great of Prussia had enjoyed playing with his Guards as if they were toy soldiers. Did the Prince similarly enjoy playing with his stabled women? Or was the some other reason for all this discipline?

            She saw the other woman lower her head so that the big red and white plume attached to her forehead was now horizontal. It reminded Marie of the tricks that she had seen plumed horses perform in a circus at Naples.

            "Up!" ordered Achmed.

            Then looking at Marie, Achmed pointed at the other woman.

            "Fateful!" he shouted.

            The other woman on hearing her stable name being called, immediately thrust her chin up and jerked her shoulders and elbows back pushing her breasts forward, her gloved hands remaining strapped to her waist.

            Marie was to learn that this was the 'display' position that a stabled woman had to assume whenever her name was called. She had to remain in that position until a new order was given or until she was ordered to 'relax!'

            Achmed pointed several times at the other woman, and at Marie, calling out 'Fateful!' or 'Fanciful!'

            Marie, of course, recognised her own stable name and now realised that the other woman's name was Fateful. The fact that this other mature and attractive woman had been given the absurd name of Fateful was even more degrading to Marie. Clearly the awful young Prince regarded them both as mere fillies

            Six more times he called her name, and six more times she had to assume the same position, whilst with the tip of his whip he made her strain back properly with her shoulders, strain forwards with her hips, and strain to keep her feet open. Trembling under his whip she had to learn to lower herself so that her knees were fully bent. When she hesitated the whip was used again. She learnt quickly!

            Then she had to learn to bow to the Master, so that her plumes were horizontal. She had to learn that she had to remain in the bowed position until ordered 'Up!"

            When Achmed felt that Marie had assimilated these preliminary lessons, he looked up at Prince Hosein enquiringly. The young man had nodded gravely. Marie had followed Achmed's eyes and had also looked at the Prince, the disturbingly good looking but cruel young man who was now her Master. Suddenly Murad's whip cracked across her soft shoulders. She jumped and looked round at him. Now what was the matter?

            Murad pointed at the Prince and then shook his finger. He pointed at the ground at her feet. Marie realised that he was telling her that she must not look at her Master's face, she must keep her eyes down humbly and modestly. Slave girls, especially stabled slave girls, do not dare to raise their eyes to look at their Master! It was another lesson learnt.

            Achmed made Fateful demonstrate to Marie the various paces at the walk. She had to watch closely and then try to copy her. If she made a mistake, or did not try hard enough, then she felt the whip.

            Soon she was desperately trying to get the complex movements right, to learn the order for each one, to carry out each one as gracefully as possible and to move from one to the other easily and effortlessly.

             First, she had to learn the Collected Walk, the exaggerated gait that she had seen poor Fateful being forced to do when she had first seen her in the stable yard.

             Marie had to learn to raise one knee slowly and gracefully until her thigh was horizontal, and then with a little gently kick, that made her infibulation bell ring, raise her lower leg until it, too, was horizontal, her toes pointing forwards. Then she had to slowly drop that leg and raise the other.

             It was an erotic way of making a young woman walk, as Marie realised from the way that the eyes of Prince Hosein and his friends were glinting.

            Then, she had to learn the Goose Step, raising her legs, each stiff and straight to the horizontal, before dropping it and raising the other leg. It too was an erotic sight when performed by a naked woman.

            Satisfied that, although by no means yet perfect, Marie at least now knew and understood what she should be doing, Achmed now made Fateful demonstrate the Extended Walk.

            Marie watched as the older woman started to walk on her toes, taking long steps. Then she had to copy her. With her hands still strapped to her waist, of course, it was difficult. But with Achmed's and Murad's whips cracking behind her at the slightest mistake or hesitation, she had to go on and on until she was doing it correctly.

            Sweat was running down her as she was forced to strain and strain, her muscles aching with the effort of making these new strange movements.

            The last lesson that day was the Quivering Walk. For this the wrists of the two women were unfastened from their stable belts. It was the first time that Marie's wrists had been released since she had been put into the stables, and she was thrilled when Achmed allowed her to stretch her arms for a moment.

             Then she had to watch as Fateful started to walk on her toes with little mincing steps. Her gloved hands were straight down at her sides, but held away from her body and strained backwards. As she moved her feet quickly and stiffly with each sort step, she made her naked breasts bounce and shake, and her infibulation bell tinkle continuously.

            It was, in fact, the way, that girls were made to display themselves to potential clients in high class Arab brothels. It was very humiliating for Marie, a well educated and intelligent young woman to have to walk in such an absurd way. But Achmed's whip was remorseless, and after a brief revolt, she too was making a good start at learning the Quivering Walk.

13 - PRINCE HOSEIN SHOWS OFF A FILLY TO HIS FRIENDS

The door into menage opened. Prince Hosein and his young Arab friends strolled into the centre of the arena, laughing and chattering as if coming to inspect a young human filly was the most normal thing in the world. They were all well dressed in spotless robes. They seemed a group of well-to-do young men.

            Blushing with embarrassment, Marie assumed the display position when her name was called out as the Prince and his friends came towards her. It as, perhaps, as well that she could not understand the conversation that followed. Moreover, warned again by Murad's whip, she kept her eyes downcast and did not see all the gestures and looks that might have given her a clue to what was being said. She did, however, recognise her name, Fanciful, several times.

            "A very satisfactory beginning, Achmed," the Prince was saying. "Fanciful has the makings of a good carriage filly, once you've whipped the independence out of her. I think she will soon learn to move well and will pull properly."

            "You've made a good buy, Hosein," said one of his friends, standing to one side of Marie and running his hands over her trembling shoulders. He lifted up a breast as she stood blushing and unable to see him because of her blinkers - for she did not dare to turn her whole head.

            "She's certainly got the right confirmation with these nice long legs," said another, running his hand down the back of her thigh.

            "Yes I particularly emphasised to Hassan, the slave dealer, that I wanted a long-legged girl," said the Prince pleased at his friends praise of his latest acquisition.

            "I see you're keeping her infibulated. Planning something rather special for her in the breeding line?" said the first man kneading Marie's soft belly with his hand and making her wince as he touched her still raw brand mark. "She'd carry a foal well."

            Another young man standing immediately behind her ran his hands over her hips. "Yes. Nicely spaced hips," he said knowingly. His hand moved down. Marie jumped. Her infibulation ring tinkled. "And she'll drop a foal without difficulty, I can see."

            "Planning to get her in foal soon, Hosein?" asked another voice.

            "No! Not yet, first she'll be taking Fateful's place in the white filly team. As I've told you, my father wants has insisted on taking one of my in-foal; team , Ferocity, with him to Mecca - in milk. That nearly messed up both my white girls teams, the fillies and the in-foal mares. It's not easy, at short notice, to find a blond girl like the others - and unless the team are all closely matching you don't get the extra handicap ... But to answer your question, yes she'll be covered t his autumn with the rest of her team so that they can be raced next Spring and Summer as a prize in-foal team.

            "But, Hosein," asked one of his friends, "what did you do about replacing Ferocity in your in-foal team?"

            "Oh, I quickly put Fateful to her son, my in-house stallion."

            "Her son?" queried a young man. "But how on earth did you breed him?"

            "We didn't! My father bought this mare," said the Prince, pointing at Fateful Fortune, "fifteen years ago as a young woman for his then flourishing slave breeding farm. She had just been captured and was pregnant by her Scandinavian husband. My father had to pay a fortune for her, of course, - a genuine blonde in-foal filly. Then when she dropped her foal he raised him on our estate - until he was ready to be tried out as a stallion. His progeny have turned out very well, and in the old days they would have sold for a high price in the slave market in Marsa."

            "Yes," said another young man, sadly. "We've all found that breeding white slaves just doesn't pay these days with so many freshly captured boys and girls on the market - but of course, my family have traditionally concentrated more on breeding high class Haratin half-caste slaves - trying to get a combination of good looks, intelligence and strength. There's still a good market for that."

            "Lucky for you!" said the Prince. "Of course, the Barbary Corsairs are certainly capturing a large number of Christian girls, but not many of them are blond ones - not from the Mediterranean!." He pointed to Louise. "That's why I had to pay so much for this one when my father wanted Ferocity back and we didn't have any more suitable blond fillies of our own. But I hope that the new racing rules, with much bigger handicaps for teams of perfectly matched human fillies and in-foal mares will make it all well worthwhile."

            "Yes, a perfectly matched team is all important now," agreed one of the Prince's friends. "But how did you get started with your blond team?"

            "When my father was cutting back on his his breeding farm, I persuaded him to let me have the few long legged blond women remaining in he breeding pens. He doesn't really approve of this racing, and took a bit of persuading. However he agreed when I told him that he could, if the market picked up again, still have a foal out of each of the women each year and that they'd all be covered by his young new stallion - the progeny of this woman."

            "How clever of you!" laughed another of the young men.

            "He'd been planning to establish a new strain with this young stallion and had wanted to get as many mares and fillies as possible quickly covered by him. He reckoned that this new strain would have been very popular in the slave markets - and would be again if the supply of women produced by the corsairs dried up again. So my blond racing team is really a sort of reserve for starting up his slave breeding farm again - when the present glut of captured white women dries up again."

            "So, anyway, you you had to move quickly to replace the loss of Ferocity in your present in-foal team?" asked one of the young men, pointing again at Fateful.

            "Exactly," replied Hosein. "Of course, she's several months behind the others, but with the present handicapping rules that doesn't matter. It's only next year that the handicappers will be looking for identically swollen bellies, and a certificate that all four have been covered by the same stallion stud. This year it's sufficient for all the team to be simply in-foal."

            One of the young men went over to Fateful and put his hand on her slightly swollen belly.

            "Is it kicking yet?" he asked Achmed.

            "Just beginning, Sir," Achmed replied proudly. "This stallion's progeny always come on quickly."

            "Isn't it tricky using him on his own dam?" asked the same young man nonchalantly lifting up one of Fortune's breasts.

            "Not really," replied Achmed. ""I was a little hesitant, but time was short and I was more interested in simply getting her in-foal rather then wondering how her progeny would turn out. However my father's delighted, saying that the risk of anything going wrong is very small, and that closing down his breeding farm may only be temporary - until the European countries stop fighting amongst themselves and again put a stop to the raids of the Barbary corsairs."

            "In which case, "laughed one of the young men, "he'll want to have a few blond breeding lines ready in reserve - and what better way of stamping a trait on a breeding line than to use a stallion on his dam!"

            "Yes," agreed Prince Hosein, "we do want to stamp the boy stallions traits on our new reserve blonde breeding line. Our other stallion is dark haired, and it seemed such a pity to waste this lovely blonde creature on him."

            "Did you have any difficulty about getting him to cover his mother properly?"

            "Oh no, Sir," answered Achmed. "He was blindfolded and she was gagged so that she could not call out. She was covered three times by him to make sure it took."

            "Yes," laughed the Prince. "It was amusing watching her having to take her son's seed and then ineffectually trying to expel it after he had withdrawn. Of course, we kept her tied down, on her knees with her head to the floor and her hips raised, for several hours so as to make sure that the seed did it's job - which, as you can see, it did!"

            "No wonder you've had to move quickly to get this new filly to take the older one's place in your white fillies team!"

            "Yes," said the Prince. "And as you know all four girls in the team have to be absolutely alike to get the maximum handicap. So I sent Hassan a detailed description of the girl I needed, and said that I needed her very urgently. He sent this one by reply. She's cost me a bomb but I think that she will take her place in my fillies team very well and earn me a lot of money - as well as being very suitable to go into the breeding pens should my father later decide to start up again ... But for the racing her performance depends on her training, isn't that right, Achmed?"

            "Indeed, Your Highness. We shall have to work hard to get her really fit in time. We need both speed and stamina - as well as strength. It's not natural for a woman to pull by having to thrust her belly against a girth strap. But those are the rules!"

            "Yes," laughed one of the young men cruelly, "and it does make a much more erotic sight watching them straining to do so - and next year it's going to be even more erotic when their bellies are nicely swollen.

            "So you'll be nicely placed to take advantage of the new handicap rules for teams of in-foal fillies, " said another of the young men.

            "Yes, that's my plan: race them now as a team of fast identical fillies and next spring as a team of identically in-foal mares. They'll get a high handicap for having similar conformation now, and an even better one next spring for having identically swollen bellies as well!"

            "But won't it be dangerous to race them when they are really well in-foal?" asked one of the young men.

            "No, not really," answered the Prince. "Provided you keep them exercised and fit there's rarely any problems. Much less, in fact, than when they were kept shut up in my father's little breeding pens.

            Just then, one of the young men pointed at Marie and whispered something into the Prince's ear.

            The Prince laughed, clapped his friend on the back and turned to Achmed.

            "My friend wants to relieve his manly needs," he said. "So have her washed out and sent across to the mating box. But make sure that the infibulation rings are still in place properly - we don't want unexpectedly to find her in foal to the son of an Arab emir!"

            "On no," laughed the young man. "I promise I'll only use her as if she was a boy."

14 - USED LIKE A BOY

Marie was standing tethered to a ring in the side wall of the menage. A short chain fastened to the ring on the front of her collar kept her facing the wall.

            The other woman, Fateful, had been taken out of the menage, and her Master, Prince Hosein, and his friends had left the viewing gallery. She had noticed a rather unattractive, fat looking young man who had turned and pointed at her, whilst the others had laughingly clapped him on the back. She had not understood why.

            She also had not understood a word of their conversation. So she had no idea of what was about to happen to her, nor of her future fate as one of the Prince's fillies.

            Above her, level with the viewing platform was a large glass bottle. A tube ran down from it in front of her face, ending in a flexible nozzle. The tube had a tap on it. Idly Marie wondered what this strange apparatus was for. She realised, however, that because of the height of the glass container, then if the tap was turned on any liquid coming out of the flexible nozzle would certainly gush out under pressure.

            Before leaving her alone in the menage, Murad had sponged her sweating body down again all over with refreshing cold water. Then he had combed her hair that was flowing down her neck from the ring on the head-piece of her bridle.

            What was going to happen now, she wondered?

Suddenly Achmed and Murad returned into the menage. Briskly they came over to her. Murad was carrying a pot of grease. Without saying a word he dipped his finger into the grease and then put his hand down between her buttocks. She wanted to cry out in protest at his probing finger, but her bit forced her to keep silent. Meanwhile Achmed had picked up the end of the flexible tube and, whilst Murad held the cheeks of her buttocks apart, he inserted the long nozzle.

            Marie tried to scream. She tried to jerk her hands free from her girth. She tried to pull back away from the wall, and away from the tube. She tried to squat down. All to no avail. She was held standing helplessly up against the wall.

            Achmed nodded at Murad who turned on the little tap.

            Desperately Marie tried to clench her buttocks, but again all to no avail. There was nothing she could do to prevent the rush of soapy water that was jetting up inside her.

            Achmed put his hands on her belly. He could feel it slowly swelling as the oily liquid forced its way up into her. Marie was gasping behind her bit. She simply could not take any more. Achmed took his hand away from her belly and gestured to Murad who turned off the tap. Marie gave a sigh of relief. Her breath was coming in short gasps.

            Achmed let her rest for a minute. Desperately she tried to expel the liquid but, because the nozzle was still up inside her, she was quite unable to do so. Then Achmed gestured again to Murad who turned on the tap again, but this time he only partially opened it.

            For two more minutes Marie could feel more and more of the liquid forcing its way inside her. She could feel her belly swelling yet more. She could feel her bowels were awash. Again her breath was coming in short little gasps. At last Achmed seemed satisfied. The tap was turned off. The flexible nozzle was slowly withdrawn. But any feeling of imminent release was immediately stopped as he deftly inserted a little ivory plug that was cunningly shaped so that a girl could not expel it.

            Achmed fastened the lunging rein onto one of the rings on her bit. Then Murad unfastened the chain fixed to her collar. He handed Achmed the long carriage whip.

            Quickly Achmed led the now tottering Marie out in to the centre of the arena. She could not believe what was happening to her.

            "Collected walk!" shouted Achmed. His whip cracked across the girl's buttocks. Desperately she tried to carry out the complicated steps. After only a few she collapsed onto the ground, curled up in pain and shocked horror. Achmed's whips came down sharply across her shoulders. She struggled again to her feet. She could feel the liquid inside her bubbling away as it carried out its cleaning role. Again the whip cracked. Marie forced herself, somehow, in to continuing the Collected Walk.

            "Goose Step!" shouted Achmed. His whip cracked again threateningly. One gain, somehow Marie forced herself to carry out the step that she had only just learnt to do.

            For several minutes Achmed kept her moving whilst the liquid did its task. Then she was taken back to the side of the menage and again chained by the ring on the front of her collar tight up against the wall. With his whip Achmed made her part her legs. Then Murad reached down and with a quick gesture removed the little ivory plug ...

Five minutes later, Murad was raking over the sandy soil of the menage between Marie's feet. Then he again sponged her down. Satisfied with her cleanliness, Achmed told Murad to lead her out of the menage and back to the stables.

            She was led down the passageway, and to her surprise led past her own empty stall, to a large horsebox. The door was flung open and she was led in. The floor of the loosebox was covered in fresh straw. But in the centre it had been pulled back to disclose a metal ring set in the cement floor. Set back behind the ring was a raised bar. It was about a metre high.

            Marie was dragged over to the bar. She was made to bend over it, and her head pushed down so that her collar could be tightly chained to the ring. Her whole weight was now on the metal bar underneath her belly. Her legs were straight. She could not see anything behind her because of the leather blinkers fastened to the bridle on either side of her eyes.

            She felt her backside again being greased. Then she heard Murad and Achmed go out of the box. She was terrified at being left alone in such an exposed position. Never, never had she ever supposed that she, a respectable French girl, a former governess, would ever find herself chained down in such a degrading position.

            Suddenly she heard the door of the loosebox open behind her. She tried to look round to see who was coming in. But because of her blinkers she was quite unable to do so. She heard a noise, as if someone was undressing. She tried to cry out but only a little moan escaped from behind her bit.

            Moments later she felt a man's naked thighs pressing up against her own naked buttocks. Again she tried and tried to scream her protests. Then slowly she felt something hard, and much larger than the flexible nozzle being pushed up inside her helped by the grease.

            She simply could not believe the realisation of what was happening to her. But the movements of the manhood inside her soon made her realise the truth.

            Horrified she found herself beginning to respond. She felt so ashamed. The fact that she had no idea who the man was made it even more shame-making. Was it, she wondered, the rather fat ugly man who had been pointing at her as the men had laughingly left the gallery?

            Her own arousal was now becoming greater as the movements of the manhood inside her seemed to reach a crescendo. Suddenly she felt something wet and slimy shooting up inside her. The realisation of what it was made her again want to scream out - once again all to no avail.

            She felt the man withdraw. She heard noises as if he was again dressing. Then she heard the clinking of glasses and laughter. Achmed and Murad must have brought the unknown young man some refreshment. The laughter continued for some time. Then Achmed and Murad slipped her off the bar. They lengthened the chain that kept her head down. They positioned her so that she was kneeling on all fours. They fastened reins to the rings of her bridle. Again her backside was greased. Then they withdrew.

            Again she heard noise as if a man was undressing. Moments later there was a sharp tug on her reins. She was forced to raise her head. There was a further tug on the reins and she was forced to raise her head yet more and to arch her back so that her buttocks were again well displayed.

            Unable to see behind her, she again felt the unknown intruder, this time kneel down behind her. Keeping her rein pulled very taut, he again thrust into her. She tried to buck and rear - much to the delight of her unknown assailant. But the reins, and her harsh bit made her keep her back nicely arched and to retain the probing manhood ...

Finally it was all over. Still not having seen the man who had so cruelly and repeatedly mounted her, Marie was taken back to her stall. The long night chain was fastened to her collar.

            Marie was allowed to curl up, in shame, on her straw. She could still feel the slimy seed inside her. Slowly it began to trickle out of her.

            She longed to be able to clean herself but, with her hands still fastened to her girth belt, there was nothing she could doing. She was just a slave , an animal, to be given by the Prince to his friends to use and degrade.

15 - MADE TO PULL WITH HER BELLY

For several more days, Marie was made to practise the various Walks over and over again.

             It was, she was realised, making her more obedient and more disciplined. Like a well schooled horse, she was learning to put out of her mind any idea of doing anything which she had not been expressly ordered, either by a voiced command or by the whip.

            Then Achmed, assisted by Murad, started her on the various Trots. She learned the Collected Trot, the Extended Trot, the Normal Trot and even the Quivering Trot - a slightly faster version of the Quivering Walk.

            During this period of intensive training, careful feeding and controlled exercise on the lunging rein, Marie was aware that her body was becoming harder, fitter and more sleek. She was reacting to her treatment by Achmed, her trainer, more and more like an animal and increasingly less like a resentful human being.

            Fear of the carriage whip was always present in her mind, but so too was her growing love-hatred for her young Master, Prince Hosein. She hated him for reducing her to the level of a naked animal, dependant on one of his black grooms for her food, her daily grooming and for cleaning out the dirty straw in her stall. She also hated him for what he had allowed one of his friends to do to her.

            She was now being kept, she realised, deliberately sexually frustrated so that all her energies could be devoted to her training.

            She also hated the Prince for the cold way he watched her learning the complicated routines and orders to which she was being submitted. She hated him for the apparently detached way in which he intimately felt her often sweating but always naked and hairless body. She hated him for the way he discussed her progress in Arabic with Achmed in front of her as if her views were of no account since she was a mere animal.

            However, she could not help also half being in love with this breath-taking good-looking and immaculately dressed virile young man, who had complete power over her and who owned her body and soul. She found herself trying to please him, trying to earn an encouraging smile from him, and being grateful to him for a mere little friendly pat on the head.

            Marie still did not know why she was being forced to submit to this animal-like training. She longed to ask her companion Fateful, so many questions. Fateful looked Italian. Marie wondered what her real name was. How long had she been in the Prince's stables? Was she really the mother of the good looking young blond boy? Who was the father of her child? Surely if it was the Prince, he would not treat like this? But then surely, if the boy was her son, she would not have been mated with him?

            Above all, she kept on wondering, why were both Fateful and herself being trained to behave and live like horses?

Marie got her first inkling of the answer to this last question when one day a new soft leather girth was strapped around her just below her firm breasts. At the side of each breast, a strap went up over her shoulders. Two straps crossed behind her, just below her neck, and were fastened again to this breast girth, just above the small of her back where a strong ring had been sewn onto the girth.

            The stable girth that she had worn round her waist for so long was now removed. Instead, a second broad girth was fastened over her belly, this time well below her navel. It was also fastened behind her.

            To prevent this belly girth from riding up, a narrow strap went down from the front, down between her legs and was strapped up tightly again to the curve above her buttocks. The strap opened up into a long oval opening around her infibulation rings and padlock. It also opened into a small circular opening, like a ring, around her rear orifice.

            Her feeding regime of 'a little and often', together Achmed's laxatives, resulted, to her shame, in having to learn to relieve herself through this ring when being exercised in the menage. She even had to do so at the trot, like a real horse, for she was not allowed to stop to perform her natural functions, except through the oval shaped opening.

            Finally, to prevent the upper girth from riding up, and the lower girth from slipping down, they were joined by three short straps: one below each breast and the other down her spine.

            Like the upper girth, the lower one was also fitted with a large ring at the back. Marie could not at first understand the purpose of these rings. However when she was led by Achmed into the menage she saw that a heavy roller had been brought in. It had a seat above it. It was a driving seat, she suddenly realised!. She turned to run back to the stables but Achmed, laughing, held her bridle tightly.

            "Now little filly," he said smilingly in Arabic, "don't you try to bolt! You've got to learn a new lesson now!"

            Marie could not, of course, understand what he said but her worst fears were realised when he made her stand in front of the roller, some two meters clear. He picked up a chain that was fastened to the roller and hooked it onto the ring at the back of her breast girth. Then he picked up a second chain and hooked that onto the ring at the back of her belly girth.

            Each chain was fitted with a bottle screw so that its length could be adjusted to the stance that the driver wanted her to take up. To make her lean back, for instance, he simply tightened the chain leading to her breast girth, or loosened her belly chain, and to give the woman freedom to lean forward he reversed the adjustment. In this way a woman could be made to pull with her shoulders or to push with her belly.

            To enable the driver to see constantly just how much effort she was putting into these two actions, each chain contained a long spring. Depending on the strain on each chain, each spring would automatically lengthen or shorten, showing the driver instantly whether the woman was pulling more with her shoulders, or pushing more with her belly, or whether as was intended, in order to keep up her strength over a long period, she was dividing the effort equally between the upper and lower halves of her body.

Having now adjusted the length of her chains, Achmed climbed into the seat, he held the driving reins in his hand. He touched the trembling buttocks in front of him with his long driving whip to make her pay attention.

            "Fanciful!" he called out sharply.

            Marie hesitated, and then reacted just as she'd been taught. Her shoulders came back sharply, thrusting out her breasts, she turned her feet outwards and bent her knees, displaying her self prettily. She wondered, as she did so, if she would ever get over the humiliation of having to show herself off in such a degrading position - but at least Achmed was now behind her and not in front.

            Then, since her hands were free, she placed them as she had been taught, at the side of her waist as if they were still buckled to her stable girth.

            "Relax!" he ordered and gratefully Marie stood normally. But Achmed had not been satisfied. She must learn to come to the display position immediately when her name was called.

            "Fanciful!" he ordered again. This time she moved without any hesitation, feeling the whip again touching her buttocks.

            Achmed made a clicking noise with his tongue.

            "Collected Walk!" he ordered and at the same time he shortened his two driving reins leading to Marie's bit, putting pressure onto her mouth and forcing her to hold her head back and to keep her chin in - very like the way a horse in the Collected Walk also has to bend his neck and keep his head in. It was indeed a very collected Marie who now raised her left knee horizontally.

            Pointing her toe prettily she straightened her whole leg and stepped forward. Immediately she felt an awful tug across her rib cage and across her belly as the upper and lower towing chains came taut, opening the tell tale springs and pulling the heavy roller forward with a sudden jerk.

            "Gently!" called out Achmed, his voice making his meaning clear.

            Marie, shaken by the tugs to her body, but driven on by fear of the whip which she could feel tickling her shoulders, raised her right knee and then straightened her whole right leg before stepping forward. Again came an awful tug, but she could feel that the roller was slightly moving forward again. She raised her left knee again ...

            Glancing down Achmed saw that the spring of the upper driving chain was much more stretched open than was the lower one. The girl was instinctively protecting herself by pulling harder with her shoulders. She had to be taught to pull or push equally with her belly. He flicked his whip sharply across her buttocks, he saw her flinch and then the spring on the lower driving chain also began to lengthen. She was now pulling correctly. She had learnt her lesson.

            The heavy roller was now slowly moving as Marie strained against the two straps. Achmed saw that the two springs were starting to close. Marie was trying to take it easy, trying to rest, trying to ease her aching muscles. Achmed's whip cracked menacingly. Instantly the two springs started to lengthen again as she literally put her back into her task. Now she was ready for a little more action.

            "Collected Trot!" ordered Achmed quietly, his whip's leash touching Marie's trembling shoulders, and his hands keeping the driving reins taut.

            Now her work really began. It was bad enough simply to pull the heavy roller at the trot, never mind having to concentrate as well on her leg movements and on pushing her belly forward. Little drops of sweat began to form along her spine. She began to pant. She began to slow up.

             The whip cracked again, and again. The bit was tight in her mouth keeping her head back. She began to appreciate what it was like to be driven by a ruthless and cruel man, to be driven to the limits of her endurance, to be soaked with sweat, to be driven on and on by the terrible whip, to be forced to obey the harsh commands to change pace, and to concentrate on doing it so gracefully and beautifully whilst all the time straining her heart out to keep the damn roller moving ...

Half an hour later an exhausted Marie was led tottering to the long horse dip in the stable courtyard. Walking on the edge of the narrow ten yard long pool, his whip still in his hand, Achmed led her down the slope that led into the pool. The cold water came as a blessed relief. Eagerly she splashed down the ramp.

            The leading rein tugged her further along the pool. She was now out of her depth, swimming along the narrow pool, just as hot horses did. Reluctantly, she was led up the ramp on the other side of the pool, dripping wet but cool at last.

            She was led back to her stall. She longed to throw herself down on the straw, but Achmed liked to keep a woman in training standing on her legs as much as possible, and so she was chained up by the short Day Chain. Not until after her mid day meal did she enjoy the bliss of being chained to her long Night Chain and of being able to stretch out her tired body on the straw.

            But Marie was only allowed to rest for an hour. She was then led out again to continue her training, pulling the damn roller, sometimes fast, sometimes slowly, but all the time having to concentrate mentally on what she was doing, and on doing it apparently effortlessly and gracefully - almost like an Eastern dancer.

            All the time she was being forced by the whip to strain every muscle in her body.

             The next morning, the Prince again came to see how his new acquisition was shaping up under her intensive training. He came down again into the arena.

             Knees wide apart and bent, she felt his hands on her body. It was like an electric shock. She felt herself melt, ashamed she did not dare raise her eyes. He cupped his hand over her intimacies, exploring her secret and intimate signs of being unable to prevent herself from becoming aroused by his presence. He turned to Achmed.

            "I think she is now ready to learn to pull only with her belly."

            So it was that gradually her breast chain was slackened off until finally she was pulling only with her belly chain. She was still using her strong shoulders, but she had learnt to transfer all her efforts to pushing with her belly against the belly girth. Finally after several days the upper driving chain was removed completely.

            Marie was now chained to the heavy roller only by the chain fastened to the ring at the back of her belly girth.

            Her long slim back was now fully exposed to the whip, and she was ready for the next stage of her training ...

16 - THE TEAMS OF HUMAN FILLIES AND IN-FOAL MARES

When Marie was led into the menage the following day she saw, to her astonishment, four other tall blonde women, including Fateful.

            The other three women she had already also seen in the stables. They were all harnessed and bridled like herself. From the tops of their bridles rose gracefully four gleaming white and red plumes - the colours of the Prince.

            But what astonished her was that they were all chained not to the dreaded heavy roller, but to a light two wheeled chariot.

            A chain led back from the ring at the back each of the women's belly girth to a ring at the front of the chariot. These chains all contained a tell-tale spring, like that on the heavy roller to enable the driver to check instantly that each of the women was pulling her full weight. They also included a bottle screw so that their lengths could be adjusted to ensure that the women would be kept imperfect line while straining to pull the chariot.

            To keep the women further together short chains linked the girth strap of each girl to the girth straps of the girls on either side of her. The right wrists of each girl were similarly tightly strapped to the left wrist of each girl on her right.

            Marie saw that Fateful was harnessed in the middle of the line of four women. She could see her slightly swollen belly pressing against her belly girth. She saw that the other three women's bellies were quite flat - like her own.

Carrying a long carriage whip, Achmed climbed up into the chariot whilst Murad held Marie still, in the centre of the arena. Achmed picked up the four pairs of reins leading to each of the women's bits. Marie saw that under the pressure of the reins, each of the women put her head back, pulled in her chin and thrust out her breasts and belly. They were now in the proper Collected position. Achmed cracked his whip.

            "Collected Trot!" he ordered.

            Immediately four beautiful and graceful women stepped off with the left leg and went off at a perfect Collected Trot, their legs rising high in perfect unison. Their bodies were upright and aligned perfectly together, their toes stretching forward gracefully, their bellies pressing against their girths and the springs in their chains equally stretched.

            It was a beautiful and erotic sight, eight naked breasts bouncing together in perfect time, four heads and four white and scarlet plumes nodding together and the cheeks of four soft white buttocks swaying in unison.

            For several minutes Achmed kept them at it, making them change from the Collected Trot to the Extended Trot, and then to the humiliating Quivering Trot, and on to the normal Trot.

            Meanwhile Murad held Marie's head up, and she realised she was supposed to be watching this demonstration. Was she going to have to do it as well, she asked herself anxiously. Was this the explanation behind her strange training? To be harnessed like an animal to a chariot? And to be driven on by a whip? But why? Why? ...

            At last Achmed reined in the sweating team of women and halted them. They were panting, their breasts rising and falling as they tried to get their breath back.

            Achmed called out to Murad and stepped down from the chariot. Marie saw that since that the chariot only had two wheels the driver had to balance himself carefully. Indeed the skill of driving such a chariot would come not only from controlling the women with their reins and the long whip, but also by the driver carefully balancing himself as the speed of the chariot varied and when cornering at speed.

            Achmed went up to Fateful and unhooked the chain from the ring at the back of her belly girth. Then he unhooked the short chains at the sides of her girth that fastened her to her neighbours and undid the straps on her wrists. Then he led her away.

            Murad now led Marie up to the vacant place. She felt the pulling chain being fastened to the ring at the back of her belly girth. She felt the short chains being fastened to the side of her girth. Her wrists were fastened to those of her neighbours.

            Marie was now aligned with the other three women. Her reins were led back, like those of the other women, to the chariot.

            Marie saw that the women on either side of her had turned their head to look at her through their blinkered eyes. They were trying to smile encouragingly at her, but with the corner of their mouths forced back into a fixed grin by their bits, they could not move their facial muscles.

            Marie saw that, like Fateful, these women too seemed to be almost physically identical to herself. They were all the same height with the same slim build and well developed breasts. They all had the same full hips and buttocks and long shapely legs. All of them had blonde hair hanging down their necks from the ring at the top of their head-piece. As with Marie, the sides of their heads had been shaved.

            "Fortune!" and the left hand girl assumed the humiliating display position.

            "Frenzy!" he called out and the right hand girl instantly came to the same shame-making position.

            "Flurry!" and the third woman bent her knees too. All the women's knees were now bent and separated by an identical amount. Their heads and plumes in perfect alignment.

            "Fanciful!" then came the order, and like a well trained animal Marie too assumed the same degrading position. She had now learnt the names of her companions. "Relax!" came the order and all four women stood normally.

            "Team!" came the order in Arabic. The three other women came to the display position, this was a new Arabic word for Marie and she was slow to follow her three companions. Achmed's whip cracked across her shoulders.

            "Relax!"

            "Team!" This time Marie moved instantly with the other three women. It was the first time that she had learnt to move with them, but from now on, however, she would be made to think of herself not as an individual woman, but as one of a team of human fillies ...

The door into the menage suddenly opened and three more women also harnessed to a chariot were led in. They too were blonde and of the same height and build in Marie's team.

            But there was something strange about them, and about the way they moved.

            Horrified, Marie saw that the two outside women of the team, or wingers, were both heavily pregnant. Their prominent bellies around which their girth straps were fastened made an erotic sight, as did their slightly distended breasts. With the extra weight that they carrying, they had to balance themselves carefully as they were ordered to perform, rather clumsily, the steps of the Collected Walk.

            Marie saw that the girl in the centre of the line was only slightly pregnant. She saw Fateful being led up alongside her and then being chained so that she was now one of that team, which like her own one now consisted of four women. But there was a startling difference: they were all clearly pregnant.

            Marie realised that, whilst the two wing women would provide an erotic sight for spectators as they were driven along by the whip, the two inner women, with their flatter bellies, would provide most of the pulling power.

            Just as Achmed had introduced Marie to her new companions, so he now proceeded to introduce Fateful to hers.

            "Frolic!" he called out. The heavily pregnant on the right of the team assumed the Display position.

            "Fretful!" the left hand heavily pregnant girl did the same.

            "Fantasy!" the girl in the centre standing next to Fateful took up the position.

            "Fateful!" the new girl was introduced to her companions.

            "Relax!" came the order. It was followed almost immediately by, "Team!". All four women now performed together.

            Marie realised that the Prince would now have two teams of white women to pull his chariots: one of pregnant women, the In-Foal Mares Team as it was cruelly called; and her own team, the Fillies Team. There must, she realised, be a special reason for the in-foal team. It seemed so cruel to harness women in their state to a chariot. She wondered why it was done.

            Achmed now proceeded to exercise the 'in-foal' mares team, putting them through their paces, just as if they were in a quite normal state. Marie watched horrified, especially as the two heavily pregnant Wingers were driven by Achmed's whip into both straining to pull the chariot and into performing gracefully whilst doing so. She wondered if the physical training they were being forced to undergo would make it easier for them to have their children.

            She also wondered whether they would have to have them chained in their stalls. How awful! Might she, too, one day have to take her place in the 'in-foal mares' team. She remembered the naked white youth with his rampant manhood. She shuddered. She looked again at the two heavily pregnant women. She shuddered again.

            Achmed now reined in the other team and came over to the chariot of the Fillies Team. He mounted their chariot.

            Soon they too were being put through all their paces.

It was now, however until the next day that Marie learnt that all these complicated movements were simply intended to improve the dexterity of the women, and their obedience to reins and whip, when running fast - and their fitness so that could keep up a really fast pace.

            With the rest of her team, Marie had been led out to a paddock outside the menage. She saw that the area contained several high posts painted white. Achmed made the women practise turning tightly round these posts, whilst keeping the chariot moving as fast as possible. The inside women had to slightly slow down and the outside women had to increase speed. Then all four of them were whipped into rushing ahead to the next post and turning round that one.

            Sometimes they were turned to the left, sometimes to the right. Sometimes they were made to turn a tight full half circle round the post and at other times to merely turn through ninety degrees. They had to learn to obey the slightest pressure on their reins, in order to avoid a sudden painful jab in the mouth.

            Marie soon learnt that there was no point trying to work out where they were going to go to next. She simply did not know. Like the other women she was simply there to be steered by her reins, and to obey the drivers whip ...

            The Prince, himself, now drove them every day - and the other teams of women and horses as well. He was clearly an expert.

            Marie, like the other women, found herself desperately trying to please him, and desperately trying to anticipate his intentions. She realised it was absurd and that he was a cruel and wicked man to use women in this way, but she could not help purring with delight when he occasionally came down the line of women patting their cheeks and offering them little lumps of sugar.

            She would not mind, she found herself saying, if he were to use her, mount her, even in the same shameful way that his friend had done.

            Was she falling in love with her cruel young Master? Was it because he was her Master, and she his helpless slave? Was it not such an unnatural relationship for a woman after all?

BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT

 PART III

THE SEARCH FOR THE FRENCH GOVERNESS

17 - I ENJOY THE DELIGHTS OF MY HAREM

            Followed by my escort of mounted Janissaries, I rode into the small courtyard of my official residence as second-in-command of the Marsa detachment.

            I looked up an the narrow screened slit set in the wall and smiled.

            Matrak, my chief black eunuch, kept telling me that as my position in Marsa became more established, so my harem would grow and with it his responsibilities. It was therefore important, he stressed, to run the harem on the same strict lines that are needed in larger harems - and not on the more informal lines that I might otherwise have chosen.

            I had, therefore, sent Tulip on ahead to warn Matrak that I would be returning in an hour's time and would then want to have my women paraded for my inspection

            This would message would, I knew , have resulted in a scene of frenzied activity as my concubines rushed to bathe, groom and titivate themselves under the watchful and approving eye of Matrak. Wearing their silken harem trousers, cut away in front to show off their hairless painted beauty lips and the mark of my proprietary brand on their soft little bellies, they would then have been lined up by Matrak in front of the long screened slit which was set down by the floor along one wall of the main harem room.

            They would be looking at it with anticipation. It was cleverly sited by the designer of my house to be the women's only window onto the outside world. But it only gave a tantalisingly restricted view of the steps leading up to the main door of my residence. The rest of the courtyard, and indeed the rest of Marsa would have remained hidden. But even so, Matrak was very strict about keeping it locked and covered to prevent them from having a chance glimpse of another man. Only he had the key that allowed the grill to be uncovered so that my women could see through it. He was very strict about making sure that the only man they ever saw was me!

            "Stand at Attention! Clasp your hands behind your neck! Elbows back and heads up." Matrak would then have ordered, walking up and down the line of eagerly waiting women like a drill sergeant, tapping his cane against the palm of his hand.

            Satisfied with their display of disciplined obedience, he would then have ordered, "Close your eyes! Think of your Master! Think of being in his arms,"

            There would then be the noise of heavy breathing ...

            "Tongues out!" would have been the next order. Making slavegirls keep their tongues out was one of his tricks to make them feel more submissive - and more excited.

            Then after a pause, he would have ordered, "Position for arousal check!"

            This was something that a well brought up Christian girl never got used to, and even my Berber girls hated. Keeping her head up, her eyes closed and her hands clasped behind her neck, each deeply blushing girl would part her legs, bend her knees and thrust back with her buttocks - as if inviting Matrak to come behind her and feel for himself, through the cut away slit of her harem trousers, her state of moist arousal. Indeed this was just what Matrak would next do, putting his hand down to part gently each girl's hairless beauty lips to confirm that she was indeed highly excited at the prospect of seeing me, their Master and owner ...

            The line of waiting women would now have been eagerly awaiting the noise of approaching hoof beats.

            "Get down on all fours!" he would have ordered. " Heads up!"

            The women would have been longing longed to lower their heads almost level with the floor,so as to be able, like little dogs, to peer through the grill at me as I rode up, dismounted, dismissed my escort and strode up the steps. But Matrak knew the importance of keeping my women waiting in eager anticipation.

            But only when Matrak heard the escort take up their position at the back of the courtyard, would he have finally unlocked the screen that covered the grill. Even then the women would still have been kept back from it. There must be no risk of the women getting even a glimpse of my escort of healthy males!

            "Now crawl forward!", he would at last order. "Noses to the ground. Look at your handsome young Master!"

            The girls would be looking at me with desire, eagerly awaiting the next order.

            "Right hands down between your legs!" would be the next order.

            This was one of the few occasions when Matrak relaxed his normal strict discipline, and actually allowed my women to touch themselves as their excitement mounted as they waited to see me. Each would, I knew, be desperately imagining that she was the one whom I would shortly choose for my pleasure. A strong smell of female arousal would now be drifting across the harem.

            The room would now be full of little cries of joy and excitement. Carried away by the sight of me, their Master, riding up to the steps of the entrance, and of their rare freedom to touch themselves, each girl would be desperately striving to bring herself to a quick climax. But Matrak would be watching the grovelling women carefully from behind.

            "Palm of right hand back flat on the floor!" he would suddenly shout, ensuring instant obedience with a few well placed strokes of his cane, whilst the women sobbed their frustration.

            Such is the power of the harem system and it's way of both arousing and controlling female sensuality! We have nothing like it in our Christian ethos ....

            Again I looked up at the screen. Was it imagination, or could I hear little cries of excitement and frustration?

Minutes later I was relaxing in a bath whilst being attended on by Tulip. I was looking forward to sipping sherbet, brought by Tulip, as I sat in comfort, hidden behind the screen that looked into the main room of the harem, whilst Matrak paraded my women, one by one in front of the screen. Each would be dressed, or rather undressed, in her most eye-catching harem clothes. Each would pirouette round in front of the screen. Each would lisp her love for her Master and then describe what she would do to give me pleasure, if I chose her. Then each would fling herself down onto the floor, in a gesture of utter obeisance ...

            Later as I became richer and more important, so, just as Matrak had forecast, my harem would become bigger. But at that time it contained, rather to the impatient disgust of Matrak and his young assistant black eunuch, Abdul, only four women: Lala and Muneerah, my petite Berber girls; Paula, my tall tawny haired girl Greek girl; and Francesca, my Neapolitan slave girl.

            Matrak had bought me the first two shortly after my arrival in Marsa, to help me. as he put it, with my mastery of Arabic and local customs.

            One day I will write of how I came to own Paula. It's a good tale!

            As for Francesca, the pretty young wife of an Amalfi landowner, she had been given to me as a present by the grateful merchant investors of Marsa after the ship in which she had been travelling had been captured off Naples.

            The merchants had invested in the Corso, as the raiding cruises are called, and to their delight the ship had been carrying a particularly valuable cargo. It was thanks to the well trained detachment of my Janissaries who were embarked in the corsair ship that she ship and it's cargo - and its passenger! - were captured intact. The value of Francesca in the Marsa slave market would have been minute as compared with the profits that the merchants earned from the captured cargo - but even so their gesture in presenting her to me had been much appreciated.

            Although she still hankered after her lost husband, Matrak had seen to it that she was now a well disciplined member of my small but growing harem ...

18 - AN EROTIC DISPLAY FOR THE MASTER

Matrak came to the door of the bathroom.

            "Your concubines are ready and eager," he reported. Then he coughed respectfully. "If perhaps I can make a suggestion ... "

            "Yes, indeed, Matrak, go ahead," I replied. It would be a foolish Master of a harem, even of a small harem like mine, who did not listen carefully to his chief black eunuch - just as in Europe a gentleman listens to his butler or to his stud groom. Certainly, these older black eunuchs had years of experience in controlling and supervising their Master's temperamental concubines, and of training them with the whip, just as a good butler might have had years of experience in smoothly running a household, or an experienced stud groom in schooling and bringing on temperamental thoroughbred horses.

            As the Pasha had told me when I first arrived, a good chief black eunuch shields a harem owner from all the annoying and petty problems of his slavegirls. The Master must remain a remote God-like figure, whom even the most recalcitrant of his concubines will soon come to adore - if only because he is the only man she ever sees and represents her only chance of sensual relief. He must be the constant topic of conversation in the harem - something which it amused me to check up on as I listened unseen behind the screen of the balconies that looked down into the main harem room, into the harem bathroom and into the harem dormitory.

            Originally I had assumed that captured Christian women would hate being enslaved. But soon I realised that this was not so. They may hanker after their lost freedom, but the fact is that is most women seem naturally to enjoy being the helpless plaything of a rich and powerful man.

            What they do not necessarily enjoy, however, is being controlled and disciplined by black eunuchs who seem impervious to their charms. Indeed, a good chief black eunuch will control every minute of a slavegirl's life, from supervising her wastes and daily examining her bodily intimacies, to deciding what she will wear, what exercise she will take, and what she will eat. He will be continuously teaching her new ways, often strange and humiliating for a Christian girl, of pleasing her Master ...

            "Effendi," he began, "as you will be leaving on a special mission tomorrow, I thought that perhaps a farewell party in the harem might be in order."

            "Well, perhaps," I said. "What have you got in mind?."

      "Effendi, I have noticed a certain growing emotional intimacy between Paula and Muneerah."

            I frowned angrily. Matrak was paid to stop that sort of thing. They were forbidden in well disciplined harems. A good team of black eunuchs will ensure that the women under their control feel that they are being constantly watched to prevent them from being unfaithful to their Master, either by themselves, or with another girl.

            "No, no, don't worry!" Matrak laughed. He must have seen my angry expression. "They have been carefully watched to make certain that they have no opportunity of being alone together. However, I have taken advantage of their mutual attachment to train them to put on a little ... shall we say, exhibition that may amuse you, as an alternative to being paraded in front of you. The other two girls will be ordered to please you during the little exhibition ... "

            "Yes," I said enthusiastically, "that sounds fine. But have Paula and Muneerah ...?"

            "Oh no, Effendi," cut in Matrak in a shocked tone of voice, " I can assure you that they not been allowed to deceive you. They have not been allowed to reach a climax during their training - nor indeed will they be allowed to do so on this occasion - unless, of course, you specifically give permission."

Half an hour later, I was sitting on the large ottoman in the centre of the harem, dressed in a loose robe. Lala was kneeling between my feet, her head and body out of sight under my robe, her tongue and mouth active. Francesca was standing behind me, her hands thrust down into my robe, gently squeezing my nipples, her tongue licking my ear and neck. Both were dressed in long white embroidered caftans.

            How sensible the Moslem culture was, I reflected, in allowing a man to have as many slavegirls as he could afford - even he was limited to only four wives.

            And keeping them shut up in a harem ensured that they all vied with each in giving their Master greater pleasure. What a sensible way of life! How much more satisfactory than that of Europe, where jealous women tried to prevent a man from exerting his natural masculine instincts. Here, too, of course, a man's wives and concubines would still all be very jealous of each other. Indeed, it was one of the tasks of the black eunuchs to ensure that they were - but merely as a way of stimulating them to give their Master even greater pleasure.

            And what nonsense it was to say that a man could not love more than one woman at a time. I loved all my concubines, each in a different and special way.

            My thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of Matrak and young Abdul, both sumptuously dressed in heavy brocade silken robes, with white turbans.

The gorgeousness of their dress, contrasted vividly with the near nakedness of the girl who they were each leading in, crawling at their feet. Paula, held by Matrak on a lead fastened to a collar round her neck, and Muneerah similarly held by Abdul, just wore a short little muslin skirt, which covered her buttocks and was cut away in front.

            The two black eunuchs bowed. I saw that they each carried a short whip in the hand that was not holding the lead. Each gave the girl they were leading a sharp tap with their whip, and the two girls lowered their foreheads to the floor at my feet.

            Suddenly there was the sound of Arab music - played next door by hidden musicians, specially hired by Matrak. Immediately, as they had clearly been rehearsed to do, the two grovelling girls, knelt up on their ankles facing each other. I saw that they were eagerly licking their lips. The two black eunuchs used their canes to drive the girls, now swaying on their knees to the music, closer.

            At a word of command from Matrak, they both reached out and started to play with each other's nipples. Soon they were both moaning with pleasure. Another word of command, and they reached forward, holding each other and kissing.

            I was beginning to think that this was getting a little out of hand, when Matrak and Abdul jerked the girls back by their leads. Another word of command, and the two pretty young women rose up on their parted knees, displaying between the folds of their short muslin skirt, their carefully painted beauty lips. Each put her fingers down to the them.

            "Look at your Master!" ordered Matrak.

            Each girl was now unabashed playing with herself whilst looking at me - something to which I could hardly object, and indeed which I found highly arousing. On each little quivering belly was my green brand mark of crossed scimitars. These pretty creatures were indeed my property! I put my hand down to adjust the position of Lala's mouth under my robe ...

            Another word of command, and the girls put their fingers onto each other's beauty bud - whilst still looking at me with adoration, Soon each was giving little cries of mounting excitement. Then Matrak and Abdul pulled the girls back by necks to cool down for a moment or two. Their knees remained touching, but their bodies were now curved right back, well displayed and supported by their hands on the floor behind their ankles, their heads back, their eyes on the ceiling and their long hair hanging down to the ground behind their backs.

            For a moment the two girls were now allowed to look at each other again, but the prominence of their brand marks would make them both realise that they belonged to me - and not to each other. How clever Matrak was!

            Another word of command, and whilst Paula remained with her body held arched back by Matrak's lead, Muneerah's lead was eased to enable her to crawl down between Paula's outstretched thighs.

            Another word of command, and moments later Paula was crying out with pleasure as, held on her lead by Abdul and controlled by his cane, the Berber girl applied her little pointed tongue ...

            It was a highly erotic scene. I could hear Francesca catch her breath behind me. Then at a nod from the carefully watching Matrak, Abdul pulled Muneerah back. The scene was now repeated with Paula being driven by Matrak's cane to apply her tongue to Muneerah's little beauty bud.

            Held as the two girls were by the black eunuchs leads, and driven as they were by their whips to do what the eunuchs ordered, rather than than what they wanted to do, I did not feel that my masculinity was being threatened by this little exhibition of female sensuousness.

            Matrak then whispered into my ear, nodding at young Abdul, his assistant..

            "Yes," I agreed, "let him show off what you've taught him to make them all do."

Abdul called out an order in his piping treble, and raised his whip meaningfully. He was was obviously going to develop into a first class black eunuch, standing no nonsense from the women in his charge.

            All four girls then lined up in front of the boy eunuch. Matrak handed him Paula's lead and he fastened other leads onto the collars of Francesca and Lala.

            Holding the leads in one hand, and his whip in the other, he gave another order. All four girls quickly stripped naked. They made an erotic sight.

            At another word of command, they knelt down on all fours, one behind the other in a little circle, with himself in the middle.

            Another, obviously well practised order, and they all raised their buttocks and parted their legs. Abdul turned to me and bowed. He was ready to put the girls through their tricks like the trainer of a group of little performing dogs on a circus.

            I nodded in approval.

            The boy gave another word of command, and cracked his whip.

            Each girl now pursed her lips and put out her tongue, taking care to keep it straight out.

            Another order, and each girl reached forward and carefully put her tongue onto the exposed beauty lips in front of her.

            The boy eunuch now touched Francesca's buttocks with his whip. She slowly licked up the line of the beauty lips in front of her - those of Paula. I saw Paula give a little trembling shake, which was delightfully passed round the the line and back to Francesca as each girl in turn applied her tongue to the beauty lips displayed in front of her. I could see that each girl was occasionally glancing nervously at the boy's whip.

            Another word of command, and this time each girl licked ten times, receiving all ten strokes of the tongue of the girl behind her, before starting her own ten little licks. Again the trembling shake went round the line and ended back with Francesca.

            Another word of command, and all four heads were eagerly nodding as they applied their tongues continuously, until at further command they alternatively stopped and resumed their ministrations.

            Each girl was getting red faced. Her eyes were glazing over. Against her will, each found herself eagerly thrusting her buttocks back at the tongue that was so exciting her. Each found herself giving little moans of frustration whenever the black boy ordered them to stop.

            The trick, of course, was for the boy to bring all four girls humiliatingly to a simultaneous climax. Watching each girl carefully, he now started to order individual girls to apply or remove their tongues so that each girl was getting similarly aroused.

            "But it will, of course, be a better spectacle, Effendi, and also a better test of Abdul's skill, with six girls," murmured Matrak.

            "Six girls in my harem!" I blanched. Four were expensive enough to have watched and properly controlled, never mind bought and fed.

            "The cost of an extra two or three would be minimum," said Matrak quietly. "You will soon see! A man in your position needs to be seen to have a proper harem of captured Christian slavegirls, Effendi."

            "But, even if I agreed with you, you forget that I'm just a Colonel of Janissaries, not a rich merchant," I remonstrated.

            "You will soon have a real harem, you see," smiled Matrak. "If I was not sure of that, Effendi, I would not have stayed with you. It is always interesting to train a steadily increasing number of concubines."

            "Well, anyway, we'll both have to make do with the present number for the time being," I laughed, turning back to the little display that was being put on for my sole benefit.

            Abdul gave another order, and the girls carried away by their rising excitement, now broke out into little barking noises. They were indeed being treated like little performing dogs!

            Suddenly the boy cracked his whip and four kneeling girls erupted. The by had done it! The heads of all four girls collapsed onto the floor.

            I handed the boy a gold coin. He had well. Very well! I was highly aroused myself.

            "Have them all put into my bed, sardine fashion!" I ordered.

            Minutes later, I entered my bedroom. Only Tulip, my white eunuch was now in attendance. A spotless white sheet covered the bed. Tulip helped me undress and then pulled back the sheet.

            Four girls lay there motionless. Like grilled sardines on a piece of toast, they alternatively had their head and their feet towards the head of the bed. Each lay on her back, her tongue thrust out.

            I climbed carefully onto the bed and straddled each girl in turn, receiving the adoring ministrations of her tongue, whilst amusing myself with the bodies of the girl, or girls, lying next next to her. Each would silently raise her nipples or beauty lips for my attention, in a desperate attempt to catch my eye.

            Finally I chose Paula for my pleasure, kissing her passionately whilst penetrating her deeply. Lala and Muneerah competed to excite me with their tongues from behind, and Francesca squeezed my nipples deliciously ...

            I slept deeply, waking up occasionally to feel the delicious attentions

of my adoring concubines. What a wonderful thing is a well disciplined harem, I thought. Even a small one, like mine! The key to success is for the black eunuchs to make sure that the women don't even see another man, so that each woman's whole world revolves around her Master.

             I would miss my harem badly when I left to look for French girl, however I should, of course, be taking Tulip with me.

19 - THE SLAVE DEALER CONSULTS HIS RECORDS

            It was a couple of months after Marie's capture, and the day after my meeting with the Pasha when he had told me to go and find the beautiful French former governess

            As the Pasha had suggested, I had gone to visit Hassan, the slave dealer ...

            "A French girl?" the friendly Arab dealer was querying. We were seated on typically low ottoman sofas in the anteroom to the dealer's slave pens. "A French girl who had been a governess in the household of an Italian Contessa? ... Well ... Yes! I remember now. She was a very beautiful blond creature. Blond girls are a rather rare commodity in the Marsa slave market. That's why I remember her. And the Pasha has sent you to find out to whom I sold her? I wonder why! Does he want her for himself?

            "Well ... " I stammered, uncertain as to what to say.

            "It's true," the slave dealer went on, "I had originally wondered whether she might be suitable for his harem. But then, as I remember telling the Pasha's chief black eunuch, I had a chance of a quick and highly profitable sale ... but let me look up my records."

He rang a little hand bell, and in came a pretty white page boy, dressed in tight white breeches and the conical white hat of a eunuch.

             It had taken me quite a little time when I first arrived in Marsa, sent by the Sublime Porte in Constantinople to be the second in command of the Sultan's Janissaries there, to get used to the custom of gelding intelligent captured European slave boys, and then using them as personal attendants and often as .... But then I, too, had found it so useful to have my own gelded Italian page-boy, Tulip, even though I was not particularly interested in him sexually - except when I was travelling! Gelding had the effect of making these eunuch boys very loyal to their Masters, and it was so convenient having an attendant who could accompany you everywhere - even into my then small harem!

            Indeed Tulip was standing behind me at that very moment, ready to write down any notes ...

"Fetch my slave register," Hassan said his own page-boy.

            The boy gave an obedient little bow and returned moments later with a large leather bound book. Hassan began to turn over the pages.

            "Yes, here we are," he said. "Number 51367. You'll find the number tattooed onto the side of the girl's mound, under my mark."

            "Number 51317?" I queried, delighted that it would be possible to identify the girl, if and when she was found. I saw that Tulip was writing the number down.

            "Yes! You see the first figure refers to the year," explained Hassan, " the next two to the Corso on which the girl was captured, and the next two to her batch number. It very simple but enables me to identify immediately any girl that I have handled."

            "Why do you bother?" I laughed. "Surely when a girl's sold, she's sold and that's the end of the story!"

            "No, you'd be surprised at the number of white girls who pass through my hands several times - even the pretty ones who you might think would simply disappear into a harem for ever. Often a Master tires of even a very pretty girl and wants to trade her in a for another one, or when she's older he wants to find space for a younger one."

            "But is it easy to sell off someone's discarded concubine?" I asked, intrigued.

            "Oh yes, there's a great demand for a woman bearing what's considered to be a good brand on her belly - the brand of a rich man well known to have a large harem where white women are well trained and disciplined by his strict black eunuchs. Often a good well trained second hand girl will sell for more than she did when I first sold her as a raw recently captured Christian girl.

            A young woman who has spent a little time incarcerated in a well run harem would, for instance, make an ideal birthday present for a young boy, or make a fine whore in a high class brothel. And many relatively humble men like the idea of owning a woman who was previously the plaything of a man whose wealth and position they rather envy."

"But to get back to this girl," said Hassan,

            "Yes,"I said impationately, "what did happen to her?"

            "Well, I had an urgent order for a blond Christian woman of a particular size and shape - and she matched up to the specification exactly. He was willing to pay a very large sum for the right girl."

            "He?" I asked

            "Yes, young Prince Hosein, the son of the Emir of Zanda. He seems to have more money than is good for him - thanks, I suppose, to the insatiable demand for corn from the French Army and the British Navy. And so I sent her straight off to him!"

            So - the hunt was now on!

20 - THE MEETING WITH PRINCE HOSEIN

I rode through a very fertile lush valley, followed by my small escort of Janissaries. On either side of the track wide stretches of corn were ripening - the corn that had made the Emir so rich.

            Such fertility was not natural in these parts, and soon the reason for it was apparent. Down the centre of the valley meandered a stream, which in places had been dammed, or widened out, to form ponds and watering holes. Mixed teams of donkeys and slaves were raising the water in large leather sacks, balanced on the end of large poles, and sending the contents swirling down the network of little irrigation channels that covered the very flat valley. There was an air of intense activity.

            I was not surprised to see that many of these field slaves were white women, often chained together and working under the supervision of black overseers. There was much cracking of whips. The increasing availability of captured white peasant girls, used to toiling in the sun in their own countries, had made such scenes as commonplace, in much of Barbary, as would be similar scenes of black women, toiling under the supervision of white overseers, in America.

            Up on a hill looking down over the valley was the rambling white painted Kasbah of the Emir, a large castellated castle with battlements on the top of the high sheer outside walls.

            I could see wooden screens covering some of the windows high up in one wing of the Kasbah - obviously the large harem quarters. The women would be able to look out through the screens, but could not be seen and could not signal to anyone outside.

            In Marsa, of course, harems did not normally have windows onto the outside world. Their inmates were denied the sight of men other than their Master. Their only sight of the life outside the harem would be in the evening when the closely watching black eunuchs would allow their charges to climb up onto the flat roof for a view over the the town across to the bay with the mountains in the distance - and no chance of even a glimpse of another man!

            Here, in the country, few men would be visible from the harem windows, and in any case the very height of the windows would prevent a woman from properly seeing the face of a man below.

            As for the apparently large size of the harem wing, I knew that the Emir, like his neighbouring tribal chieftains, would have large numbers of Berber girls in his harem - daughters of his principal liegemen and allies. They would be proud that their prettiest daughters were in the harem of their chief and, from the Emir's point of view, keeping such girls incarcerated in his closely guarded harem was an effective way of ensuring their fathers' continuing loyalty. If a tribal chief suspected one of his lieges of plotting against him, then he would think nothing of sending him the severed head of the vassal's daughter: it would be an effective warning.

            Inter-tribal warfare was, of course, frequent and a victorious chieftain would enjoy stocking his harem with the prettiest wives and daughters of the defeated tribe - giving away what he did not need to his own supporters.

            I also knew that below such Kasbahs would be the horrendous dark dungeons in which local rulers kept chained for years any potential rivals - and often the husbands of women who had caught his eye. Knowledge that the wretched husband was being kept a helpless prisoner down in the dungeon below was considered to make the ravishment of the distraught wife all the more enjoyable.

            Such cruelty was considered quite normal in the Barbary States. But standards were different in different cultures. Indeed, I thought, back in England even I might have considered it to be unacceptably cruel to keep four delightful young women incarcerated in my own harem, under the strict discipline of Matrak and his young assistant.

            On a hill on the opposite side side of the valley, I could see a smaller and newer looking Kasbah. This would be the palace of the Prince, the Emir's son. I had sent Tulip on ahead to warn him of my arrival.

            I saw a small mounted procession leave this second Kasbah. Two green umbrellas waved over it, denoting the presence of a member of the ruling family. The Prince was on his way to greet me.

            The two corteges approached each other. Soon I could make out the Prince himself, a good looking young man with a friendly face, riding a magnificent Arab. I smiled with relief for some of the sons of the chieftains of the interior were spoilt brats - rude and difficult to deal with. However, I did not think I would have much trouble in discussing certain matters with Prince Hosein.

            I saw Tulip was riding slightly behind the Prince and was pointing me out to to him. Then I saw that the green umbrellas were carried by black slaves, running on either side of the Prince's horse. I was not surprised to see that the black umbrellas bearers were young women, naked except for white running boots and a small white leather flap hanging from a belt round the waist. The flaps were decorated with the crest of the House of Zanda. Nor was I surprised that these women were chained by their collars to the Prince's saddle, for many rich young men in Barbary enjoyed showing off their masculinity and power in such ways as this.

            I was, however, rather surprised that the two messenger girls running alongside the umbrella girls, and also chained by the neck to the Prince's saddle, were white slave girls. Except for the colour of their skin they looked almost identical to their black sisters in slavery. Only the white leather message pouches slung across the shoulders of the two white women, and the quick release catches on their collar chains, denoted their different role.

            Might one of these be Mademoiselle de St. Svres? Was this the matched team for which she had been bought?

            As we approached each other, the Prince's horse broke into the short high stepping prancing movement that many Arab horses were trained to do. Clearly well trained, the four young women simultaneously also broke into a high stepping prancing trot, their breasts swinging and the white leather flaps now flicking up to disclose their hairless intimacies. The Prince stopped his horse a few paces from me. His horse continued his prancing action, as did the young women.

            As I raised my hands to my head in the Eastern gesture of respect and greeting, I glanced down anxiously at the two white girls. But I could see no sign of Hamid's distinctive tattooed mark on the side of their smooth and hairless mounds, above which I saw the brand of the House of Zanda, and below which I saw the zig-zag lacing which was so often used in the interior of Barbary to ensure a slave girl's purity and chastity.

            "Welcome, my brother, welcome, " said the Prince with a smile. "It is indeed an honour for us to be visited by the representative of His Excellency, the Pasha of Marsa, may Allah protect him for ever! You must be hot and dusty after your long ride. Come, rest and bathe in my humble house."

            "So the Pasha is interested in copying the use we make of our old ruined Roman amphitheatre." The Prince helped himself from a plate of dates being offered to him on her knees by a veiled half naked slave girl.

            It was the evening of the same day. I was feeling refreshed after Tulip had bathed me in the baths of the Prince's palace - and had brought me an invitation to join the Prince to watch some dancing.

            The unveiled Berber dancing girls were putting on a magnificent display, swaying in unison to the Arab music.

            I knew I had to be careful. I could not at this stage disclose that I had been sent all this way by the Pasha merely to try and get hold of a particular white slave girl. This have aroused such incredulity and curiosity that the Pasha's whole plan of capturing the Contessa might well have been disclosed - and thwarted by being leaked back to Europe - for the French had spies amongst the tribes of the interior.

            "Yes, Your Highness," I lied, hoping that the rumours the Pasha had heard about races were correct. "The Pasha is anxious to take advantage of your experience, and perhaps use the old ruined amphitheatre near Marsa in a similar way to what you have found goes down well with your people."

            "Yes," replied the Prince seriously, "at a time when my family, and that of other local rulers, have all has made so much money out of the war in Europe, we have had to be careful to keep the more humble people content. I can see that the Pasha and the rich merchants of Marsa must have a similar problem. Well, we've certainly found that putting on races in the amphitheatre, between the rulers of the various rival tribes, has kept our people happy. Indeed, they have become utterly absorbed by the races, deriding the teams of other tribes and betting huge sums. Instead of devoting all their energies into planning raids on other tribes, they get on with growing the grain that has made us so rich recently, and just eagerly await the next set of races."

            "What sort of races, Your Highness?"

            "Chariot races!"

            That was a real surprise! "But is there room for that in the circular amphitheatre?" I asked.

            "For races using horses we've opened up the more ruined side of the amphitheatre, so that there is more space. We have one post around which the chariots turn in the amphitheatre itself and the other outside. You should the teams of horses really galloping between the turning posts, and then jostling each other round the post before rushing off back to the other post. It's very exciting to watch - and to be a driver, like me and my friends. We also find it very absorbing to train and exercise a team of beautifully matched Arabs horses ..."

            The young Prince gave a laugh.

            "But, of course," he went on, "we don't only use teams of horses to pull our lightweight racing chariots."

            "Oh?" I said trying to disguise my excitement.

            "Using teams of matched young women is also very exciting - and so is training them, especially if they are pretty white ones."

            "What!" I burst out in mock surprise. "Using white slave girls to pull a racing chariot?"

            "Yes indeed. It's even more popular as a spectacle than using horses. The betting is even more frenzied than for the teams of horses - and so is the prize money! Of course they're not so fast, but the sight of a team naked and harnessed women more than makes up for that - and, of course, the drivers whip keeps them going at a pretty fast gallop, once they've been got really fit. We use a much shorter course, and inside the amphitheatre itself, just like, they say, the Romans themselves did."

            "But what sort of a man would keep and race a team of women for chariot racing?" I asked with a laugh.

            "Well, me for one!" came the reply. "And quite a few of my friends from other ruling families as well. I've got two teams: one of black women slaves and one of white. It's a fascinating hobby. I'm sure the Pasha would have no difficulty in interesting the merchants of Marsa in keeping such teams."

            "But surely they must be pretty ugly, muscular great brutes," I said, trying to provoke the Prince.

            "Ugly! They are beautiful! Especially my team of blond white women. And very carefully matched. You see, the more the women in each team are identical, the more of a start each team gets. So half the art is matching them!"

            "And the other half?" I asked, curious.

            "Treating them just like the horses which are also used for racing."

            "But why?"

            "Because you get much better results from a woman who is kept stabled, not allowed to speak, and fed, watered and exercised just like the real fillies stabled next to her. She begins to to forget that she is a human being and concentrates purely on becoming a perfect chariot girl - and so earns more prize money for her master."

            "Are you only in it for the money?"

            "No, of course, not! I get great satisfaction from owning, training and above all driving a team of beautiful, but bitted and harnessed, and carefully matched young women - and if they are the despised and hated Christians, then all the better! You can't imagine the erotic thrill - and the feeling of power that it gives you is simply wonderful ... Look, why don't you come down to the stables tomorrow morning and see them for yourself. Achmed, my Head Groom, would be be very proud to show off his charges to the representative of the Pasha of Marsa! And then you'll be able to tell the Pasha all about it."

            "Thank you," I said, trying to control my excitement. Things were turning out very well. "Thank you very much indeed."

21- FOUND! AND A DEAL IS STRUCK

"And this one, Effendi, is Fanciful," said Achmed, the Prince's Head Groom, speaking in a mixture of respect for me as the representative of the Pasha, and of pride in his charges.

            Earlier, fascinated, I had watched the Prince's two teams of beautifully matched Arab horses being put their paces, harnessed to a lightweight chariot driven by Prince Hosein himself. Alternately he had used his whip to drive them on, galloping flat out, and then pulling them sharply back by their bridles and harsh bits to turn them hard round a post, before galloping on again.

            I could see that it was a most invigorating experience holding the reins of the four horses in one hand and a long whip in the other. But I could also see that experience and balance was required if the driver was not to be flung out of his tiny chariot.

            Then I had watched, equally fascinated, as the Prince had put his team of beautiful young black women through their paces. The speed, of course, was less than when the chariot was being pulled by horses, but the intricate zig-zag practice course made it equally thrilling, both to watch and, I was sure, to drive.

            But the highlight had been when a team of four very attractive and virtually identical blond women, obviously European slaves, had been harnessed to the chariot and put their their paces - running fast under the whip and then, too, being pulled hard back by their bits to turn tightly round a series of posts.

            But it was the erotic sight of their bouncing breasts, of their long honey coloured hair streaming in the wind as, urged on by the whip, they ran faster and faster, of their bridles and bits, and of their bellies straining against the traces, that I had found unbelievably exciting merely to watch. I could imagine that to drive such a team, and to control them with the whip and the reins, must have been unimaginably thrilling for a lusty young man - and for an older one as well!

            Certainly, I mused, as I was led down the line of loose boxes and stalls into which the sweating horses and women had now been returned, races involving rival teams of European slave women would be the highlight of the games that the tribal leaders put on in the Roman amphitheatre to keep their followers amused ...

             "She's just completing her training in time for the races," went on Achmed, pointing at the white woman he had called Fanciful. "Look at the way her body is now taut and fit. We have not had her for long, yet there's not an ounce of fat on her, and yet her breasts and her hips are still prominent - something which is very important if we are to get a good handicap for the team."

            My eyes were on stalks. Surely this was the girl I sought! She was chained facing the wall by a short chain fastened to the front of her collar. I could only see her back. But I just had to see her front from the front!

            "Just look at those hindquarters and thighs," Hassan said. "When she arrived here, her body was just soft and useless. Now look at it!"

            "But I suppose a woman's belly muscles must also be important," I said with an innocent smile, "bearing in mind that the traces are apparently fastened round the stomach rather than round the shoulders?"

            "Indeed," said Achmed, going up to the girl and refastening her short chain to a ring on the back of her collar so that she was now held facing us as we stood in the passageway that ran down the centre of the stables.

            The naked young European woman now facing me was very attractive indeed with her blond hair, her blue eyes and her long legs. The Prince, I thought, must have a lot of very beautiful women in his harem to use this one merely for chariot racing. Then I remembered what he had said about the erotic thrill and the tremendous feeling of power that came from owning, training and driving a team of beautiful and carefully matched white women.

            I could scarcely disguise my excitement as I thought I could make out Hassan's mark and some tattooed numbers to the side of her smooth mound. But then, infuriatingly, he put his hand onto the girl's belly so that I could not see her mound properly. "Look how her belly is also now hard and well muscled up. Feel for yourself."

            "Oh, no, Your Highness," I laughed. I was of course secretly delighted at the way things were turning out, but I did not want to seem too keen. "I would not presume to handle one of your slave girls."

            "She's no longer a slave girl," replied the Prince curtly. "She's just a filly under training, so feel free to examine her in any way."

            Moments later I was rewarded with the clear sight of Hassan's mark and the Arabic numbers 51367.

            I had found her! But I still had to get her to Marsa where she could be interrogated in detail.

            I stood back and looked at the girl with what I hoped was professional calmness.

            "You know, Your Highness," I said, "I think I should take this girl back to show to the Pasha how a girl captured by our corsairs, and brought to Marsa to be sold, can be quite quickly transformed into an fit and eager young filly, ready to be used for chariot racing."

            "What!" exclaimed the Prince.

            "Yes, you see it will not be easy to convince the Pasha that it is practical to introduce chariot racing to Marsa. But if I could buy this creature from you and take her back to Marsa, and perhaps borrow your excellent Head Groom as well, then I think I could really persuade him that it would all be well worth while. She could become the foundation for a whole series of teams like yours, owned by different rich men in Marsa."

            "But," cried the Prince in alarm, "I can't spare either of them now - just as the Spring racing season is about to begin! I've just spent a fortune acquiring her to make up my team - and having her trained to take Fortune's place at the last minute. And Achmed is my trainer. He's essential to me. I can't possibly let you have either! I certainly don't want to offend the Pasha, but surely you realise the enormity of what you are asking me to do?"

            "Yes," I said with quite genuine disappointment, "I suppose so."

            "It's a mad idea," said the Prince firmly.

            Ideas were churning round in my brain. It would be too awful to find the French governess and then have to go and tell the Pasha that I had failed to bring the girl back with me. But perhaps the Pasha's plan would not be too upset if there was a slight delay.

            "Your Highness," I said, "I believe that the next lot of races will be over in a couple of months time when the hot weather begins. Now, just supposing I were to come back after they were over, and bring with me not merely a replacement for this girl, but also another similar girl as a spare for your team? Both could then be trained in time for the next set of races in the autumn.

            "Two girls as a swop for this one?" repeated the Prince greedily. My heart began to sing. "You mean blond, blue eyed, long legged girls like this one and the rest of the team?"

            "Of course," I said, hoping for the best. "The Corso season is well under way and there should be no difficulty in finding two suitable young captives. And the fact that, in the meantime, this girl has been, we hope, successfully raced would make her all the more of interest to the Pasha."

            "Well," laughed the Prince, "I think you've made me a fair offer. Just come back here in a couple of months time with the other two new fillies and Fanciful will be yours!"

BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT

 PART IV

DRIVEN BY THE WHIP AND IN LOVE

22 - THE RACES

The warm late afternoon sun lit up the old stones of the half ruined amphitheatre.

            It had been built by the Romans for chariot racing after they had finally defeated Carthage and settled in North Africa. Not far away were the ruins of the of Roman forum - several sets of pillars still standing and others lying, half covered by the dry sandy soil.

            The Roman city had been abandoned when the barbarian Goths, from beyond the Danube had rampaged through Europe, onto Spain, across North Africa and up into Sicily. A couple of centuries later the all-conquering Arab armies of the Prophet had captured and occupied the land, converting the Berbers to their 1Aligion. They were still there now, a thousand years later.

            Arab horses had been the key to the Arab military success. Chariot racing had been re-introduced in the old amphitheatre by the young sons of the local rulers, seeking a way of asserting their competitive masculinity. It was a popular spectacle. People came from a wide area to watch the races and and large sums would be won and lost on the results.

            The oval shaped arena had seen better days, but the rows of stone seats were still largely intact - and were now crowded with excited and chattering Arab and Berber tribesmen wearing a medley of white, grey and brown eastern style robes, some hooded, some some of thin wool, some of cotton.

            A few Berber women women wearing brightly coloured long dresses accompanied their men - for many Berber women had maintained their former status and often went unveiled. Otherwise there were few women to be seen and those that were present were completely covered by black shrouds and veils that hid them from head to toe.

            There was an expectant air in the amphitheatre.

Suddenly a trumpet sounded. There was an immediate hush. Then in the entrance to the old tunnel, that led directly into the into arena, came a splendid sight, like a rippling wave of red and white - the well known colours of the Prince's family.

            A line of four magnificent chestnut Arab horses came slowly prancing into the arena, their red and white head plumes nodding in perfect time. They were led by black grooms wearing red breeches and white turbans from which flowed more red and white head plumes. The horses were evidently a closely matched team and were closely harnessed together.

            Then as this first team turned right into the arena, another similar team of horses, this time made up of matching greys, also with red and white head plumes came out of the tunnel - again prancing and again held by black grooms whose red and white head plumes matched those of the horses they held.

            But there was a difference, for as this team turned led right into into the arena it was seen to be pulling a brilliantly red and white painted light two wheel chariot. The crowd gave a roar as they recognised the well known features of the driver, who held the reins of his team of spirited horses. They were those of the Emir's son, the young Prince himself.

However, that was not all, for following behind the chariot was a a line of four half naked young black women, prancing in time to the horses, their breasts bouncing together and their red and white head plumes nodding. Their black skins glistened with grease, and were shown off by their white coloured running boots, and by short white cloaks that were thrown over their shoulders and fastened round their necks. They hung down their backs, disclosing their soft rounded buttocks.

            Hanging prominently from their noses were large shiny brass rings. However, the rest of the black women's features were half hidden by the leather blinkers on their bridles. They were linked by a light bamboo pole that was fastened to the rings at the back of their gleaming brass collars. Their wrists were also fastened to this pole, held up on either side of their bare bouncing breasts level with their collars. It was a position that showed off their prancing bodies well.

            From the middle of the pole, between the two centre women, ran a light chain fastened to the back of the chariot ahead of them. In the centre of the chain a short safety strap that would break to prevent an accident should the excited horses pulling the chariot break away from their grooms.

            Below each woman's naked full breasts and taut belly, hung a little white leather modesty flap, decorated with the name of the Prince in bold Arabic writing. From below it came the tinkling of a little bell

            The sight of the team of black women was also greeted with cheers, for chariot racing using teams of buxom women slaves was also a popular sport - going right back to the Roman days.

A greater cheer was reserved for what came next - a similar line of four half naked buxom women, their naked breasts also bouncing, their similarly coloured plumes nodding, and big brass nose rings bouncing on their chins. Their shiny brass collars and wrists were also fastened to a bamboo pole running along behind their necks. This pole was in turn attached by a long light chain to the centre of the black women's pole ahead of them.

            But what made this line different was that it was made up of white women - blond white women, their long honey coloured hair hanging down their backs over their short capes - which were black this time, as were their modesty flaps and running boots - the better to show off their white skins.

            They, too, were prancing in step, their red and white head plumes nodding prettily together, their full breasts bouncing in time, and the bells hanging from their beauty lips under their modesty flaps ringing also in time. On either side of them was a black groom, dressed in red and white, and cracking a whip.

            The white women's heads were again half hidden by the blinkers on their bridles, and they were looking straight ahead, clearly taking care to keep in step with the line of black women, and equally clearly too nervous of the black groom's whips to dare to look around.

An even louder cheer greeted the appearance of another four white women, the Prince's in-foal team. Their hands and necks, too, were fastened to a pole, from the centre of which ran a chain leading up to the centre of the pole to which the other team of white women were fastened. Their breasts were also bouncing and their head plumes were nodding as they pranced along.

            But what had excited the crowd was, of course, the sight of the prancing women's swollen bellies. With their heads and wrists held back by their pole their bellies were thrown into even greater prominence. The sight of Christian women being forced to carry progeny for their Master made the crowd roar.

The racing of teams of Christian white women was a new and highly popular development following the dramatic increase in the supply of these new slaves. Not surprisingly, the rich young Prince's well trained team of blond women, with their distinctive big brass nose rings, was particularly well known. Indeed, there was widespread support for using the women of the hated Christian dogs in this way. It was just what the infidels deserved! ...

            Strapped to her pole, second from the right in her team, and straining to raise her knees up level with those of her neighbours, Marie had been appalled by the roar from the crowd that greeted her prancing line of women. Because of her blinkers she could not see the crowd properly. Startled, she started to turn her head, but a whip flicked warningly across her bare buttocks.

            "Eyes fixed ahead!" came a warning shout from one of the black grooms.

            Ashamed, she let her head drop and forgot to strain to raise her knees so nigh. But instantly the black groom's whip caught her again across her soft buttocks.

            "Head up!" he ordered. "And knees right up! Prance!"

            With her head up and her wrists held up level with her shoulders, and her breasts bouncing in time with those of her neighbours, Marie realised that she must be an erotic sight as she pranced slowly around the arena, keeping in perfect step with the rest of the team. She could feel her little modesty flap also bouncing up and down with every step, giving the crowd tantalising little glimpses of her shorn beauty lips. She was aware of shouts from the crowd as they trotted past. It was all too awful but, harnessed as she was, she was quite unable to do anything about it.

            She heard another series of roars from the crowd as the other teams entered the arena to display themselves to the crowd.

Suddenly the chain linking her pole to the line of black women suddenly gave a jerk, and they turned prettily in succession behind the lines of horses, and of the black women, back towards the tunnel. Seconds later they emerged again into sunshine outside the amphitheatre. She saw that they were running towards the large tent from which flew the red and white flags of the Prince.

            The cortege halted. Marie was glad to get her breath back. Then the chain attached to the centre of her team's pole was unfastened from that of the black women. Holding the chain in one hand, a black groom led them into the shade of an awning by the side of the large tent. She could hear men's voices and the Prince's laugh from inside the tent.

            "Down!" ordered the black groom.

            Marie's team obediently dropped to their knees. They lent forward until with their wrists still strapped to the pole, their elbows rested on the sandy ground, on all fours with their faces just inches above it.

            "Knees apart!" Marie followed the other women in separating her knees wide apart. Oh, no, she thought, guessing what was coming.

            Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Prince and several of his friends stride out of the tent, rubbing his hands with pleasure and excitement. He was patting Achmed on the back, as he congratulated him on the impression that his teams had made on the crowd.

            "Prepare to perform!" ordered the black groom.

            Oh, no, Marie's mind raced, not in front of the young Prince! But she was too frightened of the groom's whip not to relax her belly muscles, as she knew she must.

            The groom kept them waiting for a full minute.

            "Get ready ... ready ... Perform!"

            Then, accompanied by a tinkling of the little bells hanging between their legs, there came the noise of running water and four little pools slowly disappeared into the sandy soil below each woman's outspread legs. Marie blushed.

            Then the black groom fastened the chain to a pole by the tent, and left the women kneeling there on all fours, chained by the neck and wrists to the same pole, their heads to the ground.

            Marie longed to ask her neighbours what was going to happen next. But their bits prevented any conversation. Indeed she did not even know if they had a common tongue, other than the few Arabic words of command that they had all had to learn to obey.

            She was aware of bustle all around them, as the first of the teams of horses was harnessed to the chariot and driven out, through the tunnel, into the arena. She heard roars from the crowd as each team entered and took up its position on the starting line. Then there was a sudden shot, and more excited roars as the teams sprinted down the arena to the first turning post, then back to the one near the start, and then down to the first one again, each driver trying to edge his rivals out of the way ...

            Finally it was the last lap and another shot announced the end of the race.

            Moments later the team of sweating and blowing horses returned to the shade of the awning, to be unharnessed, washed down and watered. Marie saw the Prince stride into the tent angrily shaking his fists in a gesture of frustration at not having won.

            Then it was the turn of the second team of horses, the beautifully matched chestnuts ...

This time it was a delighted Prince who drove the sweating horses back to his tent to be greeted by excited cries from the black grooms and congratulatory slaps on the back from his friends. He had won!

            But it was again an angry young Prince who, a little later, drove his team of perspiring black women black to the tent. Furious, he jumped down from the chariot, shouted an order to Achmed, and went into the tent. Marie saw Achmed pick up a long carriage whip.

            The frightened looking black women were unchained from the chariot. Their wrists and the rings at the back of their collars were again fastened to a light bamboo pole which was chained down to the same pole as the line of white women. Then Marie and her team were made to face the black women, kneeling like them on all fours on the sandy soil.

            "Up!" Achmed shouted angrily.

            Marie saw the black women raise their buttocks. She saw that, under her bridle and bit, the pretty young black girl now facing her, was looking terrified. She saw Achmed raise his carriage whip.

            "You bad, lazy sluts!" he screamed and expertly brought the long whip down across the quivering line of buttocks. The black girl gave a little muted shriek behind her bit.

            "Pay attention, you white women," now shouted Achmed, as he brought his whip down again and again onto the buttocks of the helplessly writhing black women,. "This is what will shortly be happening to you if you don't win your race!"

            Marie did not understand exactly what Achmed was saying, but the meaning of his words was quite clear. She felt terrified as she saw the whip descend again and again, making the eyes of the sobbing black girl in front of her almost pop out of her head with the pain. The black women all moaned in unison, behind their bits, with each stroke of the whip.

            Marie could feel her own bamboo pole, jerk in sympathy with each stroke as the appalled line of white women silently thanked God that the whip was not coming down across their buttocks.

            "You lazy black sluts," Achmed was shouting, "next time you'll kill yourselves and strain your guts out, rather than come back to another thrashing like this!"

23 - MARIE'S TEAM WINS

It was a frightened team of blond women who were unfastened from their long bamboo pole.

            Their pretty black cloaks were removed to give the Prince's driving whip better access to their backs.

            Long driving reins were then fastened to the rings of the women's bits, which were tightened to make the women more responsive to the slightest pull or jerk on the reins. Belly girths were fitted round their waists and the chain from the ring at the back of each one was fastened to the front of the chariot.

            As usual there was a strong metal spring in the centre of each woman's chain that would act as a constant indication as to whether she was really straining to thrust her belly forward to pull the chariot - or was just running along. Woebetide the bare back and buttocks of girl whose spring was not kept fully stretched, for the Prince was an expect with his driving whip.

            Each woman's belly girth was attached with a short chain to that of her neighbours, and her wrists were also strapped to those of her neighbours, all to ensure that the women would remain in line and pull as one team.

            Then Marie felt horribly embarrassed when, so as not to hamper her when running fast, she felt her prettily modesty flap also being removed by Achmed, to be followed by the small bell and by the padlock that had kept her two little rings so tightly closed for so long.

            She could feel her beauty lips opening up like a flower, under Achmed's approving gaze. She longed to touch them, but with the big head black groom watching, she did not dare to do so. Anyway with her wrists strapped to those of her neighbours it would have been very difficult.

            She could feel her belly quivering with the new found freedom of her intimacies. Highly embarrassed she saw that Achmed was smiling as he saws that the bellies of the rest of the team were also quivering.

            Finally, their blinkers were adjusted to ensure that the women could only see things immediately in front of them. Although the surprised Marie did not then realise it, this was done to prevent them from looking around during the race for the next post and guessing it wrong.

            It was essential that the team should run only in the direction decided by their driver who then guided them by their reins, and at the speed he decided - using the reins to slow them down and conserve their energy or to prevent another team from getting between his team and the next post, and using his whip to drive them on quickly past another chariot or to race towards the next post.

            "Prancing on the spot!" ordered Achmed, to warm them up after their long spell of kneeling on the ground. "Now get those knees right up!" He cracked his whip warningly.

            As Marie strained to obey the strict black groom, she saw the Prince come out of the tent and walk purposefully towards the chariot and its waiting team of white women. She blushed as she saw his gaze drop down down to her now bared intimacies.

            Moments later she felt a little jerk in her mouth as he picked up the reins. Then she felt his whip touch her naked buttocks.

            "Trot!" she heard him order, and then make a clicking noise with his tongue. She moved forward, but her belly girth was jerked back as the chain linking it to the chariot became bar taut. For a moment she stopped, but as if the Prince had been watching for such a re-action, he brought his driving whip down with a crack across her back. Obediently, she thrust her belly forward pulling hard on the chain behind her. The whip was remorseless. She strained hard, and slowly the chariot moved forward.

             Then she felt a jerk on the side her mouth and the team wheeled round towards the tunnel, the chariot now moving easily behind them.

            As they came out into the arena, she saw that several new posts had been erected. She was to learn that they were to mark the complicated course for the women's chariot races.

            She also saw that several other teams of white women were already lined up. They were of different sizes and hair colours, and one was of women who had had their hair shaved right off, leaving their bald craniums shining in the sunlight. But each team was composed of women who were almost identical. Indeed an impassive looking mullah was going down the line, checking that each team was composed of sufficiently matching women, and when the Prince pulled his team to a halt alongside the other teams, the mullah came over to look at them.

            He stood in front of the team, his eyes slowly working downwards as he compared their hair, their faces, their breasts, their waists , their bellies and then, most embarrassing of all, came closer to compare their mounds and beauty lips.

            Satisfied he stepped back. Marie felt the Prince pull hard back on her reins, and at the same time she felt a slash across her back. Obediently she started to prance on the spot.

            Suddenly a musket was fired. The whip crashed down across her back, but already Marie had been pulled forward by the rest of the team and was straining, pushing her belly forward, to get the chariot moving again. Within seconds they were rushing down the sandy arena towards what was the first turning post.

            Marie was astonished, however, to find herself, and the rest of the team being pulled out to one side. It must be a mistake! She tried to go on straight ahead, but the whip flicked her rump, making her obey. The whole team ran out to the side.

            Marie then saw that several of the other teams were dashing towards the post to try and turn inside their rivals. But there was soon turmoil at the post, and although the Prince was taking a risk in taking a much longer route round the post, in fact his team was lying third as they raced back towards the starting line.

            Marie was then astonished to feel herself being pulled back. What she did not then know was that the race was still only in its early stages, and that the Prince was anxious to conserve the energies of his team, as he now started to guide them through a zig-zag maze of posts.

            The whip cracked, making the women all strain forward with their bellies, and overtake one of the teams ahead of them. Moments later they were made to put on a similar burst as as another team tried to do the same to them.

            The Prince was now showing great expertise as he steered his way round what seemed to Marie to be a confusing succession of posts. She was sweating now, and the Prince had to use his whip frequently to keep her pulling properly.

            She could hear the cheers of the crowd. Desperately out of breath, she wondered how much longer the race would last. How many times had the team raced up and down, and across, the arena? With her view deliberately restricted by her blinkers, she had no idea. All she could think of was running as her reins guided her, and of straining her belly forward again whenever the whip was slashed across her naked back. She was feeling more and more exhausted. Could she go on for much longer, she wondered. But the whip ensured that she did!

            Vaguely she aware that the crowd were on their feet, shouting for the Prince. Marie saw that they were overtaking the equally tired team ahead of them. The Prince's whip was being applied hard. Marie wanted to scream with the double pain of the whip and of her pounding heart.

            Then suddenly they were past the other team and at the same time a musket shot again rang out. Gratefully she felt her bit being pulled back. The race was over. They had won!

            She wanted to collapse onto the ground, but the Prince's whip spurred them into a little trot as he drove them around the arena, acknowledging the plaudits of the crowd. Not until the team were back in the shade of the awning was she allowed to collapse onto all fours, struggling to get her breath back, as a black boy groom washed her sweat covered body down with cold water.

            If she had understood Arabic, she would might have blushed excitedly as the Prince, stepping down from the chariot called out Achmed.

            "Well done! You even got that new filly fit. After I've raced the in-foal team, I want this one sent to my harem as a reward. So don't bother put back their padlocks and bell now. I shall want you to come and collect them again a couple of hours later and you can padlock and bell them again then. I don't them to start getting ideas above their station!"

            Then he paused. Marie would have been scared out of her wits if she had understood his next words.

            "I don't want them getting complacent just because they've won one race. Nor getting soft. You'd better give them a good thrashing for not having won more convincingly! But not too hard! A thrashing will also get them ready and eager for my embraces - the whip never fails to get most white sluts aroused, no matter how much they may try and fight it!"

            He strode off, to and get his winning prize.

            Achmed smiled. He picked up the carriage whip. He always enjoyed thrashing, simultaneously, a whole team. Having to make certain that each woman was equally hurt by each stroke, but not too hurt, was quite a challenge and an opportunity to show off his expertise with the long whip.

            "Heads to the ground, you white infidel sluts," he shouted. "Buttocks up!"

            Four soft little bottoms were obediently raised. Their backs still showed the marks of the Prince's driving whip.

            Achmed raised the long carriage whip high in the air. His feet were well apart. He rose up onto his toes, turning his body slightly.

            Again he smiled. Whilst he was in charge of the stables there would little chance of any his women getting soft! He would however, just beat them hard enough to both arouse them and make them try even harder next time. Perhaps six strokes would be enough. No, better make it nine!

            He brought the whip down for the first stroke|. There was a splattering noise. All four little quivering bottoms gave a violent jerk and began to writhe. There was the noise of four little muted cries.

            Achmed waited silently for half a minute. He knew that the women would waiting for the next stroke terrified. Good!

            "Buttocks up!" he then ordered grimly.

            Accompanied with little moans, four pretty bottoms were obediently raised. Across each one was a thin red line. There was the noise of bits being champed in terror.

            Achmed adjusted his position and took careful aim. He wanted the next red streaks to be just below the first ones. Again he raised the long whip ...

24 -TAKEN BY THE PRINCE

The two burly negroes were walking up and down, chatting, in front of the silent line of nervous white women. Their sumptuous robes contrasted sharply with the half naked state of the frightened women.

            At a first glance the women looked as they had done at the parade in the amphitheatre before the races had started. Once again they were chained by the neck and wrists to a bamboo pole. But this time their wrists were strapped to the pole on the far side of the necks of their neighbours, with their arms stretched out behind their neighbours shoulders, under their little black cloaks. The effect was to group the women much more closely together with their bodies all touching so that they could combine to make a pleasantly soft and interesting mattress for the Prince.

            Another difference was that the stable numbers embroidered on their short modesty flaps had also been painted, for the convenience of the Prince, on their foreheads

            But the main difference was that their bridles and bits had been removed and replaced by stiff leather muzzles, that held their mouths open and ensured complete silence. Each muzzle had an open circle in the centre, through which something long and large could be inserted into the woman's mouth - just what, the women could only guess.

            Marie and the rest of the team were standing in the sumptuous ante room to the Prince's bedroom in the palace which his doting father had given him. Priceless silken carpets lay on the floor, and golden coloured Arabic writing adorned the walls. A Turkish ottoman sofa stood in the middle of the room in front of the line of quivering women. A door in the wall led into a screened balcony from which the Prince could look down into his harem without being seen.

            Under their black cloaks, each woman's backs was criss-crossed by the marks of the Prince's driving whip and below her cloak her exposed buttocks showed the nine neatly spaced thin red marks of Achmed's carriage whip. - living evidence of his accuracy with the whip.

            After several weeks of having to live in a stables like an animal, Marie was amazed with the unaccustomed luxury of it all. Desperately embarrassed she could feel that under her modesty flap she was still aroused - something that she had been unable to prevent happening whilst they were flogged by Achmed and which had been continued by the growing realisation of what was going to happen to her. Whilst feeling terrified and appalled, she could not also help herself feeling increasingly excited at the thought of being in the private apartments of the Prince, her handsome and dominating Lord and Master.

            One of the negroes strolling up and down was Achmed himself, the Prince's head groom and one of his most prized servants. The other was an equally prized servant: the Prince's chief black eunuch in charge of his harem.

            "I don't know why he wants to use your women," the black eunuch was jealously grumbling in a falsetto voice that seemed strange coming from such a powerful looking man. "He's got plenty of women here in his harem, and of all shapes and sizes, and colours, So he's no need to have to use any of yours. And mine are all well trained by my staff to give exquisite pleasure to a man, with the knowledge that this whip awaits any one of them that displeases or disappoints His Highness in the slightest way."

            He raised a short thick whip of rhinoceros hide that was attached to a short handle.

            "With thus," he grunted, "I can make any woman, even the most obstinate and reluctant dog of a Christian woman, do anything that I want."

            Achmed laughed.

            "Don't worry, my friend, we are both in the same business - using our whips," Achmed raised his carriage whip with its long thong neatly curled in his hand, "to make women, and especially white women, perform, albeit in different ways, against their will for the pleasure of His Highness."

            "Yes," protested the black eunuch, " but why does he want to bed this lot of ignorant creatures from the stables, when he has my sweet-smelling and well trained women to choose from?"

            "Well, they have just earned him a large prize," smiled Achmed. "Perhaps he'll use it buy more women for you to supervise and train!"

            "Ah! Do you think so?" asked the eunuch feeling mollified. "I have told him that we should buy a Christian mother and daughter, or a pair of sisters, and train them to perform together. But such women are rare and very expensive, even these days"

            "Well, he's got to spend the money on something - and there's no more room in the stables for horses or women! And like the other Emirs, his family is now so rich, thanks to the demand for our corn from the warring French and British, that they really don't know what to do with it all - except buy more exotic slaves, and race women pulling chariots. So why shouldn't he buy an exotic pair, as you suggested. But what do really you think of these ones?"

            "Well, I must admit," said the now laughing black eunuch, "that these little creatures of yours are a good looking team."

            He turned towards Marie, and lifted up a breast.

            "Nice and firm, I must admit. She'd make a fine milk slave for the Prince's father."

            "Oh don't suggest that!" said Achmed. "She's only just been trained to take the place a woman who's going to be one of his milk slaves. I don't want to lose another one!"

            The black eunuch put his hand down onto Marie belly. With her hands outstretched and fastened to the pole behind her neck,she was helpless to prevent him, nor with her mouth tightly muzzled could she protest.

            "And she'd look delightful here in the harem carrying a large Haratin half-breed child," the large eunuch murmured. Then he bend down and lifted up Marie's modesty flap. "And what lovely little lips! Smooth like a little girl's ... And nicely ringed too - just like I ring my girls ... And with the inner lips nicely stretched ...By the weight of a bell, I should imagine! Yes, very nice ... I can see she's been kept pure, too. That's what the Prince likes ... And inside she's still tight like a little girl too!"

            "You eunuchs are not the only people who know how to control a white woman's body and to bring out bring out the best in her," said Achmed proudly. "We black grooms could probably teach you a trick or two ..."

            Further discussion between the two negroes over their white charges was stopped by the entrance of an intelligent looking white youth dressed in tight white cotton breeches, a white waistcoat and a tall white conical hat - the traditional uniform of a white eunuch. He was one of the Prince's page boys. His skin was soft like a girl's. He was Italian and been captured by Barbary corsairs and castrated just as his manhood was about to flower. Now it never would, but instead he had a position of trust as a slave in the household of a wealthy and influential young man.

            The youth glanced at the line of half naked women, and at Marie's beauty lips that were still being examined by the chief black eunuch. Such sights had no interest for him - which was why the Prince could use him as a personal attendant, even in his harem and even at even the most most intimate moments.

            "His Highness requests that the women be strapped down across his bed," he announced in his childishly treble voice. "He wishes to take a little late siesta after all the excitements at the races ... "

            "They're all yours now, " laughed Achmed to the chief black eunuch. Then he turned to the line of watching women. Silently he unwound the coils of the thong of his carriage whip. Then he wagged an admonishing finger at the terrified women. Not a word was said, but the gesture was quite enough to make to make them realise what awaited them if they did not cooperate fully in what was now going to happen to them.

Ten minutes later Marie lay between the other women of the team, across a huge bed. Her neck and wrists were still fastened to the bamboo pole under her head, and the bodies of her two neighbours were still pressed tightly up against her's. They lay like an extra mattress on the bed - their naked breasts and bellies making it a particularly soft mattress it must be said, for their cloaks and leather modesty flaps had been removed, leaving them stark naked except for their brass collars and nose rings - and, of course, the little silver rings threaded through their beauty lips.

            But, over their naked bodies and over their muzzled heads, a thin white sheet had been flung to hide these distractions from the presently tired Prince.

            To ensure that the living mattress kept quite still, and would not disturb the Prince's nap, the women's ankles had also been chained down to the far side of the bed. Each woman was therefore stretched out straight across the bed.

            Suddenly Marie heard the door open and footsteps. She heard the Prince's well known voice and that of his white eunuch page boy. She heard the rustling noise of a man being helped out of his robes. Then suddenly she felt a violent shock across her stomach as the Prince flung himself down onto his bed.

            Unable to move or cry out, Marie had to endure the naked Prince's movements as he curled up across his living mattress and fell asleep, his shoulders nestling on Marie's belly, his hips lying on the belly of one of one of her neighbours, and his head curled up between the breasts of her other neighbour.

            It was an extraordinary feeling. Her Master, the Prince, the man she both hated and adored, was lying nonchalantly asleep across her tautly chained body whilst she remained hidden under the sheet, unable to see him. She lay there scarcely daring to move for nearly half an hour, her thoughts in a turmoil.

            Then she felt the Prince stir. Evidently much refreshed by his sleep, he felt him kneel up, one of his knees pressing painfully into her belly. She heard him an order, and the answering boyish voice of his page-boy. The sheet was suddenly whipped off her face and slipped down away from the row of naked bodies.

            Unable to move or speak, she looked open eyed at the Prince's naked young muscular body. Horrified she could feel her exposed body lips becoming moist again.

            She continued to watch open mouthed as the Prince started to play first with one soft breast and then another, alternatively sucking at a nipple and then squeezing it. She felt her arousal violently increase. She could not help gazing up at him in adoration, and when she saw that his manhood was now aroused, her own arousal increased in a sort of uncontrollable sympathy.

            She saw him drive his manhood down into the circular hole of her neighbour's muzzle. Suddenly realising the purpose of these holes, she tried to scream out in protest, "No! No! Not that, no!" But scarcely a moan escaped past her lips, forced by the leather muzzle, to remain wide open.

            The Prince gave a grunt, and removed his manhood from her neighbour's mouth. He looked up and down the line of pretty muzzled faces. Then suddenly kneeling on on Marie breasts, he drove his manhood down into her mouth.

            She found that the muzzle prevented her from biting it, but she almost choked as the tip hit the back of her throat. She looked up at him imploringly.

             But the Prince merely called out, " Beat her across the belly, you useless boy."

            Seconds later she writhed with pain as a whip slashed across her tummy. She knew she must surrender - and abjectly. Instinctively she knew what she must do.

            The Prince smiled as he felt a soft tongue running itself along the tip of his manhood. It was delightful feeling, but even more delightful was the feeling of power that came from having forced the girl into doing it, forced her into accepting her own sensuality. Indeed Marie was now happily licking with delight.

            It was time to repeat the process with the remaining two women. Marie felt a sudden feeling of deprival as the hard manhood was removed from her mouth and driven down fiercely into that of her other neighbour. She found herself shaking her head slightly as if trying to attract the Prince back into her forcibly open mouth. She felt so ashamed, but she could not help it. The presence of her naked and all-powerful Master, who had such total control over his women, overwhelmed her.

Get them kneeling on the bed!" came the Prince's sudden order. The white page boy hastily unfastened the women's ankles and then pulled them up onto their feet. Then he turned the line of women round and pushed them down onto the bed.

            Marie found herself kneeling on the bed with her head touching the under sheet, and her buttocks in the air, alongside those of her neighbours.

            "Prepare them!" she heard the Prince order.

            She was aware that the white page boy was coming down the line of proffered bottoms, a jar of something in his hand. Seconds later she felt his fingers ...

             Grease! It was was a pot of grease. My God, she thought, oh, no! No, not there!

            But the Prince came down the line remorselessly, driving into each woman in turn. Despite her initial disgust, she soon found herself pressing back at him in a gesture of utter servility, and when he withdrew to try out her neighbour she again found herself overwhelmed with a deep sense of deprival, mixed with bitter jealousy.

A few minutes later the team all lay helplessly on their backs again, whilst the Prince amused himself with bringing each little beauty bud out of it's shell and tickled it until felt it was about to burst, whereupon he would turn his attention to another one, leaving the owner of the first one almost demented with frustration.

            The first time it happened to Marie, she could scarcely believe the depth of her feelings. So near to ecstasy and then abandoned!. She could feel her inner thighs running with moisture.

            But the Prince was still enjoying himself with his team of four beautiful blond women whom had all been deliberately kept frustrated ever since they had first been stabled. He made each woman in turn raise her legs high in the air as he penetrated her.

            Marie felt desperately jealous as apparently ignoring her he used both her neighbours in turn. On both occasions he bent over, however, and sucked her nipples, bring her to a pitch of excitement and frustration.

            "Take me, take me," she longed to scream. But her muzzle ensured silence.

            She found herself raising her intimacies towards the Prince in a desperate effort to catch his attention.

            Finally he seemed to notice her, lifted up her legs and drove deep into her. Oh the sheer ecstasy! She longed to put her arms around him and hold him to her. But with her wrists still strapped to the pole she could do nothing except wriggle, and then instinctively curl her legs around his waist in a gesture of fierce possession. But then, even before the Prince could give an order, the the watching white page boy had brought his little dog whip down across the back of her thighs, forcing her to desist.

            Moments later the Prince withdrew and this time the feeling of deprivation was even fiercer as the Prince moved on down the line ... 

            But minutes later to Marie's indescribable excitement he was back, alternatively penetrating her and her neighbour and bringing each to a peak of sheer joy.

            Marie was desperate lest he might reach his climax inside her neighbour, and found herself straining every muscle in her belly to bring him to a point of no return. At last she was rewarded. As she felt his seed jetting up inside her, all her own long pent-up sensuality also climaxed. As she did the Prince ripped off her muzzle and kissed her passionately.

            "Darling! Darling!" she heard herself cry out. They were the first words she been able to utter since she had been stabled.

            Never had love-making been so thrilling - or so humiliating.

She was still feeling herself in a seventh heaven when, the Prince and his page-boy having left the room, Achmed returned to take the team back to the stables, back to their stalls, back to their life of being constantly exercised and prepared for the next race, having first carefully douched Marie and replaced her muzzle.

            It as indeed a different Marie who lay on the straw of her stall that night, her night chain fastened to her collar, and her wrists firmly strapped to her belly girth to prevent her from touching herself.

            But all she could think of was the the memory of the muscular and beautiful body of the virile Prince, and of the extraordinary excitement of feeling him moving inside her. It had all been so different than the love making of her elderly Count back in Naples.

            She had never really thought that a man's body could be beautiful, but now she felt that that the Prince was the most beautiful man she had ever met. She was just so lucky to be one of his slave girls, one of his team of white racing fillies, and to be utterly, but utterly in his power.

19 - DEATH AND DISASTER

Marie could hear the roar of the crowd. For two weeks there had been an expectant air in the stables, as if both horses and women were being prepared for some special race. Clearly this was it and her team's turn was next.

            She was again kneeling silently with the rest of her team on the sandy soil in the shade of the Prince's tent. Her head was to the ground, but the team were now considered to well enough disciplined for the pole to be dispensed with. Her hands were spread out on display on either side of her head. She longed to touch herself surreptitiously. It had been so long! But she did not dare do so. Such was the power of Achmed's whip.

            All the time whilst she had been made fitter than ever, exercised in the menage with the rest of the team, she had been thinking back of to the fantasy tic episode in the Prince's bedroom. She could not get him out of her mind. He was simply the most wonderful man in the world - and if she was just one of his racing fillies, then so be it. She would be best filly he had ever owned. She would pull her guts out for him, straining to move the chariot faster and faster, and to turn it tighter and tighter round the posts.

            She had not understand properly what the laughing black grooms said when Achmed had led the team back to the stables from the Prince's bedroom. But she had understood enough to realise that the only way she would again experience the utter ecstasy of feeling the Prince's magnificent manhood inside her, was if the team won another race.

            This had been enough to make her only too willing to accept the harsh discipline of the stables and the rigorous training sessions. Her team must win again. They must! And now they were about to be raced!

            To her great disappointment, the Prince had largely ignored her team since the race, preferring to leave their further training to Achmed and his black groom assistants. When he had briefly come to check their progress, she had been overcome by her feeling of love for this magnificent young man who had taken her in such a virile manner.

            Achmed had taught the team always to part their legs, submissively, in the presence of the Prince. To Marie, it had seemed only right and proper to do so. Achmed had also taught them, at a word of command, to fall to their knees and humbly kiss the Prince's riding boots. Oh, how she longed to do so, thought Marie.

            Only minutes before she had dared to glance at him under her lowered head as he driven his team of chestnut horses off to this race. He had looked so manly, so dominant, so wonderful. so ...

            Achmed now came over and looked down at the team of white women with satisfaction. He could see that tension was building up in them. He could see that little Fanciful's body lips were glistening beneath the two rings that that held them tightly closed. Clearly she was getting excited thinking about what might await her - if they won again. Good! She would strain all the harder during their race - a race in which the prize money was to be an all time record....

Suddenly Marie heard the the cheering crowd fall silent. Then she heard cries of anguish and despair. What could have happened?

            Nervous of Achmed's whip, she she slightly lifted her head. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Achmed run towards the tunnel that led into the arena.

             Minutes later she saw the excited and sweating chestnuts being led back out of the tunnel, back towards the Prince's tent. The chariot was empty . It seemed to be at an awkward angle. Then she saw that a wheel was missing and that instead the axle was dragging in the sand. Where was the Prince, she thought anxiously, as she knelt on all fours, her head still to the ground like the rest of the team.

            She saw several black grooms carrying something wrapped in white. Under the wrappings she recognised the Prince's racing shirt. The grooms lay him on the ground. He was dead!

            Rounding a post at a full gallop the wheel of another chariot had hit the wheel of the Prince's chariot, tearing it off and flinging the the Prince out of the chariot and into the path of two chariots galloping immediately behind him. He had been killed instantly.

            The grim figure of the Prince's father, the Emir, was approaching surrounded by his entourage. Tears were pouring down his grizzled face. Dumbly he took the body of his son into arms and wept silently.

            Then he straightened up.

            "Achmed!" he called. "Close down my son's racing stables. Sell of his teams of chariot racing horses. I don't want ever to be reminded of how he died ... Oh, what a waste! Why did he ever take up this silly dangerous sport? He would still be alive today , if only he had listened to me! Oh, my son! My son!"

            "Of course, Your Highness, of course," replied Achmed, wiping back his own tears. "But, Your Highness, what should I do with his teams of women?"

            "Shave their heads, and divide them up between between my farms. Let them work as labourers. I never want to see them again! Oh, my son! My son! Why did you ever take up this silly sport?"

BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT

 PART V

REPLACEMENTS FOR THE FRENCH GOVERNESS

26 - A CHANGE OF PLAN

"I've just heard in the bazar that Prince Hosein has been killed chariot racing," said Hassan, the slave dealer. "I wonder what will happen to your French girl."

            Inwardly I groaned. Just my luck!

            This had to happen just as I was about to set out with the two blond girls that Hassan had taken great care to obtain for me.

            He had heard that a Corso was planning to raid a certain coastal village in Calabria which hundreds of years ago had been a Greek settlement. Because of its isolation, the population had remained largely unchanged ever since. Like several similar places in Calabria, the men still had long Greek noses - and the women had blond hair and blue eyes. He had accordingly arranged to take delivery of the women seized in the raid, and had found two which would match the Prince's requirements.

            I had been delighted, and even the Pasha, who had initially been angry at at my failure to return with the French girl, was now pleased with the plans I was making.

            But now the Prince was dead! All my carefully laid plans would come to nought. What indeed would happen to the French girl? The Emir was not interested in chariot racing! And Moslem men do not talk about their women. Finding finding out where the girl was now, might be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

            The Pasha's wrath would indeed be great ...

But Hassan must have seen my disappointment.

            "Don't despair, my friend. Under Moslem law, she will become the property of his father, the Emir."

            Hassan paused and looked shrewdly at me. "This is evidently an important matter. Does the Pasha think that the girl might have certain information that he is willing to pay to have?"

            I nodded.

            "Well than," he said, "perhaps I can help you - and myself as well!"           "But how can you ...? " I began.

            "As I told you, I sell many of my girls more than once!"

            "Yes, yes," I said impatiently, "but what's that got to do with my problem of getting hold of the French girl? If she's now the property of the Emir himself, how can I persuade him to part with her after his son had paid so much for her?"

            "Simple!" laughed the slave dealer. "By offering him something he just cannot resist having, and then making it clear that he can only have what he wants in exchange for the French girl."

            "Yes, but what can I, a mere officer of the Janissaries, offer him."

            "Well, as I said, perhaps I can help you!" laughed Hassan. "But it must be understood that the girl then becomes my property again to sell to the Pasha at a handsome, but not too exorbitant, profit! In that we are all happy: the Emir is happy, I make my profit, the Pasha gets the girl and you get the credit!"

            Such was the importance of the Pasha's scheme, that I knew that he would not object to paying highly to get hold of the girl.

            "All very clever," I said, "but I still don't see what we can offer them."

            "Listen, my friend. I have been a slave dealer, specialising in captured white women for many years, and my father was one before me. I know what these rich Emirs really long to possess - especially the older ones, like the Emir of Zanda."

            "Yes, pretty Christian women for their harems," I said impatiently

            "No! They're used to that. They want more."

            "More?" I asked.

            "Yes, my friend, and as a slave dealer, it's my business to make such dreams come true - but at a price, a very high price! ... Come let's go and see whether I have something with which you might be able to tempt the Emir of Zanda to part with the the French girl."

            Hassan rose and said something to his white eunuch page-boy, who ran off. Then he led the way through a door. Tulip followed along behind me.

27 - A CHOICE OF EXOTIC CREATURES

I found myself in a large darkened room. In the darkness I saw a black eunuch who was patrolling up and down, in front and behind, a raised platform in the middle of the room.

            "This is my fattening and whitening room," Hassan explained.

            "Fattening and whitening," I said. "What do you mean?"

            "In Europe, you may admire a slender woman. But here many buyers prefer them plump. 'If you want a slender waist,' says one of our proverbs,'then buy a slave boy.' Some men even like a really fat girl. There's quite a demand for a girl with a dead white skin and who is so large that she can only waddle."

            "Yes, I know," I said. I had heard of such tastes.

            "Well, so as to meet this demand, I put a few of of my freshly captured Christian slave women, selected to be sold as pleasure slaves, into small fattening cages in this darkened room. They're then force-fed with a special mixture of milk and melted sweetened butter, before being offered to certain of my clients - or shown off to their chief black eunuchs."

            I looked at the platform. As my eyes got used to the darkness, I saw that there was a row of half a dozen long narrow cages on the platform. Being raised on the platform would make it much easier to see into them. There was complete silence. Then I saw that there were hands, human hands, gripping the bars of the front of cages, and behind the hands I could see women, women lying on their bellies, and silently looking out towards us. Over their mouths was a tight gauze muzzle, fastened behind their necks, and which would prevent them from opening their mouths to speak.

            "And the reason why I keep it so dark here, is to make the women's skins quickly become completely white. Once again that's what some buyers are looking for. A completely white plump body. Don't forget that women in this part of the world never go outside except heavily veiled and with their bodies completely covered. So the bodies of even Arab women are often very white.

            "My God!" I said, " You seem to think of everything."

            Hassan nodded.

            Yes, " he said, "after a few weeks these girls will have put on a lot of weight, and their bodies will have become completely white. They're then ready to be sold for a very high price to rich men, either privately, or put on display before being auctioned on the block. And because they've been kept on a liquid diet, their bottoms will have tightened up nicely - and that's something that many buyers will tell their black eunuchs to check. Remember, in these parts, many men often prefer to use a woman like a boy! You must have enjoyed doing so yourself!"

            I laughed and looked at Tulip who was standing at attention behind me. It was true! England seemed a long way away from the Barbary Coast, and English morals seemed inapplicable to life here in Marsa.

"Come and look at them being fed. You'll see that they're a fine lot of women!"

            Proudly, Hassan led me over to the line of cages. Tulip followed at a respectful distance.

            "Up! shouted the black eunuch.

            There was a rattle of chains. I saw that the cages were so low that the naked woman inside each one could only kneel upon all fours.

            They were beautiful girls and they made an erotic sight. I felt my loins move.

            I was glad that Tulip had been gelded. I looked at the front of his tight white breeches. I did not want him getting excited by the sight of these naked women!

            Each woman was chained to the bars at the front of her raised cage by a short chain locked onto her collar, and which prevented her from even trying to turn round in her narrow cage. She would thus be constantly on display to the patrolling black eunuch.

            I also saw that each woman's wrist manacles were joined by a short length of chain that went round one of the bars at the front of the cage.

            "That's to stop them from wiling away the time by touching themselves," said Hassan. "Buyers want to see a girl who has been kept pure, and their black eunuchs are expert at the little signs that show when a woman has been playing with herself."

            "Yes, indeed, " I said, thinking of the precautions that Matrak took to prevent my own girls from giving themselves illicit pleasure. One his most effective measures was simply to make them wear bracelets with rows of tiny bells that tinkled with every movement of a girl's wrist, especially under the bedclothes.

            Matrak regarded playing with themselves behind my back as tantamount to being unfaithful, or even committing adultery, and any girl caught, or suspected of, doing so was always reported to me. It was amusing having the girl standing in front of my desk, on which a cane would be lying, whilst she twisted her hands with embarrassment as Matrak reported what he had seen or, in the case of the bracelets, heard. The girl might deny it, but by Moslem law a woman's evidence could not overcome that of a man, even if he was a eunuch, and invariably the matter would end with the sobbing girl later bending over to be thrashed by Matrak in my presence, and in front her companions in my harem - as a warning to them ...

"Of course," Hassan was saying, "we don't have to bother about this with black slavegirls because they've usually had their beauty buds removed when they were little girls in their native villages. But with white women, it's a constant source of worry. I often wonder whether I should have all my girls cut when we initially process them. We shave their mounds and beauty lips, and tattoo their slave numbers onto their onto their mounds. So why not snip off their beauty buds at the same time? It's such a little operation!"

            "Well!" I said hesitatingly. Personally, I enjoyed a responsive girl.

            "Yes, I find that most buyers like a whole girl, not merely for that reason, but also they can enjoy watching their black eunuchs controlling them and keeping them pure. But you'd be surprised at how many of my second-hand girls come back here having eventually been cut by order of their Masters. A man can get great pleasure by taking a woman whose own pleasure, he knows, has been seriously limited!"

            Before I could take him up on this, he pointed at the cages in front of us.

            "The two slavegirls at this end of the line of cages, have only just been put into this room," he explained.

            I could see that they were still slim and that their faces and arms were still tanned by the sun. Then he led me along to the other end of the line. Here the women's skins were very much whiter and as we went down the line, the women became progressively whiter, and more and more plump, their fattened breasts and bellies showing up well between their outstretched and now much plumper arms and shoulders.

            "They all have ten feeds a day, and two in the middle of the night. So their bellies soon start to plump up!", Hassan explained. Proudly he pointed to the girl in the end cage. "Look at this one, she's now ready to be sold! Perhaps the Emir of Zanda would be mad keen on owning her!

            I peered into her cage. The girl was very pretty, but seemed too grotesquely fat for my taste.

            Hassan put his hand through the bars and felt the girl's huge hanging breasts. With her wrists chained to the bars she was helpless to prevent him.

            "Wonderful!" he said. "She's come on really wonderfully. Come and look from behind."

            He took me behind the line of cages. Through the bars at the back of each cage, I could see the plump buttocks of the girl, and between them the strangely plump, and hairless, beauty lips. The black eunuch unfastened a little hatch in the bars, and with a sponge began to wipe the girl down. I noticed that at first the girl was trying to clench her buttocks. But then, with a little moan of despair or embarrassment, she relaxed them, allowing the black eunuch to complete his work.

            "Cleanliness is very important in these fattening cages," murmured Hassan

            The black eunuch stepped back respectfully to make way for Hassan, who with his fore finger outstretched thrust his hand into the cage.

            "Yes," he said, "she's now as tight as a virgin boy! She'll sell very well indeed."

I could see that the women were all kneeling on wooden slats that were about an inch apart, and which covered the bars that formed the bottom of the cages. There was a tiled open space below the cages with a drain. I remembered what Hassan had said about a liquid diet.

            We went back to the front of the cages.

            The black eunuch now went down the line, pouring the special fattening mixture into a bowl in the front of each cage under the each woman's tightly muzzled face.

      The eunuch shouted an order in his high-pitched voice, and immediately the woman all obediently dropped their heads and, through the little holes in their gauze muzzles, started to suck up the liquid in their bowls.

             I saw, however, that one girl kept her head up. There was a look of defiance in her eyes. The eunuch went up to her cage, his whip raised. I saw that the bars along the top ran back towards the end of the cage, rather than across it. This allowed the eunuch suddenly to bring his whip hard down, through the bars, leaving a red streak right down the girl's back, right back to her buttocks. She gave a little cry, muffled by her muzzle, and then lowered her head like the other women. The black eunuch stood over her, his whip raised, as she, too, slurped up the fattening mixture. e

            "They soon learn that they have to put on weight whether they like it or not." laughed Hassan cruelly.

            "But then why the muzzles? I asked.

            "Because it's so important that they retain their look of anxiousness, if they are to fetch a high price," explained Hassan. "Buyers want to buy a still frightened captured Christian girl, not a girl who has become used to the idea of slavery. So we keep them muzzled to prevent them from talking to each other. This, in turn, keeps them worried about why they are being kept in this darkened room, about why they are being fattened up, and about what is going to happen to them. But, of course, because their muzzles are of gauze they can still suck up their milk."

            Then Hassan pointed to bars at the sides of the cages. I saw that they were covered with planks.

            "Not being able to see each other also helps keep them anxious and uncertain. You see, they're always hooded when they're brought into this room to be put into their fattening cage. Then when their hoods are taken off, they find themselves, to their horror, muzzled and chained by the neck to the bars of a narrow little cage in a darkened room, and forced to slurp up huge quantities of specially fattening milk. It must be terrifying and they must long for the companionship of another Christian woman. But they never see one or hear one! They only know that something is in the cage next to them by hearing them slurping up their milk at the frequent feeding times. So they never have the relief of any contact with another white woman."

            It was all very clever and ingenious, I had to admit. I could see that a nervous young woman, uncertain about what was happening to her, or even where she was, would be much more exciting to buy and incarcerate in one's harem, than a rather bored or self confident one.

            However, somehow, I rather I doubted if any woman handled by Hassan would ever appear to be be bored or self confident when led in on a chain to be displayed naked to a buyer, or to his black eunuchs! ...

            My reverie was interrupted by Hassan who was jovially rubbing his hands together, and pointing to a door.

            "Enough of these fattened-up women," he laughed. "We can't be sure if they would really be to the taste of the Emir or not. So let's go next door and see if we can find something that we can be sure that the Emir would really long to own."

Moments later, I found myself sitting along Hassan in a smaller room. This time it was a bright and well lit one. In front of us were two wide doors, close together.

            Hassan explained that behind the doors were two tunnel-like corridors leading back to the slave quarters. Behind the doors were bars to prevent anyone in the corridors from escaping or harming us. The corridor wall would prevent anyone behind the bars in one corridor from seeing who was behind the bars of the other one.

            Hassan clapped his hands. The doors at the ends of the two corridors opened and in each stood a smartly dressed black eunuch. Each was carrying a little dog whip and each was leading a female figure by a chain fastened to her collar. Each woman's head was completely hidden by a white hood. They were dressed in long embroidered caftans, their long black hair hanging down their backs and their hands chained to their collars collars behind their necks.

            Giving the hooded figures little taps on the buttocks with their dog whips, the two black eunuchs drove them up to us, until there was only the bars at the end of each corridor between us and them. They, of course, were separated from each other by the wall between the two corridors.

            Hassan snapped his fingers, and the two black eunuchs began to unbutton the two women's caftans, pulling them back to display their naked bodies. Their faces were still hidden by their hoods, but their bodies were both very beautiful - and very similar, with well hung and prominent pear shaped breasts, long legs and slim waists. Clearly neither of them had yet suffered the indignities of being fattened up by being force-fed in the room next door.

            The two black eunuchs separately tapped the insides of the women's thighs, and obediently they parted their legs and bent their knees, exposing their similar and nicely shaped little hairless beauty lips.

            Hassan snapped his fingers again. The two black eunuchs slipped off the women's hoods. I saws that their eyes were beautifully painted and staring at us, through the bars, in a charming mixture of embarrassment and horror. Each was, I realised, ignorant that the other was standing equally exposed in front of us, just the other side of the wall.

            Each was gagged by a gauze muzzle, like those I had seen on the women in the other room. Being gauze it only half hid their similar features.

            Similar features! Similar bodies! I gasped as I realised that I was looking at a pair of beautiful young identical twins!

"Yes!" laughed Hassan. "Identical twins. A very rare collector's item. And one that might well tempt the Emir of Zanda."

            "Good Heavens!" I burst out.

            "Well, would yourself not find it unbelievably exciting to have this pair of beautiful European identical twin sisters trained by your black eunuchs to perform together for your private pleasure? Think about that! Think about having them both in your bed, each straining to give you more pleasure than the other, for fear of punishment later from your black eunuch's cane!"

            As I looked at the gorgeous young creatures being displayed naked before me, I could indeed feel my loins stirring. Owning them would be ecstasy indeed, but alas, hardly within the means of a Colonel of the Janissaries.

            "Yes indeed," I murmured carried away with desire. "But such a prize would be way beyond my purse. My harem is very small ... "

            "Exactly! But if you were the immensely rich Emir of Zanda, would you not be tempted by such as these, even if it meant giving up a delightful French governess?"

            "Yes, undoubtedly!" I laughed. Perhaps my quest was not going to so difficult after all!

            "Let's see an alternative idea," said Hassan. He waved his hand.

The two black eunuchs replaced the hoods over the two girl's heads, did up their caftans and led them away down the corridor. My heart ached as I watched the doors close behind them. Oh, if only I was a rich man!

            There was a pause and then the two black eunuchs returned, this time leading in two other, similarly dressed and hooded female figures.

            Again their caftans were undone. But this time the two bodies displayed were not identical. One seemed to be of a beautiful well preserved and slightly plump woman in her thirties. Her breasts were very full and her hips were rounded. Her legs were delicate and long. The other seemed to be of a young girl, with budding breasts, a tiny waist, and almost boyish hips. Her legs, however, seemed as long as those the woman who stood next to her, separated just by the thickness of the wall.

            When they were both made to part their legs and bend their knees, the contrast was even more marked. One had the pouting plump and scarlet beauty lips of a sensual woman and the other just a pink virginal slit.

            Their hoods were removed. Despite their muzzles, I could see a distinct resemblance between the two. The eyes seemed very similar, the line of the cheeks too, and their long lusciously thick black hair . They must be related, I thought.

            "Yes, my friend," laughed Hassan, " a beautiful and luscious mother and her pretty and virginal daughter!"

"My God!" I cried out, moved by the erotic sight in front of me as I had rarely been moved before. A mother and daughter! Both slaves in one man's harem!

            "Yes, I can see that you, too, would also be even more highly attracted by the idea of acquiring for your harem a beautiful white woman and her pretty daughter. Imagine how exciting it would be to watch the humiliation of the mother being taken by you in the presence of her daughter. Imagine how exciting it would be to have the daughter made by your black eunuchs to offer herself to you in the presence of her mother. Imagine secretly watching them being trained by fear of your black eunuchs whips to perform together in front of you for your amusement. Imagine them performing together in your bed for your pleasure!"

            Again I could indeed feel my loins stirring, indeed almost bursting, at such imagery.

            "Well?" asked Hassan. "Which pair do you think the Emir would find more irresistible? The twins or this mother and daughter?"

            My mind reeled. Never had I encountered such eroticism. What a choice! But not for me to enjoy!

            "This mother and daughter," I cried hoarsely.

            "Yes, I think I probably agree," came the calm voice of Hassan, apparently used to such overwhelmingly exciting rival displays.

            "But how do I come into it all?" I asked.

            "So why don't you take the mother and daughter with you - together with two of my black eunuchs to guard them. You can tell the Emir that you are taking them as a present from the Pasha to the Emir of Yunis, who is the hated rival of the Emir of Zanda. You show them to him and tell him all about them - until he is almost with lust and jealousy. Then you say that perhaps the Pasha would not not mind if you let him have them, but only in exchange for the French girl - wherever she may be.

            "You make it all sound so simple," I laughed.

            "It is! Go and end enjoy yourself in your harem tonight, and tomorrow come back and collect our mother and daughter. I'll have then both boxed up and strapped to the side of different camels - just as I sent the French girl off to the Emir's son.

            My head was still reeling as we shook hands and parted.

BARBARY ENSLAVEMENT

 PART VI

FIELD SLAVE!

28 - MARIE IS PREPARED FOR A NEW FORM OF SLAVERY

"Yes, His Highness, the Emir, is quite right to have his female field slaves' heads shaved," the large black overseer was saying to Achmed. Like Achmed, he was a former slave, put into a responsible post by the Emir because of his loyalty and his intelligence. "

             "These white women slaves," he went on, "labour much better on a farm if their heads are kept shaved. With a nice bald cranium, they don't waste time wondering all the time how they look. They are so ashamed of their strange appearance that that they just get on with the job in hand. And it serves the Christian pigs right! Moslem women modestly cover their hair, but these Christian pigs go about flaunting their hair like whores. But if we made them cover it with a chador, like a good Moslem woman, then it would only get in the way when they are working. So it's only right and proper, and practical, that this slave's hair should all come off!"

            He was gripping the kneeling Marie's head between his knees, as he sat quietly shaving off her hair. She was wearing a cotton caftan-like smock, underneath which she was naked. Her hands were bound behind her back.

            She was sobbing as her precious locks fell to the ground. She longed to run away, but her new overseer was gripping her head very tightly with his powerful knees, and behind her stood Achmed holding a lead attached to her collar in one hand and his whip in the other. At least she was no longer bitted and bridled! But she did not dare speak to the two terrifying negroes.

            "Rubbing this into her head every day will soon stop her hair from growing and keep her head nice and shiny, " said the black overseer, as he rubbed a burning depilatory cream in the girl's now bald head, making Marie cry out with the pain.

            "It's all right for you, Achmed," he went on, ignoring Marie little's moans. "You just had to train your women to win the occasional race, for the amusement of the rich young Prince. But here I have to produce corn and vegetables to sell to the accursed infidel French and British. It's what we produce here on the Emir's farms that makes him rich, so that he can afford a large harem, and so that his poor son - may he now be enjoying paradise - could afford your racing stables."

            "I won't argue you about that!" said Achmed sadly.

            He had similar tiresome conversations with the other black farm overseers when he had dropped off the other women to be turned into labourers. The supervisors of the Emirs women, especially of his white women, were all so jealous of each other, whether they were overseers of his farms or the chief black eunuch in charge of his harem. And they had also been so jealous of him, the Prince's former head groom. Each thought he knew best how to get the best out of a woman slave - particularly if she was a hated Christian. Still a little competition was a good thing!

             At least, he thought, this girl was the last one he had to deliver around the Emir's farms, and then he could get back to the stables where one of the Prince's young friends, the son of a rich Caid, was coming to see him to discuss taking him on as his head racing groom ...

            "Yes," the black overseer was going on, "my slave women have to labour hard every day. There's so much to be done. Here it's all non-stop work for my women! ..."

"That's better," said the overseer a few minutes later as he ran his hand over Marie's now shiny and smooth cranium.

            Then he pushed Marie's head back so that her face was raised. She was looking up at the razor in horror. Then he gripped her head again with his knees and deftly began to shave off her eye-brows.

            "These white women think themselves so superior. They think of their hair as their crowning glory. So cut it all off, and you'll reduce them to the same level as a black woman labourer. But I like to go further. I say, shave off their eyebrows as well and put a big ring through their noses, just as you have done to this one, and they really lose what they like to think of as their superior European looks - and work all the better for it!"

            He paused.

            "Now let's have a look at you," he said, releasing the crying Marie. "Stand up girl!"

            It was an Arabic command that Marie had learned to obey in the stables. Obediently she stood up. She longed to run her hands over her head and find out just had been done to her. She looked around for a mirror, but there was no such thing on this farm.

            "Yes, now she looks more like a field slave," he said with a laugh. "I'm glad you've already had her nose-ringed - that'll save a little time. I always nose-ring my Christian field slaves - not only it does it make them look more like a simple beasts of burden, but it makes them constantly aware that that is all they are now - and so I get more work out of them."

            "And in my case it made them constantly aware that they were just fillies - fillies in training, or mares in foal!" laughed Achmed.

            "And in my case, nose-ringing them has another advantage - it acts as a great deterrent to trying to escape. Your white fillies were always either chained up in their stalls or harnessed to a chariot, but here on a farm it's not always possible to keep them chained up the whole time and they might then be tempted to try and to run away. But with big brass rings through their noses they would stand out out immediately as an escaped slave. To prevent them from trying to escape I also used to have them all fitted with a chain joining their ankles. But this was awkward when they working and I was delighted to go over to the nose ring instead."

            "Yes, the brass nose ring is a very good idea for white slave women," agreed Achmed. "I hear that the Emir even had his white harem women nose ringed. He finds it makes them look more erotic!"

            "I'm not surprised!" laughed the overseer. " But changing the subject, has this slave been already marked?"

            "Oh, yes, " replied Achmed, whipping off Marie's smock. "As you can see."

            "Good. You can keep the smock," said the overseer. "I use my own design of working smock here - and it's a good deal shorter than yours. I like to keep their buttocks bare, so that they are always nicely exposed for my whip!"

            He laughed. "It's amusing how, even though my work smocks are ridiculously short, they are still treasured, especially by my white women. Short as they are, they a|low the women just a little modesty, though not as much as yours!

            "Ah!" replied Achmed, "but you must remember that mine were raced and exercised quite naked, so their longer smocks were really more like a horse rug to prevent them getting chilled when they came in still sweating - and of course to keep the sun off them, for the Prince, may his soul rest in Paradise, liked his team of white women to be really white. The sight of their really white naked bodies used to excite the crowd greatly!"

            "Well, I'm not concerned about my women getting a good tan, or a good tanning," laughed the overseer. "But even so, I don't let them dirty their working smocks in the pit cage."

            He pointed to a nail on a post from which hung a dozen tiny shifts. "That's all mine are allowed," he grinned, still sitting on his stool.

The fat overseer beckoned to Marie, standing naked and desperately embarrassed in front of the two men.

            Hesitantly Marie went up to him. What was he going to do to her now? She jumped as the overseer ran his black hands over her taut little belly, and ran a finger down the beautifully branded mark of the Prince. Then pushing the blushing Marie's legs apart, he took a close look at the small tattooed mark of Hassan, the slave dealer in Marsa, and at the neat brand on her belly with below it, just above her mound, her slave number.

            "Very good," he said grudgingly, "but I like to see a girl's number displayed where you can see it easily when you look down into the pit cage, or as she bends over to work."

            He made the frightened Marie kneel down again, between his knees. Then he picked up a needle and set of little bottles ...

A few minutes later he released Marie, now tattooed with the number "22", in large Arabic numerals, across her now shiny cranium.

            "You now just number twenty two," he said, contemptuously pointing at Marie. "Say it: 'Me Number Twenty Two'.

            He slapped Marie's face. "Go on say it, 'Me Number Twenty Two'

            She did understand the Arabic words, but clearly he was teaching her her new name. Terrified, she said it.

            Then he made her stand up again so that he could take a closer look at the little two silver rings in her inner beauty lips, at the padlock that kept them closed and at the bell that hung down between her legs.

            "It's a great problem how best to stop my women playing with themselves in the pit at night. They need all their energies for working for the Emir."

            "It was even more of a problem with girls being kept fit for racing," remonstrated Achmed.

            "Ah," replied the overseer, "but you were able to keep them in those fingerless fitness gloves, and keep their wrists strapped to their waists. But my women need to have their hands and fingers free, so that they work. So I believe in simply keeping their beauty lips sewn up, like the slave dealers keep their young virgins until they sell them.

            "Right, then, I'll take off her padlock and bell," said Achmed.

            Seconds later Marie felt her now freed beauty lips expanding like a flower - just as they had when the Prince's chief black eunuch had prepared her for the Prince's bed.

            "Stand still!" ordered the still seated overseer.

            Marie saw him bend down and pick up a curiously shaped needle and several little silver rings. The needle reminded her own she had seen before somewhere. Suddenly she remembered. It was just like the one that the terrifying barber in Hassan's slave preparation room had used to sew up the virgin girls.

            "Oh, no" she cried out, horrified. She tried to cover her defenceless beauty lips with her hands, but they were firmly fastened behind her back.

            "You keep quite still, if you don't want to get hurt," muttered the overseer, " and stand up straight. Now, get your legs wide apart and thrust out your belly."

            Marie did not understood all his words, but the meaning of his embarrassing orders was quite clear.

            "Hold her tightly now, " said the overseer to Achmed. "And put your foot between her legs."

            With a sob of despair, Marie thrust her belly forward.

            Seconds slater she gave a scream, and tried to move away and close her legs. But Achmed was holding her very tightly, arching her over backwards so that her beauty lips were easily accessible to the overseer's needle and rings. It was the first of whole series of little screams ....

Minutes later, the overseer lent back to admire his handiwork. The original two little silver rings in the girl's inner beauty lips lips had now bee matched with another four in each of her outer lips.

            The overseer now picked up a long leather lace, and started to thread it through the rings. Like the lacing on a shoe, a pretty lattice work of a leather laces mow held the girl's outer lips tightly closed again. To ensure even more protection he had also cleverly threaded the leather laces through the two rings hanging from her inner lips. Checking on their effectiveness, he tried to force his finger between the laces to reach the girl's beauty bud. But the laces prevented him from doing so.

            Satisfied he sealed the two ends of the lacing together.

            "One of the advantages," he explained to Achmed, "of the short smocks that I use on my women is that I can easily keep an eye on their lacings and make sure that they haven't been trying to loosen them."

            He laughed with a proprietary air, as he patted Marie's now tightly squeezed beauty lips, and wiped a wet sponge along them.

            "This will make the leather shrink a little and so tighten them up nicely."

            Indeed, Marie gave a little gasp as she felt the leather beginning to tighten.

            Whilst the leather was tightening, the two black men were laughing and talking together watching Marie writhing with the discomfort and embarrassment.

            "I think it's now time for this," finally murmured the overseer as he began to rub an ointment into the now even more tightly held flesh. It smarted and Marie gave a little cry and then, as the burning sensation increased, tried ineffectually to free her hands rub it off.

            "She doesn't like that, does she! " laughed the overseer to Achmed. "But it will stop her flesh from scaring over and keep each ring's little hole intact, and so make it easy to loosen or tighten the leather laces."

            "Very clever!" remarked Achmed.

            "Yes these little lips will remain closed," said the overseer, smiling, as he sealed the ends of the two laces together, "until she is taken to be covered. Then the leather laces will be unsealed and loosened to allow penetration. Afterwards I'll tighten them up again, and seal them, until it's time to loosen them to allow her to drop her little half bred Haratin. That'll stop her from trying to interfere with what will be her contribution to the annual crop of Haratin that the Emir rears, and then sells so well in the market or to the slave dealers."

            "That sounds interesting!" said Achmed. "Who do you intend to use on her?"

            "Oh I always take my women to the same Sudanese Dinka giant," answered the overseer, " even those having their first child. You see although Dinka's are very tall and strong, their heads are quite small, and so even a slender young white girl drops her half Dinka baby quickly and easily - even if she's working."

            "Yes, I've heard that Dinka's make ideal Haratin sires for these white slave women," said Achmed . "But isn't it rather time consuming making sure that each girl is properly mated?"

            "No, I just leave two or three of them at a time in his cage for a week, with their laces loosened, ten days after their last show of blood. Then, with their laces tightened up again, I bring them back here and put them to work again. He's such a randy beast that I find they've always taken! And the mixture of his size and strength, and the intelligence of the white women, seems to nick in well, as they say in the horse breeding world."

            "Isn't it rather expensive always using this Dinka?"

            Yes!" replied the overseer rather ruefully, "I'm afraid his owner does charge a high fee for each woman successfully covered. But he's worth it!."

            The overseer paused. Then he added proudly, "You see quite apart from anything else, I get an above average number of twins from him. and the Emir gives me a special bonus for each set of twins.

            "But what do you do with your black women field slaves?" asked Achmed. "Keep them for yourself?"

            "Oh no! I much prefer boys! And the Emir has promised me a white boy when I get the first set of triplets!"

            He ran his hand eagerly over the belly of the mystified Marie.

            "Perhaps I'll get my set of triplets out of this one!" he laughed. "Perhaps she'll earn me my white boy!"

            "But then what do you do with your black women?" persisted Achmed.

            "Oh, I just let the Emir's Berber guards have them," replied the overseer. "We get a quite useful black progeny from them that way. I had thought of putting them to a uncut white slave boy, but half-caste Haratin out of a black mother are not nearly so successful as those from a white one."

            "But when do you plan to have this one covered?" asked Achmed.

            "Oh in a couple of months. I want to get plenty of hard work out of her first!. Anyway I like them all to drop their little creatures at about the same time in the autumn. It's a healthier time than in the heat of the summer. And the fact that the women are big with child in the late summer doesn't matter too much. It's in the winter and spring that I really make them work! My pregnant women are all coming along nicely now and I'll be sending each of them back to be covered again a couple of months after they drop their Haratin. So this girl will go with the first one to whelp, together with another new girl that the Emir recently bought me on a trip to Marsa."

            "What was that one like?" asked Achmed. "Are they maintaining a high standard of field slaves in the slave markets in Marsa? So much depends on the way the slave dealer sorts out his newly captured women. A good dealer will want to have reputation for producing suitable good field slaves, just as much as having one for producing good harem slavegirls. Both are important."

            "Well, this one's a hard working young field slave," smiled the overseer cruelly. He raised his short rhinoceros hide whip. "Or rather she became one very quickly after a couple of encounters with this!"

            He turned to look at the cringing Marie.

            "Yes, I think both new girls will make a fine sight next spring for the Emir to see on his tour of inspection, with their bald heads, their swollen bellies and the leather laces done up tight again to prevent them from harming their valuable Haratin progeny. He likes to come and see a girl straining under the whip to turn an irrigation wheel to provide more water for his growing crops, whilst another valuable little crop is growing away inside her own belly!"

            The overseer laughed cruelly.

            "I expect this one will hate being mated, these white women all do, but she'll find that there's nothing she can do about it. The Dinka giant gets a reward for each girl who conceives. He's very strong and when he mounts a girl he holds her down and makes sure his seed gets right up inside her."

            The overseer laughed and pointed with his whip to the leather lacing between Marie's legs. "And when she's taken, the laces will prevent her from getting at the little Haratin progeny she'll be carrying."

            "Moreover," he added, tapping his whip meaningfully against the palm of his hand. "she'll soon learn to fear me and my whip as she's never feared anything before in her whole life!"

            He paused.

            "Come on!" he said, suddenly realising how dark it was getting. "I've got a lot to do before it's completely dark. Let's get this girl into the pit."

Marie had been standing, ignored by the two negroes. She had thinking fearfully about what was going to happen to her now that her beloved Prince was dead. She was appalled at her apparently bald head and by the neat criss-cross lacing over her beauty lips. Why had she been brought to this farm? Who was this awful black overseer? Why had had all these awful things been done to her?

            Her reverie was interrupted by the overseer seizing her and frog -marching her over to where some strange looking iron bars projected a foot above the ground. Alongside it was a long metal feeding trough. She saw bits of grey porridge sticking to the sides. Beyond it was a water trough.

            Horrified, Marie saw several pairs of human hands, some white and some black, gripping the bars. But in the growing twilight she could not see beyond the bars.

            It was in fact an old animal cage that had been turned on its side and lowered into the ground. It was some twelve feet long, but instead of being only four feet high it was four feet wide, and instead of being six feet wide it was six feet high.

            The bars over the top of the cage were covered with sacking to give protection against the rain - and to provide shade to any pregnant field slave left in the cage during the day to recuperate after a particularly hard spell at the water wheel or at the mill wheel.

            The overseer unlocked two padlocks which held closed two iron bars fixed to a small wooden hatch set in the bars. He pulled up the hatch. There was a faint animal-like smell. He waved his whip menacingly down into the cage.

            "Stand aside!" he shouted. There was a rustling noise as if from animals moving on straw. Frightened, Marie tried to back away. But Achmed was now behind her and held her tight.

            The overseer now turned back to Marie. Whilst Achmed held her, he unfastened the lead attached to her collar, and unfastened her hands.

            Then he and Achmed lifted her up and unceremoniously dropped her down through the hatches.

            Marie dropped onto the straw that covered the wooden slats over the bars at the bottom of the cage.

 To assist drainage, the slats were set several inches apart, and the cage had been raised on bricks several inches above the sandy soil below the bars. Picking herself up she saw a small ladder that led up to the hatchway out of the cage.

            Resentfully she looked back up at the hatch. Framed in it against the rapidly fading twilight was the grim black face of the overseer.

            "Keep silence !" he shouted down. It was one of the Arabic commands that she learned to understand and obey in the stables.

            Then he closed the hatch cover with a bang, and Marie heard the padlocks and iron bars being put back. She was locked into the half buried cage.

            Standing up, she found that the the ground was now level with her eyes. She could just see through the bars at the top of the sides of the cage, but it was literally a worm's eye view! Peering through the bars she saw the black overseer sign some sort of receipt. He handed it to Achmed with a cruel smile and they shook hands.

            "Yes, I could do with a fresh slave just now - the other ones are getting rather lethargic with their swollen bellies," he said, "so you delivering her to me was very timely."

            Achmed walked back to his donkey, behind which Marie had had to trot when he brought her here. Then he mounted the donkey and rode off without a glancing back at the cage.

            Marie saw her new overseer walk over to a little hut, go in, light a lamp, and shut the door.

29 - CAGED!

Peering on tip toe through the bars of the sunken cage, Marie watched Achmed and her new black overseer go off. But she was not alone in the small cage for standing on either side of Marie in the half darkness seemed to be half a dozen young women.

             It must, she realised, have been their hands that she had seen gripping the bars. They seemed to be naked like herself. In the half darkness she saw that they had all had their heads shaved and wore big gleaming brass nose rings like hers - and collars. How degrading!

            She saw that two were black girls, the rest seemed European looking.

            "Marie!" came a low whisper. It sounded familiar. "Marie! It's me Gina"

            "Gina!" Marie shouted, the overseer's order to keep silence quite forgotten in her excitement. "Oh Gina, how wonderful to see you!"

             Gina, was the Italian peasant girl whom she had befriended on board the ship from Naples, and whom she had last seen in the terrifying slave processing room of Hassan, the slave dealer. Hassan had just decided that she should be sold as a field slave, and accordingly all her lovely hair had been shaved off, together with her eyebrows, to make her seem more like a mere beast of burden and so her increase her price. Then she had listened horrified as Hassan and his overseer had discussed how a future master might use her to breed Haratin from her whilst also using her to labour on his estate. And now Gina was here!

             Marie's joy at finding a friend was tempered, however, by the thought that now she too had had her hair and eyebrows shaved off. My God! Now that her beloved Prince was dead, had the Emir condemned her, too, to the life of a field slave?

            "Darling Marie!" Gina whispered very quietly. "How have you ended up here on this terrible farm with us - and put in this cage by our terrifying black overseer?"

            "It's a long story," Marie began. The words poured out. She was speaking loudly, for they were the first words she been able to utter since she had been stabled - except for calling the Prince 'Darling' when he had briefly removed her muzzle on that never to be forgotten occasion when when he took her as a reward, after the team had won their race ... "First tell me what you're doing here in this tiny cage? What will happen to me? What are these other poor women doing here? Has my head been completely shaved like yours? But why? Why ..."

            But her shouted questions went unanswered as the other women began to crowd round her. Gina seemed to be pushed aside. Marie felt soft feminine flesh, swollen flesh. Swollen bellies pressed against hers.. Except for Gina, the women all seemed to be pregnant! My God, she thought, is that what is going to happen to me? She remembered the conversation between Hassan and his overseer as they inspected poor Gina. Was that also what Achmed and the fat overseer had been discussing?

            The two black women had brushed the others aside. One was very big and strong. The other smaller and younger. The bigger one said something in a strange language. The smaller one gripped Marie's hands, and then the bigger one smacked her face hard, twice.

            "We boss girls here" she said loudly in pigeon lingua franca. Her swollen belly was pressing hard against Marie's. "You been sewn up too?"

            Marie felt the black woman's hands between her legs. She wanted to brush them away. But her own hands were still gripped by the other black woman. The woman began to trace the leather cross-cross lacing, seeing how tight it was.

            "Bah!" she said, stepping back. "You sewn up just like us. You now just a field slave too. But remember we the boss field slaves. Here in cage I am the Queen!"

            Again Marie's face was slapped.

            "Who am I, white slut?"

            Appalled, Marie hesitated. Her hands were still gripped by the black girl. Again her face was slapped.

            "Who am I, white trash?"

            Marie saw that the big black woman had raised her hand again.

            "You're the boss, the Queen of the cage !" she screamed out aloud.

            "Yes, and don't you forget it!" said the black woman. "You just white slave trash. You do as I say to keep cage clean."

            Marie's hands were now released. The black woman and her girl assistant stepped back.

            Then there was quite a hubbub as the white women all started to shout questions to Marie. "Who are you? ... When were you captured? ... When did you last see Europe ... Where were you sold? ... What is Napoleon doing now? ... Is he coming here to free us?"

            Suddenly the smaller of the black women called for silence. She pointed through the bars towards the hut into which the overseer had disappeared.

            "Oh God, he's heard us!" Marie heard Gina whisper. "Oh God he's coming back with his whip!"

            Then there was complete silence in the half buried cage. Marie looked for herself through the bars. She saw the big figure of the overseer striding angrily towards, his grim face lit up by a lantern he was carrying. He was carrying his terrifying black rhinoceros hide whip. Evidently he was not amused at his supper being interrupted by the noise from his caged field slaves.

            Marie could feel the naked women shivering with fear as the overseer unlocked the padlocks on the hatch above their heads. Then he flung the hatch back and held up his lantern to peer into the now silent cage.

            The women, even the black boss women, all cowered back.

            Marie saw the overseer's pig-like eyes glinting in the light of the lantern as he looked down into the cage.

            "You know the punishment for general talking in the cage at night," he shouted. "One of you gets flogged!"

            He looked down at the large sized numbers tattooed on the shiny bald heads below. Even Marie had guessed the meaning of what he had said. But none of them dared to cover their heads with their hands

            "Number thirteen," he shouted. "Out!"

            Marie heard a gasp from the white woman standing next door to her.

            "But I didn't say a word," she sobbed. "It's not fair!"

            She pointed at Marie. "It was all her fault! She started it, not me."

            But the overseer ignored her protests. "Number thirteen, out!" he repeated grimly.

            With another sob, the woman began to climb the ladder up to the hatch. As she passed, her belly and her head was lit up by the lantern. Horrified Marie saw that she was heavily pregnant and that not only had her head and eyebrows been shaved, but that tattooed on the shiny top of her head were some large Arabic numerals. My God, she thought, was that what was done to me too?

            Her shaven head and eyebrows made her look strange and it was difficult in the flickering light of the lantern to guess her age, but Marie thought she was probably nearer forty than thirty. My God, she thought, how long has this poor woman been a field slave here? Had she been mated each year like a beast?

            The woman climbed awkwardly out of the cage. Silently the overseer beckoned her towards a large log lying on the ground.

            "Down!" he ordered.

            Trembling the woman knelt down on all fours over the log, her naked swollen belly resting on it. Marie saw that it looked well polished - presumably by the bellies of numerous other women, wriggling with pain, as they knelt down to be flogged over it. She too started to tremble.

            The black overseer called out something.

            "Ten strokes," interpreted Gina to Marie in a low whisper. Marie was too shocked by the spectacle to say a word in reply. The fact that the woman was pregnant did not seem to matter to the overseer.

            The overseer raised his thick wide whip and brought it down across the woman's buttocks. The silence of the night was shattered by a terrible scream. Unabashed he raised the whip again. Again there was a scream ...

            Finally it was all over. Without a word, the overseer motioned the crying woman to crawl back to the cage and climb back down into the pit. As she did so, Marie saw the marks on her buttocks. She would, she decided, do anything, anything in the world, rather than risk such a flogging herself.

            Without a word, the big negro slammed the hatch shut, locked it and strode off back to his hut.

Later that night, Marie was lying squeezed up against Gina in the corner of the dark and crowded pit, that the black boss woman had allowed them to use. Beyond the bars on the side of the cage was bare earth.

            It was the first time that she had been able, secretly , to run her hands wonderingly, first over her now smooth and glistening head, and then down to feel the tightness of the leather lacing. Try as she might, she could not get at her beauty bud.

            "Don't waste time trying," softly whispered Gina. "Our swine of an overseer makes quite sure that we can't ..."

            "Silence, you fool!" came an urgent whisper from the black boss woman. "Do you want him to come back and flog another one of us."

            Marie lay still in the darkened silence. There were so many questions she was longing to ask about her new life!...

It was not until much later, after the light in the overseer's cabin had been extinguished that the black cage boss made her move.

            The first thing that Marie knew about it was an urgent little whisper from Gina.

            "Don't fight her. She's too strong her. Just do what she says."

            "What do you mean?" Marie whispered back. But before she could say anything more, she heard the gruff voice of the cage boss who was now standing over her.

            "Get on your back and put your hands behind your neck!".

            Wonderingly, Marie did as she was told. Then immediately she felt the big black woman come and kneel across her face, her knees digging painfully into Marie's arms as they held her pinned to the floor of the cage. Looking up, all she could see was the black boss woman's huge belly silhouetted above her against the stars shining through the bars at the top of the cage.

            She felt the other black woman lift up her head. Horrified she found her mouth being pressed against the cage boss's beauty lips. She tried to turn her head away, but it was firmly held.

            "Now you lick me, you white trash," Marie heard the big woman croak. "During day you just Emir's field slave, but at night in cage you my slave - all white girls my slaves. And as reward for being boss woman, overseer lets me keep laces loose. Now get tongue and lick."

            The other black woman holding Marie's head still suddenly gave her a couple of hard smacks across her face. Then she held Marie's nose, forcing her to open her mouth to breathe.

            "Get tongue out, or I do it again," she muttered.

            Terrified Marie put her tongue out just a little. It touched the cage boss's beauty lips. Yes the laces were loose! She tried to jerk her head back but it was held tightly by the other woman.

            "Go on, push tongue past laces!" she whispered. "Get tongue right out. Now push!"

            She reached down and twisted on of Marie's nipples painfully.

            "Do it!" she ordered.

            Marie was appalled - forced by one black woman to give pleasure to another one. It was horrible. But there was nothing she could do. She remembered Gina's whispered warning.

            "Now suck it! ... Now put tongue inside. Reach right up! Move it! ... "

            The orders came in quick succession, each accompanied by a painful twist of Marie's nipples. Through the loosened laces her tongue was stroking the black woman's beauty bud.

            "Good! You good little white slave!" she heard the cage boss mutter, as with increasing urgency she herself now held Marie's head to her beauty lips whilst the other black woman used both hands on Marie's nipples.

            Suddenly she gave a little cry and collapsed over Marie's head. Then moments later she recovered.

            "Now you!" she muttered to Gina, and rising up off Marie, straddled Gina's face, which the other black woman was now holding - just as she had held Marie's.

            Lying trembling and shocked alongside her friend, Marie had to witness it all.

            "And you no touch!" was the cage boss's final words as she moved. "You mine now. Like other white trash. White girls in cage only allowed touch with my permission. They have to earn that!"

            Moments later, she heard a little whimpered whisper from the other end of the cage.

            "Yes, Mistress, I'm ready to receive you."

             Marie heard several hard smacks.

            "Just make sure you keep your mouth wide open and swallow every drop," Marie heard the cage boss mutter. Horrified she realised that this was another way she exerted her power over the white women.

            There was a pause and then she heard the same voice.

            "Oh thank you, Mistress, thank you ... I love my kind Mistress ... I promise I swallowed every drop."

            Marie and the other white women had to listen, feeling furiously frustrated, as she then made another woman thrust her tongue through he loosened laces.

            Then there was silence in the cage as the tired women fell asleep.

30 - THE MORNING CHECK

It was dawn. But it was still dark down in the bottom of the pit where the sleeping girls were curled up on the straw covered slatted floor.

            The noise of the iron bars over the little wooden hatch in the roof of the cage being unlocked awoke Marie.

            "Out, sluts! Out!" came a gruffly barked order from the overseer.

            Marie opened her eyes. Through the now open hatch way, she saw the grim faced overseer, his dreaded rhinoceros hide whip in his hand.

             "Out!" he again shouted, adding," Two strokes for the last girl out!"

            There was a sudden rush for the small ladder that led up to the hatch.

            "Stand back!" shouted the cage boss, as she and her black companion elbowed their way past the jostling crowd of white women who respectfully made way for them. Then they literally fought each other not to be last up the ladder.

            Somehow Marie, pushed by Gina, got a foot on the ladder and pulled herself up out of the pit. Seconds later Gina joined her. She saw the waiting field slaves were lining up in a row, standing rigidly at attention, their hands clasped behind their necks, and their eyes fixed straight ahead of them. Apparently as a sigh of their superior status, the two black women were standing a pace to the right of the white women who were ranging themselves in order of height.

            Hastily Gina pushed the relatively tall Marie into one end of the line.

            "Quickly! And don't argue!" she muttered, before going into her own accustomed place at the other end of the line amongst the shorter women.

            Feeling rather alone as she stood at attention between two silent women she did not know, Marie noticed out of the corner of her eye the last woman out of the pit-like cage scurry across to the line of women, hoping not to be noticed.

            "Number eleven!" she heard the overseer shout. "Come here!"

            Marie saw the woman stop. She saw the overseer beckon her back and point to the ground at his feet. With a sob of despair, the woman dropped to her knees and crawled towards the overseer, like a cur about to be punished for some misdemeanour might crawl to it's beckoning Master, its tail between its legs.

            The woman lowered her head to the ground and licked the overseer's feet in a desperate placatory gesture. He kicked her away, and came round behind her.

            "Up!" he ordered.

            The wretched woman raised her buttocks,

            "Please, not too hard," she pleaded. " I did try to climb up quicker. I ready did!"

            "Silence!" shouted the overseer.

            He raised his thick heavy short whip. Marie heard the other women gasp. Then there was a scream of pain as he brought the whip hard down across the woman's proffered backside.

            "Crawl into the line," roared the overseer. "Move!"

            The now crying woman scuttled across to the line, found her accustomed place, and stood up at attention, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Only her still twitching buttocks, and the red mark across them made her different from the others.

            Then the overseer came slowly over to the line of trembling women. He went behind them. Marie was terrified as, not daring to turn her head, she heard him go slowly up and down behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that one one at a time the women each silently parted their legs, bent their knees, and keeping their hands clasped behind their necks and their backs straight, bent forwards. Then moments later each would resume her her position at attention as the woman next to her silently bent over.

            What was happening, Marie wondered.

            Then, horrified, she felt the overseer's hand between her legs.

            "You now!" he said, giving her a sharp tap with his heavy whip.

            Terrified, Marie bent forward, parted her legs and bent her knees.

            "Keep back straight" shouted the overseer. "Head up! Look ahead!"

            Marie blushed as she realised how she must now be displaying her laced-up intimacies to this horrible man.

            Suddenly she felt his hand on her tightly closed beauty lips. She could feel it running up and down, testing that the laces were still tight. It was so humiliating! With a grunt of approval he then moved on to the next woman, checking that she would not be able to harm her child. Marie now straightened up, but kept her hands clasped behind her neck and her eyes fixed straight ahead.

            The woman at the end of the line straightened up, and the overseer came round to the front of the line.

            "Bellies thrust out!" he ordered, and came down the line again. This time he was more concerned with each little protruding belly, feeling it with expert hands to make sure that everything w as alright. In fact, perhaps thanks to the hard regime to which the women were subjected, complications or miscarriages were rare amongst the field slaves.

            Meanwhile a young black boy had been dolloping portions of a hot porridge-looking mess from a bucket into the long feeding through in front of the line of women. He now stood back.

            "Get ready!" called the overseer, once again tapping the short handle of his whip against the palm of his hand. "Go!"

            Instantly the women dashed to the trough and fell on their knees in front of it. Marie, feeling ravenously hungry like the others, was about to start scooping the porridge into her mouth when her neighbour dug her warningly in the ribs. She then noticed that all the women had their hands on the ground, and had lowered their heads over the trough. The overseer could now see the numbers tattooed onto each woman's bald head.

            "Number ten!" he called.

            Gratefully a young woman with a particularly swollen belly began to slurp up the mixture, still keeping her hands on the ground so that she could not help herself to unduly large helpings.

            "Number fifteen!" he called after a few moments. Again a woman with a particularly large belly eagerly lowered her head into the trough.

            The other hungry women licked their lips in dismay as they saw so much of the small about of porridge being eaten up before they were even allowed to start. Did the overseer think that the two chosen women might be carrying twins, Marie wondered. Was he ensuring that they got the lions share of the meagre ration? Was it also a way for the overseer to enforcing strict discipline on his team of field slaves?

Certainly, the overseer then slowly began to call out the numbers of the other women, ending with Gina and herself, the only ones who were not pregnant.

            By the time Marie's number was called, there was little of the porridge left. Marie found herself eagerly licking up the bits left behind by the other women. Was it all way of making sure that the trough was kept clean, Marie thought bitterly.

            "Wastes!" the overseer now shouted.

            Marie saw that the women all now ran over to a big wooden water filled trough and straddled it, their feet on the ground, their knees bent and their hands once again clasped behind their necks. Nervously she joined them.

            "Get ready!" came the order. Ready for what, thought Marie. But she knew the answer, and a minute later she too obeyed the humiliating order from the overseer to deposit her wastes into water filled trough. A little later a team of two girls would empty the trough and carry the wastes to the dung pit which, in a few months time, the field slaves would empty and distribute around the farm.

            The overseer then made the women wash themselves all over from a tub of water and put on their faded work smocks, before being detailed off for their work that day.