"Be silent!" she scolded.
I tried to be silent. I twisted on the slatted wood.
"Please, Master," I had wept. "Put me in a deck cage!" These were small cages, lashed down, sometimes kept on the deck of a crowded slave ship. This ship, a small one, had only twenty such cages, arranged amidships in two rows, back to back, two cages high, five cages long. In harsh weather, and at night, these cages are often covered with tarpaulins; this tends to prevent undue weathering of the cage.metal due to salt and moisture. During the day the tarpaulins are usually laid aside, unless they are tied over the cages to discipline the girls. There are two major advantages to having the tarpaulins put aside. First, the sailors may then, for their pleasure, gaze upon the lovely prisoners of the cages; secondly, the girls, when they reach their port of sale, will be tanned perfectly, completely. Any girl on the ship, incidentally, unless she is certified "white silk," a virgin, is free to the sailors for their sport. There were no "white silk" girls on board; we were all "red silk." This was not unusual. There are few virgin slaves. Their virginity usually does not last more than an Ahn beyond their first sale. It is the deck-cage girls who are most often used for the sport of the sailors. In daylight hours their charms are on almost constant display. They are not chained in the hold. They may pose and wheedle, and thrust their arms through the bars to touch the sailors. Also they are more readily available. A cage door need only be opened and the girl pulled to the deck, or thrown across the tarpaulins. "Put me in a deck cage, Master!" I had begged. He had looked down upon me, captain of the ship. "Chain her below," he had said. I had been dragged from his feet.
I screamed again.
"Be silent," said another girl, angrily.
I thrashed on the wood. I could feel the ship lice.
I could not tear at them with my fingernails; I was not chained in such a way as to permit that; this was intentional. I writhed on the slatted wood, screaming.
"Be silent," said the first girl. "It is not the time permitted for screaming!"
"I do not care!" I cried.
I heard a noise. I was frightened.
A hatch was thrown open, and a man descended the stairs into the hold.
Suddenly, in the dim light, falling through the opened hatch, I could see the musty tiers and their helpless, fair occupants.
The man looked about.
"She it was! She it was who screamed!" cried the girl next to me, indicating me with her head.
"No!" I cried. "It was not I!"
"It was she!" cried the first girl.
"Yes, she!" cried several others.
I sensed the man standing behind me, on a ramp. "I was bitten," I said. "I was bitten!" I twisted on the wood, trying to see him. "Have mercy, Master!" I said. "I was bitten!"
"It was not the time permitted for screaming," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said. "Forgive me," I begged, "Master."
There were eight slave platforms in the hold, each with six tiers. These platforms were separated by narrow aisles; also they did not adjoin the sides of the hold, thus allowing a passage between them and the wall of the hold on both the left and right side of the ship. On each tier of each platform there were five girls. There were, thus, two hundred and forty girls in the hold. A cunning mesh and cage arrangement is incorporated into the platforms. The slatted wood of the tiers, on which the girls lay, permits cage mesh to pass unimpeded from the roof of the sixth tier to the bottom of the first tier. The mesh is cleated to the wood of each tier. Each girl, in effect, has her own meshed cage, separate from that of the others. Thus, if an urt manages to enter one area he has at his mercy only one captive, not five. The top of the sixth tier and the bottom slats of the first tier are sheathed in tin, to prevent being gnawed by urts. Mesh, too, heavy and sturdy, closes off the ends of the slave cubicles formed. In the mesh at the ends of the cubicle formed, both the end at the girl's feet and that at her head, there is a tiny gate. The girl may be placed in the cage, or removed from it, from either end. She normally inches her way into the cubicle from the top end and one slaver, from the bottom, secures her ankles in their irons, then shutting that gate, and another secures her wrists in their irons, then shutting that gate. Each girl thus has to herself a small, rectangular cage area, surrounded on four sides by mesh, on the bottom by the slatted wood of the tier, and on the top by the wood of the tier above her, unless she is on the sixth tier, and then she has above her, of course, the ceiling of her cubicle, the bottom of the platform roof. She is chained in such a way as to preclude movement which might tear at the mesh or break it, thus making possible the entry of urts, which might eat at her, lowering her price, and to preclude her tearing hysterically with her hands and fingernails at her own body, bloodying herself, perhaps scarring herself, again lowering her price, in her attempt to obtain relief from the bites and itching consequent upon the infestation and depredation of the numerous, almost constantly active ship lice. The first tier is raised from the floor of the hold by some eighteen inches, providing a crawl space. The open spaces between the tin-sheathed, wood slats on the first tier are covered, from the bottom, by cleated mesh, which prevents urts from entering from the bottom. The crawl space between the floor of the hold and the first tier is cleaned once a day. Each girl, all in all, has a space private to her slavery of some twenty-five inches in width, by some eighteen inches in height, by some six feet five inches in length. In this space she is chained helplessly. Of the six tiers in my platform, I was on the fourth.
I heard the man loosen the small gate behind my head. I did not know why he did this.
"Master?" I asked.
He let the gate then swing down on its hinges, and lie against its bolts.
He did not snap it shut.
"Master?" I asked, frightened.
He turned away. I heard him on the ramp.
"Master!" I screamed, terrified. "I will be silent! I will be silent!" I turned my head wildly, trying to look back. "Please, Master!" I begged. "Please! I will be silent, Master!"
The sharp, furred, cold snout of an urt could now, as the gate lay against its bolts, thrust between the gate and the side of the cage. The animal might now swiftly, furtively, slither into the cage which I, helplessly chained, must then share with it.
"Master!" I screamed. I was terrified of urts. "Master, please," I screamed. "I will be silent! I will be silent!"
I heard him pause on the ramp. He turned and returned to my cage.
"I will be silent, Master," I whispered, terrified. "I will be silent, Master," I whispered. "Please, Master."
He snapped shut the tiny gate, and left. In a few moments the hatch closed and we were again in total darkness. The ship shifted in the water, and I could hear the waves against the hull. In a few minutes, the man gone, I heard the urt, it or another, moving about on the wood between the meshes. I gritted my teeth so that I would not cry out from the misery of the lice. I drew my feet and hands, in their chains, as near the center of my space as I could. I made no sound.
The vertical gate of the cage space, that gate behind my head, was thrown open and hooked back. I put my head back.
"Master," I said. But I could not speak for the spike of the bota was thrust between my teeth, and I must drink.
When the spike was withdrawn I again tried to speak. "Master," I begged. But his heavy hand thrust bread in my mouth, crusts of Sa-Tarna bread, wadding it in.
Then he went to the next cage, and the next, similarly watering and feeding their occupants.
I knew he would return, to finish the feeding, with another draft of water, a spoon of salt and a slice of the bitter tospit. Bit by bit, flake by flake, dampened, struggling, trying not to choke, I swallowed the crusts with which my mouth had been crammed.