She revelled in the coffle. She realised her happiness arose from the constant erotic arousal of her chains and from her heated fantasies of Seth Burdett. But there was something beyond these sexual sensations, something for which she had not yet found a name. She strode nakedly along the tiny path with a tremendous zest. Her feet had toughened, and she had never felt such tingling good health. She would have loved to run and leap and be a child again. But the chain restrained her in a reasonable decorum.
Her Master watched her amusedly from the corner of an eye. He had reverted to his policy of leaving her alone. She was not hurt. She knew his reasons. He was fighting his own battle to remain uninvolved. After her nightly chores she longed for him with an intensity almost painful so that she bestowed her sex as a gift upon the girls who shared her chain to either side. It took a good deal of wriggling and giggling to find the moist pungency they sought. She returned the favour, finding only pride in her circumvention of the chain on her neck and on her wrist. The reproving metal was simply one more zest in the scented lubricity of her newly found sexuality.
On the fourth night, her Master took her gain into the trees, and after he had whipped her cruelly and impaled her again and again as she hung with toes above the soil, he pinched her nipples and told her casually: "I've decided not to sell you after all."
Audrey Cotswold had grabbed her pistol and dashed from the bedroom in a panic of protectiveness. Corey Gibson must not be harmed. Whoever the enemy, he had best be coped with downstairs. But she found only a shambles and the inert figure that had been Reid Hunter. Venturing through the open door, she was grasped in strong smelly arms and swung off her feet. Instinctively, she thrust the small gun back against the bulk of her captor and pulled the trigger. When the arms fell limp she leaped into the night in a blind panic at the approach of dark figures by which her gun was outnumbered. Hiding behind discarded oil drums, she cursed her thoughtlessness in leaving Corey chained to the bed. Miserably, she watched the swift sacking of the village by a considerable force. She saw Corey taken, and was helpless to intervene. When, suddenly, there was only emptiness and the roaring of trucks in the distance she knew she had but one hope: to find a civilised man or a civilised place. Ben Sirah appeared to offer neither. Forgetting the nakedness that had become natural for her, the favourite slavegirl of Assef Aslam sped down the abandoned street.
Civilisation was closer than she supposed. The four policemen's uniforms were neat and clean, their berets businesslike. They carried rifles. It was obvious they had dressed in a hurry and were grateful for the absence of an enemy no more formidable than a naked girl. They eyed her gun with disapproval. Their greeting was not the one she wished to hear.
"You under arrest."
It was too absurd! Audrey explained their error and what was required of them. They listened, tolerant and unconcerned, to the babbling of a woman.
"Please to hand me gun."
With three rifles pointing at her breasts there seemed little else to do. Audrey parted with it reluctantly and felt doubly naked. The corporal extracted a yellow card and read from memory the classic warnings about anything she might say… Audrey listened in disbelief. It was pure opera Bouffe. "But you can't possibly arrest me." She protested. "There's bandits you need to chase, and besides, I haven't done anything. Look, have you got a phone?"
They had a convenient faculty of hearing nothing she said. The corporal intoned solemnly while his companions beamed with pride and lust. "For indecency. For exposing genitals in public place. For carrying gun without permit. For being female bandit…"
"Look here!" She expostulated. "This is nonsense. If you'll just phone…?
And who said I was a bandit?"
"You speak of bandits. We hear much shooting. You bandit girl."
"I'm not! They all left in trucks."
"Ah, so you get left behind! We capture."
"Please…! Do I look like a bandit?"
"Good girls do not run naked. You very bad girl. Good girls do not carry guns. You go to prison."
The cold hand of realization clutched hard. These ineffectual members of the local constabulary were behaving correctly by their terms of reference. No doubt she was something of an anomaly in Ben Sirah. She could not hope to escape them. Surely, if she was taken before some intelligent authority it must bend a sympathetic ear! But the next polite request was like the knell of doom.
"Please to hold out hands."
Audrey did the reverse. "You don't need to handcuff me. Please don't. I can't possibly get away."
"Resisting arrest." The corporal intoned.
Audrey held out her hands.
"Is now behind back after resist."
Resigned, she turned about and allowed her wrists to be encircled by familiar steel. The cuffs bit. Audrey Cotswold was helpless. Feeling ridiculous, she marched between them to whatever justice the law of Ben Sirah meted out to naked girls.
Being English, Audrey Cotswold recognized certain British features of the police station donated by British rule of years past. She could swear the two cells, actually big cages, had been fabricated in Sheffield and assembled in the big stone room in which they now stood. A massive padlock guarded each barred door. She was propelled within and the padlock proclaimed her safety with an impressive click. "Is hearing in morning." The corporal politely informed. She was left alone.
Her cage was less than ten feet square. It held a low bunk and thin mattress, but no blanket. There were two pails, one with a cover, the other nearly full of water. The little prison had no walls. She was completely exposed from every side. She had no more privacy than a canary. She wondered, woefully, whether the corporal had forgotten to take away her handcuffs or if bad girls in prison wore them full time. She sat on the bunk and reviewed the phantasmagoria of her day. In misery she lay upon her naked breasts and wept herself to sleep.
The prison tunic emphasized rather than hid her sex. But Audrey Cotswold was grateful. She supposed that her breasts, her nipples and her pubic hair seen through thin cotton was more respectable in Ben Sirah than being bare. She stood forlornly in the dock and faced her judge. Magistrate Mussuba, a large dark gentleman with spectacles, eyed her with the approval of pure lust. As for the corporal, the prisoner could believe in the happiest day of his life as he rolled her iniquities off his tongue with relish. To the previous list had now been added: murder, theft and kidnapping. All the crimes of Abdul Nour were coming to roost on her innocent shoulders.
The captive girl had lost her handcuffs only briefly. They were now once more safe on her wrists behind her back. After all, with such a list of crimes…!
"Mr. Mussuba is not speak English." The corporal informed. "I do the talk." Audrey's heart sank. Desperately she fought her losing battle between the interested features on the bench and the polite corporal. There were a number of male spectators on the seats provided. She was getting the most democratic justice Ben Sirah could provide. She suspected it was very, very local and would avail her nothing. At the finish of it the corporal gave her the Magistrate's summation.
"All evidence not here. Mr. Mussuba think sentence may be you get good whipping in public Square and then twenty years in nice prison. Lady's prison very nice."
She looked at the smug features askance, tugging at the cuffs on her wrists in utter frustration. "But I haven't had a trial! I don't think he's a proper judge at all. It's all… all…!"
"Is remand for few days. We get you lawyer. We are doing things very right." The corporal paused for good effect. "If murder proved, you get flogged instead of whipped. Then sentenced to death. You may choose whether hang or behead. Is very modern here."
Taken back to her cell, Audrey pleased: "Corporal, I don't have to be handcuffed in here, do I?"