Barbary Slave by Gardner Fox - Chapter 07
1955 Genre: Historical Fiction / Swashbuckling Pirates
SOLD INTO SLAVERY! It was unthinkable that innocent Eve Doremus of Boston would be forced to parade her naked beauty in a Barbary Coast slave mart. Or that the blond giant who guarded the Sultan's female chattels would be a U.S. Marine lieutenant. Yet anything was possible in exotic, violent, 19th Century Tripoli.
Amid the love-making, intrigues and tortures of the Pasha's pagan court, Eve and her marine—Stephen Fletcher—fell in love. But their romance was destined to face every temptation and peril as they loved and battled their way to freedom.
Listen to the entire Audiobook on Audible.
You can download the whole story for FREE from the Fox Library. This is a limited-time offer!
CHAPTER 7
The corsair ship ran through the blue waters of the Mediterranean with her taut sails humming, mainstays whipping in the offshore breeze. The sky was a blue emptiness overhead, and the sun made a yellow haze through which the brig-slipped with the ease of a gull riding an air current. Stephen Fletcher stood with his hip to the quarter-deck rail, discovering again the heady fragrance of salt air and sea spray. He was re-discovering his sea legs, too, swaying with the faint swing of the brig as the blue swells lifted it.
Behind him, in a low chaise set before the striped magnificence of the deck tent, Marlani Chamiprak watched him. Beside her knelt Eve Doremus, her strong white fingers braiding the thick black hair of the pasha's favorite wife. Occasionally Marlani cried out against the pain of a tormented scalp, as a strand of hair was twisted with extra vigor.
“Be careful, kalfa!” rasped Marlani Chamiprak, after a particularly vengeful tug. “Hurt me once more, and I'll have you whipped naked at the big mast yonders!”
Eve murmured softly, “It isn't my fault. The ship pitches so steeply. I lose my balance.”
“Be more like your countryman, then. See how easily he stands, no matter what the ship does.” Glancing slyly at the girl, she added, “In your weeks of living with him, you must have found him very entertaining. What kind of lover is he?”
“Why ask me?” Eve whispered hotly, feeling the sting of jealousy inside her. “Your eyes would never burn so brightly if he was nothing more than bodyguard to you!” Marlani choked in her anger, twisting sideways on the cushioned divan. The white kitten on her lap stirred restlessly, lifting its little head and spitting.
“You nasrany slut! I will have you lashed!” Eve lowered her head until her long black hair veiled her face. “You will have to give the pasha a reason. Will you tell him I am jealous of you? That I love the nasrany? That you want him for yourself?”
The bash-kedin pulled her hair free of Eve's fingers. Petulantly, she lay back among her satin pillows. “I will find a way to make you pay, yet. See Mustafa reis yonder, by the rail. See how he keeps staring at your precious Stefan. How would you like me to talk Yussuf into giving you to him, eh? He does not like Americans. He would enjoy torturing such a pretty American as yourself.”
Eve shivered. This woman, whose person she was forced to attend, was not only the woman who stood between Stephen and herself. She was the woman whose power in Tripoli was as great as that of Yussuf Caramanli for she ruled the pasha. In hurt pride and jealousy, Eve's tongue had run away with itself. Her white back, exposed now to the warm Mediterranean sun, had never know the sting of a whip. But she had seen the scars criss-crossing Stephen's back, and had been sick with pity for him. She would be sick with more than pity if Marlani gave her to Mustafa reis.
And so she whispered, submissively, “Forgive me, Highness.”
Marlani smiled wickedly, her yellow cat eyes studying the kneeling girl. “Or would it be better to give your Stefan to Mustafa reis—after I tire of him?”
The bash-kedin did not miss Eve's involuntary start. Her mocking laughter trailed out across the quarter-deck.
Sensually, she writhed deeper into the cushions. “Do up my hair as before, American. But be sure that you do not cause me any more pain.”
A voice shouted hoarsely from the maintop, where a Mussel-man sailor stood leaning against the rope rail, pointing westward toward a big merchantman rolling with the Waves.
“Balak! Balak!'' he screamed.
At the sound of that wild cry, men in turbaned helmets and coats of mail under their white jelabs ran to the ratlines, carrying rifles and pouches of bullets. These were the sharpshooters who hooked trousered legs in the rigging and poured their fire across the decks of enemy, ships. Men with only twists of cloth about their loins scampered up the companionways to the gun deck, where big thirty pounders awaited their hands at tampions and spring locks. On the main deck itself, the carronades were serviced by gun crews and young boys, the powder monkeys who brought up the gunpowder in black silk bags.
Fletcher came across the quarter-deck at the wave of Marlani Chamiprak's hand. She stood with the wind pressing her thin shawl against her body, her dark eyes Alight with excitement. Fletcher smothered his smile at the sight of Eve Doremus glowering at her.
“Will there be fighting, Stefan?”
"She's a merchant ship. Spanish, from the cut of her hull. Big and slow. Not many cannon, It'll be mostly cut. and slash with swords on her deck.”
Yussuf pasha came leaping up the stair, unbuckling his belt and scabbard. He would lead his men with his scimitar in hand, no scabbard to encumber him.
"A rich prize, nasrany. She is homeward bound from Italy.”
They could see the big merchantman floundering awkwardly in the sea swell as her captain attempted to turn her with the wind and race the fast corsair ship toward a safe port at Malta. The wind caught her big courses and sent her careening into a wave. The wave shook her, turned her half around. She lost headway, wallowing in a trough. Her sails flapped loosely.
Yussuf shouted his exultation at the sight.
“She as good as invites us to come aboard. See how she shudders to the waves. Her captain will be some time righting her. When he does, we'll be on him!”
The pasha put an arm about Marlani Chamiprak and drew her in against him. “I'd intended to order you below, most favored one Instead, I'll let you stand and watch how I make my sea captures! Guard her well, Stefan. If danger threatens, put her below!”
The Burak ran after the floundering schooner with the grace of a greyhound streaking for a clumsy sow. With the wind aft, she came down to starboard, gun muzzles gleaming from her open gun ports. A shout lifted from the brown throats of the Tripoli raiders at rigging and main deck as soon as they could see the merchantman's guns.
“Only two cannon at her stern, and three to either side,” muttered Fletcher. “She's not been scraped in a long time, either. She's as hard to handle as an untamed stallion.”
“What will Yussuf do?” asked Marlani, standing on tiptoes to peer across the blue stretch of tossing waters at the clumsy vessel.
“Put a shot across her bow, probably. No sense in sinking her, when she's helpless to his will.”
Eve Doremus came to his right side, and her warm little hand crept into his palm. “There are women on board,” she whispered.
Fletcher could see them, being hurried below decks. They would be grist for the slave market in the great square. He felt a spate of red rage run through him. These corsairs had ruled the Mediterranean since the days of Khaired Din in the early sixteenth century; they had gained their reputation over several hundred years of plundering. They had been and still were fierce fighting men. The irony of it was that the Barbary fleet was a relatively small one. And yet the western nations preferred to pay tribute, rather than organize a powerful fighting fleet that could blow the corsairs out of the waters and put an end to their ravages. And as long as this shocking state of affairs existed, neither men nor women could sail the Mediterranean safely. Gentlewomen like the Spanish senoras in the ship across the water from them now, girls like Eve Doremus, and Italian and French noblewomen unlucky enough to fall into the corsairs hands, would be sold at slave marts like the Place of Miracles in Marrakesh, or the trading blocks at Algiers and Morocco.
The distance between the Burak and the merchantman had lessened to a hundred feet. Yussuf Caramanli stood on the lower deck, ringed about by his raiders in turbaned helmets and chain-mail. His scimitar flashed high in the sunlight as he waved it to the deep shouts of his eager janissaries. On the far flank of the boarding party was Mustafa reis, his thin lips stretched in a tight smile, his long black topknot seeming to dance in eagerness where the sea breeze caught it.
Grapnels were being dangled by sailors in the ratlines, about to be hurled. A wave lifted the Burak and took her closer. Now the sailors in the ropes whirled the grapnels and sent them slipping through the air, to dig pointed flukes deep into the deck-wood of the merchantman. Muscles bulged on their backs and arms as the two ships were tugged together.“Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”
“Inshallah! God is greats!”
Their cries came up to the quarter-deck as the corsairs milled restlessly below, leaning from rails and shrouds to shout their battle cries down at the pitifully few soldiers drawn up to receive them.
“It'll be over in minutes,” said Fletcher heavily. Yussuf Caramanli leaped the few feet separating the Burak from the Spanish ship. His men came after him in a surge of flashing steel and throaty screams. They jumped like frogs deserting a rock at the approach of a snake. Bare-feet and sandals clung to the merchantman's deck-boards as the marauders recovered balance.
Then Yussuf pasha led them at the Spaniards, who stood surprisingly calm, with their rifles raised, unruffled and undismayed. In another mood, Yussuf Caramanli would have been suspicious, but now the heat of easy victory was in him with a numbing sweetness. All he could think of was the profit this ship would hold, the strong slaves he would capture.
Just as the two lines crashed together, the Spanish rifles spurting lead and flame, a roar went up from below decks. The pasha whirled and cursed.
Up from the twin companionways of the merchantman came a horde of men in the trim green and white uniform of Spain. They carried rifles and swords, and they were led by officers with swords and long-barreled pistols.
Yussuf Caramanli had walked into a trap. A ragged volley by the first of those silent men dropped half a dozen corsairs. An officer roared his commands, and now a hundred rifles belched their flame.
Yussuf Caramanli fell in the wave of lead that struck his men. A bald Arab hooked him under an arm and helped him to his feet.
“Reload!” screamed a Spanish officer. Yussuf Caramanli ran for his ship, falling to the deck as he leaped over its side. Half his men lay groaning on the deck of the Spanish merchantman.
“Cast off!” he screeched. Daggers flashed in the sun, severing the grapnel ropes. On his knees, Yussuf screamed thickly to the sailors in the rigging, to the gunners at the carronades.
“Crowd on sail! Sail! You gunners-load and fire!” It was too late. The two ships were still fastened by a few grapnels, and the yelling Spanish soldiery swarmed onto the slim Barbary ship. Swords flashed, and here and there a pistol barked. Fighting savagely, the Spaniards drove the corsairs back.
A dozen Spaniards came for the quarter-deck, where Fletcher stood with Marlani Chamiprak and Eve Doremus. Behind the deck tent was the helm. If they could control the helm, the Spaniards would take the ship.
Sensing rescue, Fletcher drew Eve Doremus and Marlani Chamiprak to one side, against the starboard rail. He gave the Spaniards room to pass, but they were not content with this. With swords naked in their hands, they came at him, seeing in this bronzed half-naked giant only one more corsair.
His scimitar came out in answer to their challenge. Steel met and clanged as he fended off their blades. He shouted at them in English, “I’m no pirate. I'm an American!” Either they did not understand him, or chose not to do so. In the heat of battle, men forget the niceties. They swore hotly at him in fluid Castilian, and the points of their blades came thrusting at his flesh.
Eve Doremus screamed, “Don’t kill him. He isn't one of them.”
She leaped forward in her anxiety, and a grinning officer fended her off with the back of a hand on her face. He shouted, “Time for you later, white one! Right now we've work to do.”
Fletcher saw the blow. And in a fraction of a second the realization of his feeling for Eve Doremus struck him full sure and true. The officer had struck the woman he loved.
Fletcher came in on the attack, two long steps at a time, his scimitar weaving high, then low. The edge caught a soldier at the neck and dropped him. The point took another in the ribs. The edge came down into the officer's face, sheering away a cheek. Screaming harshly, the officer clapped both hands to his face and fell against the rail.
Marlani Chamiprak was on the man in a moment, a slim poniard in her upraised fist. She thrust the weapon deep into the officer's throat, stabbing him again and again, screaming shrilly all the time.
The Spanish soldiers were falling back before Fletcher's attack. They were not cavalrymen, who were used to this play of steel on steel. They were riflemen, who carried swords only on rare occasion.
Fletcher's blade lifted and fell. He cut and hacked, trying to avoid more blood, seeking only to drive them to the deck stair, where he could hold them of almost indefinitely.
On the main deck, Yussuf pasha had rallied his corsairs. He pointed his bloody blade at the raised deck where Fletcher fought, and his roaring voice brought a flush of shame to his men. “Will you let a nasrany teach us how to fight? See what he does, alone against so many! See how the infidel defends my women! Can we do less for the ship itself?”
The corsairs came raging across the deck, scimitars stabbing and hacking, dark faces were distorted by screaming. “Halaout buoys! Halaout buoy!”
They split the Spanish ranks in front of them, turned them and drove them back against the port rail. Scimitar blades flashed, jelabs flowed and mail sparkled. Here and there men went down with blood spreading on white uniform facings or Moslem sash-belts. A man screamed thickly in the scuppers against the agony of a severed hand. A dark Moor lay huddled near him, motionless.
The Spaniards fell back before the mad fury of the corsairs. In small groups they retreated to their decks where officers organized them into little bands of riflemen. At shouted orders, they poured their leaden hail across the Tripoline's decks.
Suddenly a huge wave lifted the two ships and tore them apart. A freshening wind filled the flapping sails of the corsair ship, and pushed it northward. As a stretch of blue water grew wider between the hulls, Yussuf Caramanli turned from the rail toward the quarter-deck.
He took three steps and fell, face down.
Staring at the crumpled body, Fletcher felt dismay and despair. Striding forward toward his fallen pasha came Mustafa reis. There was a spray of blood across his bare chest, where a Spanish officer had fallen against him as he died, and drops of blood on his cheeks and legs. He came to a stop above Yussuf Caramanli and lifted his hot, black eyes to the American man and woman on the quarter-deck. Wild triumph blazed in those fierce dark eyes.
Soon now, Stephen Fletcher and Eve Doremus would belong to him. Soon he would glut the madness in him. For when Yussuf Caramanli died, Mustafa reis would become the pasha of Tripoli!