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Mina Berkeley's Voyage
- Thread starter Jon Smithie
- Start date
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Coming along very nicely now. Look forward to her finding some real pain.
Jon Smithie
Tribune
THE CONCERNED LADIES OF CAPE COAST
Mina was now clad only in a dirty and torn shift. He was acutely disappointed that he had been delayed in conversation for several precious minutes on his way to his chambers and had missed her being stripped of her dress.
That dress, as well as her petticoats and stockings, were piled behind her. Her delicate back and the feminine flare of her hips hid the upper portion of her thighs from his sight, but he could see that the shift had rucked up well above her knees.
As the judge had grown in wealth and power in Cape Coast, so had his arrogance and cruelty. He had discovered that in partnership with a corrupt and conniving governor, things could be done here that would not be countenanced on his native shores. And he was determined that Miss Wilhelmina Berkeley would receive the full measure of that license.
He took a sip of whiskey from a crystal glass that he had poured himself in anticipation of the humiliations and abuse the crowd would heap upon the young woman. As he watched, the warden and the bailiff grasped her arms, and rudely pulling her forward, locked her wrists into the stocks.
“The vixen is in the trap,” the judge chuckled. “Now let the pack have at her.”
He took another sip.
But the bailiff seemed to be in no hurry. He spent several minutes crouched in front of the stocks, apparently busying himself at Mina’s feet; and then stood, talking earnestly with the warden. Although the judge could hear the hubbub of the crowd and the outraged protestations and outcries of the Berkeley woman through his open window, the words of the warden and the bailiff were indistinct. The bailiff produced a short length of rope, and then spent several more minutes, still in discourse with not only the warden, but with the prisoner as well.
“What in the devil is the man on about?” the judge grumbled. But he could not help his growing excitement.
Finally drawing the conversation to a close, the bailiff crouched on the other side of the stocks, and, with a sudden sharp “Thwack!” struck where the judge knew Mina’s feet would be.
An “Ah!” of surprise escaped the judge’s moistened lips, and then an enthusiastic “Bastinado! Well done, sir, well done!”
The Judge felt his manhood twitch and begin, uncharacteristically, to swell. He took a longer sip, and grunted in delighted approval as the bailiff, with light strokes and unbroken rhythm, continued swinging the rope against Mina’s feet, concentrating on one for a time, and then turning to the other.
The sight was as intoxicating as the smoky liquor he savored. She seemed to be bearing it with great patience, but the judge was not fooled. He sensed an inevitable payoff, a treasure to be uncovered. And sure enough, the unremitting tattoo began to tell on her, and before much longer she was writhing and twisting, and her struggles became more and more insistent, slowly increasing in violence until she was screaming and jerking in agony, desperate to tear herself out of her restraints. Her head reared back, and the judge caught a glimpses of her twisted face as she shouted her agony to the heavens.
What music she made! What a spectacle! How he wished he could be on the ground watching! But of course such a thing would be unseemly for a man of his age and stature. He must be satisfied with the view from on high. The judge made a mental note to compliment the bailiff on his initiative. The man was a gem! How was it that he had never been allowed to exercise his initiative?
The judge answered his own question. Jenkins—that self righteous old fool. How had he been allowed to remain in his position with so many other more deserving men available? Well, he would be sorted out soon enough! The judge slid his age spotted hand down his thigh, as though caressing an old ache, and firmly pressed the heel of his hand against the swell of his cock.
“My Lord!”
Judge Higgens spun around, flushing with anger at the interruption.
“Smythie!”
The Judge’s secretary was on Smythie’s heels.
“My apologies, my Lord,” the man said, “Sir Rupert insisted he must see you immediately.”
The secretary glared at Smythie as Smythie strode up to Higgens’ desk.
Smythie’s anger was written on his face. His eyes were narrowed, his lips pinched and tight.
“I am a busy man, Sir Rupert.”
Smythie leaned over the Judge’s desk and planted his fisted hands flat on its surface.
“You promised her to me!” he said. “We had an arrangement.”
“I have not forgotten our arrangement,” Higgens said. “You shall have her.”
The judge caught sight of the secretary, hovering behind Smythie’s shoulder.
“You may go, sir,” The judge said to the man. “But send the bailiff to me. I would have a word with him. And leave the door open.”
“You shall have the girl, Smythie,” The judge repeated.
“I’ll be sailing within the week. She’ll be in no condition to go,” Smythie spat, “after you’ve done with her!”
“We could keep her here until you return. She should be fully recovered by then,” the judge said. “Of course, there may be a slight charge for her upkeep. But perhaps, depending on her recovery, Madam Louisa could arrange for her to earn part, or all it back, herself.”
“Listen to me, you chicken necked, pettifogging scarecrow,” Smythie said. “You will not brand her, you will not whip her, do you hear? You will sentence her to transportation and turn her over to me as we agreed. Else I will consider my end of the bargain voided. And you shall have made of me your enemy.”
“How dare you, sir!” the judge sputtered. “You were the one who asked a favor of me, and I would have granted it, until it was revealed as a cheat! I have spared her the noose, as my favor to you, and you shall have her. I made no other assurances!”
The two men glared at each other for a few moments.
“Is there anything else, Sir Rupert?” the judge asked, the faint cadenced reports of the snap of the whip on Mina’s feet reminding him that he was missing what was going on outside.
“Ah!” Smythie said, with a contemptuous glance at the Judge’s crotch, “You wish to return to your ‘work’”
Higgens flushed and glanced away. He noticed his secretary trying to get his attention at the threshold.
“What the devil is it?” he roared.
“A thousand pardons, my Lord,” the secretary said, cringing. “But there is a group of women who just came up. They say they must address a matter of great importance to the safety of Cape Coast.”
“Can I not be left in peace?” the judge said, torn between his desire to return to the window, and his desire to end this inconvenient confrontation. “Send them in!”
“We’re not finished.” Smythie said.
“I believe we are, Commodore,” the judge said. “I will honor our arrangement and expect you to do the same, else you shall make an enemy of the Governor as well as myself.”
Smythie snorted in irritation. “Then I shall speak to the Governor!” he said, and abruptly turned and walked away.
“Thank you, Sir Rupert,” the judge said loudly, to Smythie’s retreating back. “And my compliments to His Honor.”
Judge Higgens had nothing to fear from the governor. He knew certain information about the man, besides which they had mutual interests in certain profitable affairs beyond those Smythie was privy to. There was no chance the Governor would take the part of that upstart pup.
Call me a scarecrow will he, Higgens thought. We will see who is left out to dry!
The secretary ushered in the women.
The judge bowed perfunctorily. “I am told you are come on a mission of great importance.”
From their expressions of offended dignity, the judge had an immediate intuition of what their “mission” was, and frowned.
“My Lord,” the ladies returned, and all curtsied politely enough.
A buxom and attractive young woman stepped forward. Higgens recognized her as the wife of one William Newsome, a middle aged and well to do merchant of the town. Newsome’s first wife had died a couple years before of a bloody flux, and he’d found another, a younger and fairer version, in the mother country. She appeared to be as sure of herself and meddlesome as he was, for Newsome had been making trouble lately about the taxes and tariffs.
“We know you are a very busy man, my Lord, so I will come to the point straightaway.” the lady said.
“Please do so,” Judge Higgens said.
“I am Henrietta Newsome, an’ it please your Lordship.” She curtsied again. “Wife to William Newsome, a man of affairs and property in this town.”
“Yes, yes,” the judge nodded. “And what is your business with me?”
The judge’s abruptness discomfited her. He seemed fretful, distracted and angry. Perhaps it had something to do with the glass of whiskey in his hand. She was beginning to wonder if approaching the judge so soon after his decision had been wise.
She and her friends had been appalled by the Judge’s sentence, and had whispered their dismay among themselves. A few others, among them a couple of Mina’s fellow passengers, overheard their conversation and added their own sentiments about the injustice of the trial and the brutality of the sentence. Ordinarily such discussions could have dragged on for hours, and gone nowhere, but their objections were so pressing that Hettie had challenged them all to address their concerns immediately to his Lordship, and they had nominated her to be their leader.
“We shall call ourselves ‘The Concerned Ladies of Cape Coast,’” Hettie had said.
Inside the chambers, Hettie gathered her thoughts and addressed the judge.
“My Lord,” she said, “We are respectable women of this town, wives and mothers, along with some here who are fellow passengers with Miss Berkeley. We are concerned about your sentence of her. It is our opinion my Lord, respectfully. . .”
“Ah!” the judge broke in, “You have come to reproach me with my leniency! It is a reproach well warranted, I confess! No doubt loyal, God-fearing subjects of the Crown would wish to see this woman punished to the full extent of the law! I do appreciate your remonstrance, and I do take it to heart, but you see, I have sentenced her, and I cannot now increase its severity. But I do thank you ladies for your concern.”
He bowed and turned away from the women and went back to the window.
Looking out, he saw that the bailiff had done with Miss Berkeley. Damn these infernal busybodies! he thought. He felt they had cheated him.
“No, my Lord, you mistake me! I mean us. . .!” Hettie exclaimed, including the other women with a sweep of her hand.
“Mistake, how?” the judge asked, turning from the window. “Do you mean you sympathize with Miss Berkeley’s sedition and blasphemies?”
“Certainly not, my Lord! We mean nothing of the kind!” Hettie exclaimed, and her assurance slipped further.
“Make yourself plain, woman, I do not understand you!” Higgens demanded.
He could hear the baying of the mob.
They must be at her now! he thought.
“My Lord, I assure you we are all loyal subjects and good Christians. Of course Miss Berkeley should be punished if she committed such crimes! But this goes beyond the pale, my Lord! We know you as a righteous and severe man, but a public whipping of an entirely unclothed white woman?” Hettie blushed at the thought. “Branding? Such severity is no longer practiced in England, and has not been for generations! It will shock all but the most savage, and those it will encourage to outrageous behavior! It may be appropriate to whip and brand slaves and natives, but a white woman? We all know that black savages and heathens lust after females of the white race. It is their nature. So we plead with you, Your Honor, to moderate your sentence. We fear you put our virtue, and the order of Cape Coast, at peril!”
You intrusive, meddlesome jades! the judge fumed to himself. He had again turned his back on the women as Hettie spoke, and had returned to the window.
Indeed, the crowd was at young Miss Berkeley in earnest. He could only catch glimpses of her, for the mob had crowded in upon her. But he could see the dull glint of a chamber pot as it was tipped over her, and then another.
The judge spotted the warden and the bailiff walking away together. As he watched the judge saw his secretary approach and address the bailiff, and pointing up to the judge’s window. The man looked up. The secretary did also, and both were startled to see the judge standing at his window. Acting on an inspired impulse, the judge gestured at them impatiently to come up.
“You can hear them, my Lord,” Hettie said. “Surely you cannot allow such riotous behavior! And to think that the spectacle of an entirely disrobed white woman will only inflame them further! We appeal to your Lordship to reconsider your sentence, at least in so far as respecting the modesty and propriety of decent white ladies.”
“You may be right, madam,” the judge said. “Or rather, I should consider a new sentence altogether.”
“I do not understand, my Lord,” Hettie said doubtfully.
“If you ladies will be so good as to wait a moment, I will instruct the bailiff how I wish him to proceed.” The judge could not help smiling. “I have just now caught his attention, and he will be here in a moment.”
Hettie curtsied. “We are at your pleasure, my Lord.”
“You there, Bailiff!” the judge shouted, when that official entered the antechamber. “Come, sir! And you as well!” to his secretary, who followed.
The two men entered the judge’s chambers. The bailiff, knowing something of the judge’s temper, assumed he was in trouble. No doubt the judge had seen everything. Would he reprove him for his treatment of Mina?
“Bailiff,” the judge said, the original reason he had called for him forgotten. “You will pardon me for interrupting your work. I have been hearing these petitioners just now and you will have a part in my response, which is this: Ladies,” the judge continued, turning his attention to the women. “Africa is not England, nor is Cape Coast London. Here we maintain order in the old ways: Here we punish thieves, murderers, traitors and time wasters with the severity they deserve. Mistress Newsome!”
“My Lord?”
“For your impertinence and impudence, I charge you with contempt, and impose a summary punishment. You are to be set in the pillory, madam, where you will receive twelve strokes of the tawse upon the bare. Do you hear me, Mr. Bailiff? You will bare her hams, sir, and give her a dozen lusty strokes! Then, madam, you are to stand in the jougs for a term of one hour, and mayhap you will learn how we keep order in this town!”
“My Lord!” Hettie cried out. “You cannot do this! I have committed no crime!”
“I most assuredly can, Mistress Newsome, and you most assuredly have!”
He continued, “Have any of you other meddlesome hens aught to say? Or are you want to take a turn with Mistress Newsome in the pillory and the jougs as well?”
All were wide eyed with shock, and glanced at each other in horror. They shook their heads in unison.
“No, my Lord,”
He looked sternly over the group.
“Very well,” the judge said. “You shall all give your names and your husbands’ names to the secretary; and you sir,” the judge turned to the secretary, “Will admonish their husbands to take charge of these, their errant wives, and not allow them to make trouble and run about the town putting their noses into affairs they know nothing of!”
“My Lord, this is unjust!” Hettie said, her voice husky with outrage and fear.
“I have heard entirely too many insolent females of late prate on about ‘Justice,’” the judge said, “Bailiff, you have work to do. See to it! And call for more guards if these women cause you further trouble.”
One or two of the other women tried to speak out, but the judge had turned his back on them and paid them no mind. The secretary and the bailiff forcefully ushered the women into the antechamber, where, despite their objections, they queued up docilely enough to give their names to the secretary.
“And you will come with me!” the bailiff said to Hettie.
The bailiff seized Hettie by the arm and frogmarched her out of the antechamber and down the stairs.
(Continued below)
Last edited:
Jon Smithie
Tribune
Concerned Ladies (Continued)
Once outside the building, the bailiff drew her arms back and bound them above the elbows.
“Please, sir, there is no need for that!” Hettie cried.
“Hold your tongue, woman!” the bailiff said. “Another word and you’ll be wearing the brank!”
The bailiff levered Hettie’s arms up behind her, bending her far over, so that her head was at the level of his waist. She cried out in pain as arms were pulled up, and in this painful and humiliating posture the bailiff walked her to the pillory.
The yoke of the pillory was set at waist height, so the bailiff simply guided her to the center hole, lifted the upper half of the yoke, pushed her head over the cutout, and let the upper half drop, trapping her head. He secured her ankles in the foot stocks at the base of the pillory.
He did not bother to untie her arms and put her wrists in the yoke as well. She would be in the pillory only long enough to be skelped with the tawse. Then it would be the jougs for her.
“A man has not the time to wet his whistle any longer, for dealing with troublesome females!” the bailiff groused. “Well, madam, be assured I will repay you for the ale I could now be drinking!”
The bailiff lifted Hettie’s skirts, petticoats, and shift, rolling them up her legs and baring her buttocks and lower back. He slapped at her clenched hands.
“Open!” he ordered.
He thrust the roll of material into her hands.
“Now hold on to that. If you let go, it’ll earn you another dozen.”
So saying, he gave Hettie’s plush, pale rump a resounding smack.
“Oh! How dare you!” Hettie cried, with a deep, heartbroken sob and a wail of humiliation.
A tawse is a strap of leather with a split down the middle at the business end. It had many applications; from disciplining unruly school students to more serious judicial punishments. When used for school discipline it was typically lighter, and was applied to the upraised palm of the miscreant. When used in a judicial setting, however, the tawse was thicker and heavier, and applied to the bare buttocks. It left no permanent marks, and was considered less severe than either the birch or the whip. When applied with vigor on the bare, however, as the bailiff would apply it, it was an implement to be dreaded. The tawse the bailiff selected was as heavy and thick as a plow horse’s harness.
He had turned to leave when he remembered to pick up wrist and ankle cuffs as well.
When the bailiff returned to the punishment grounds he saw that the few idlers remaining had interested themselves in the woman at the pillory. Their interest had proceeded little further than mockery, jeers, and insults, but he saw that one of them had been bold enough to open the top of the woman’s gown and shift, and expose her breasts. They were larger and more pendulous than Mina’s, the bailiff noted, but a very nice set nonetheless.
The woman was fleshier than Mina as well, but the bailiff found that in her favor, thinking Mina too slender for his tastes. This woman’s features were not as fine, but then Mina Berkeley had the fairest face the bailiff had ever seen. But, though suffering by comparison, this woman was a pleasant enough looking creature. Her clothing alone bespoke the fact that she was more than a commoner. She was certainly not as socially elevated as Mina Berkeley, but she was a woman of some wealth and certainly well above him in social standing.
He saw that the woman had let go of her skirts, no doubt in response to the jeering of the men at her exposed behind, but it had done her no good. One jokester was tormenting her by pulling her skirts up and flashing her bottom at the others, while Hettie protested angrily, and waved her hands to try to sweep her skirts back down over her nakedness.
“Leave off!” the bailiff ordered the man. “And step lively. I have work to do.”
The bailiff rolled up Hettie’s skirts again and put them back in her hands.
“What did I tell you about letting go? What did I promise you if you did?”
“Oh sir, do not shame this way!” Hettie pleaded.
“Another dozen, I said, did I not? You shall count each stroke or you shall receive the same again, do you hear?”
He measured his distance, drew back his arm, and then struck Hettie with all his strength across the crown of her buttocks.
A resounding “Crack!” echoed over the punishment grounds.
The impact of the blow caused a shock wave through the tender meat of Hettie’s backside, like a rock dropped into a small pond. It lasted only a split second, but set her flesh to wobbling and trembling. Hettie grunted in anguish at the force of the blow. Her knees buckled, putting all her weight on her neck, choking her. A blush began to well up on the surface of her butt where the blow had landed.
“Get your legs under you, you silly cow, and present your bum! You did not count that last!” the bailiff cried, “So I shan’t either!”
And when Hettie had straightened up, he struck her again.
The loud “Crack!” rang out, and then Hettie’s gasp and hiss of pain. Once again, her knees buckled at the force of the blow, and she gagged and choked for a moment.
“Count it!” the bailiff cried.
“Two, sir, have mercy, I beg you!”
“The first did not count.”
Hettie groaned.
“What is the count, woman?” the bailiff demanded.
“One, damn you!”
“That earns you another stroke! You will address me as ‘Sir’! Stand up!”
He struck her again.
“Aaagh!” Hettie screamed. “Two, sir!”
“No!” the bailiff said, “That is but one! No more insolence from you!”
The bailiff found himself becoming aroused, much as he had with Mina. He considered his response a sign of weakness. He was here to punish a law breaker, not lust after a bit of fluff. But the woman’s most intimate parts were exposed to him: the slight spread of her legs revealed the brown rose of her anus, and tucked beneath, the slit of her sex displayed just a hint of the pink of her inner lips. They beckoned to him; an inviting burrow hidden beneath the tangled bush of her pubic hair. The pale white flesh of Hettie’s buttocks and thighs trembled enticingly.
Oh! But she is a shameless trollop! he thought.
That she trembled with fear of the of the next stroke, and not to entice him, did not occur to the bailiff, nor would it have mattered to him. Her anguished grunts did not elicit any pity from him either, but only stirred him to greater effort. He wiped the sweat from his brow. And struggled to put his mind back on his business.
Show her what it is to break the law, he told himself. Show them all what it is to be skelped by Bailiff Tompkins!
He delivered the fourth stroke, swinging not just from his arms this time, but driving with his hips as well. The tawse smacked across Hettie’s buttocks with a force the bailiff felt all the way up his arm. He nearly lost his balance, having put all his effort into the blow.
“Aaaagh!” Hettie yelled. “God in heaven, have mercy!”
“Stop your blubbering woman, and count!”
“Ah, mercy sir, two!”
Another loud crack! rent the air.
“Mercy, for the love of God, sir!” the woman cried. “Please, someone fetch my husband!”
Crack!
“Three sir!” gasped Hettie. Her hands twisted into the roll of her skirts, clutching them tightly in her pale fingers.
“Crack!”
“Aaah! God help me! Four, sir!” Hettie cried brokenly.
The bailiff side stepped a bit so the next blow would land fully on Hettie’s left butt cheek. Being right handed, he could see that the impact of the tawse was landing primarily on her right. He wanted both globes well and truly ruddied.
Crack!
“Aaah!” gasped Hettie, “Five sir!”
Her thighs and buttocks were trembling like plum pudding. Her knees flinched and buckled, almost in spasms, as she tried to anticipate the next stroke.
The bailiff struck her again on the left cheek, this time swinging upwards with the tawse. It was not as powerful as a downward stroke, but struck her on slightly different spot.
Hettie vented an anguished grunt and then let out a full throated scream.
She lunged against the pillory yoke, bucking her shoulders into the wood of the yoke as though trying to drive herself through it. As she pulled back, the bailiff heard her teeth clack as her lower jaw hit the yoke on the other side.
“Ah, God!” she cried. “Six sir! I beg you sir, as a Christian man, have pity!”
“And as a Christian woman,” he replied, “You must learn discipline and obedience!”
The bailiff stepped back, noting with satisfaction the deep red blush of her buttocks.
The color was shading into purple on the right cheek as bruising began to form, but the left was coming along nicely. Now she would start to feel it, he thought. He would make sure of that.
The onlookers thought that was perhaps the end.
“She’s just getting warm, sir!” cried one.
Others added their jibes. The bailiff ignored them all.
He walked around to the front of the pillory. He placed the tawse on the yoke of the pillory.
“Madam,” he said.
She was grunting and mewling with each breath. Tears and sweat had turned her face into a shimmering mess.
“Madam,” he said again, and pulled her head up by her hair and looked into her tear filled eyes.
“Thank me for the last six. And ask me very prettily for the next.”
Hettie stared in disbelief and outrage, and gave a broken sob.
““How can I thank you?” she gasped. “You are a cruel and heartless man! Have you no pity?”
The bailiff gripped Hettie’s nose between his thumb and forefinger. He gave it a slow, hard twist to the left and then to the right. She grunted in pain, and her eyes screwed nearly shut, squeezing more tears down her cheeks. She felt her nose would be twisted off her face.
“Thank me, or it will go very hard with you.”
He let go of her nose, and then pinched the inside and outside of her upper lip, getting a good purchase between thumb and forefinger, and twisting it even more tightly than he had her nose.
“Gah abob suh! Ank you! Ank you!”
“I cannot understand your gabble! Speak clear, woman!”
The bailiff released her lip.
“Thank you, sir, thank you!” Hettie gasped.
“And tell me you will never trouble his Lordship the judge, nor myself with your foolishness and insolence.”
“I promise it,” Hettie hissed between clenched teeth.
“I did not hear you, woman.”
“I promise!” Hettie cried.
The bailiff smiled grimly, but he was not satisfied. He had a cockstand that was poling out the front of his breeches. And he was uncomfortably aware that her face was at the level of his crotch. He thought for a moment about how pleasant it would be to have this woman bagpipe him right here and now. But such an act, even in private, even between man and wife, was unnatural and shameful, and the bailiff quickly suppressed the thought.
He picked up the tawse and smacked it against the palm of his hand.
“Beg me for another six,” he said.
Hettie heaved a sob.
“Please sir, another six,” she said.
The bailiff patted her on the cheek.
“As you wish. But I shall not pat you so gently on your nether cheeks.”
The onlookers cheered as the bailiff returned to Hettie’s rear.
Once again he measured his distance, flung his arm back and came down hard with the tawse on Hettie’s buttocks.
“Aaaah! Dear Jesus, help me!” cried Hettie. “Seven!”
Hettie’s backside now had large red and purple swatches on each cheek. The bailiff knew that each stroke would be more painful than the previous ones, for the flesh was deeply bruised and far more tender.
He redoubled his efforts.
A ferocious swipe with the tawse on her left buttock cheek elicited a roar of pain from the woman. An even more forceful one on her right, quickly following, had her bucking in agony.
“Count!” he shouted at her.
“Eight and nine, sir, dear God!”
He took his time with the last three strokes, shaking his arm out after each, and catching his breath, before before winding up and fetching her a blow that was worthy of a winning serve in the game of royal tennis.
“Ten, eleven, twelve!” she screamed with each unbearable stroke, her chest heaving with effort.
She was well and truly warmed up now, he thought. He had an urge to continue and give her the extra twelve that he had promised for dropping her skirts; oh yes, she would feel it now, right enough, but a second thought made him look up at the Judge’s window. He saw Higgens standing there, watching, but could discern nothing from the man’s expression. The judge was a severe, inflexible man, the bailiff considered, and it might well arise his ire if the bailiff were to give the woman the extra dozen.
“What did I promise you for dropping your skirts?” the bailiff asked.
Hettie groaned.
“Please, sir, I beg of you, no more!”
“Count!” he ordered.
Hettie’s wail of despair rose in volume to a scream of shock and pain with the“Crack!” of the tawse across her backside.
“Aaah! God! Thirteen, sir! I beg you, have pity!” Hettie cried.
“Have you learned your lesson, woman?”
“Yes sir!”
“Have you indeed? Another eleven, or have you learned it?”
“Yes sir! I have learned it, sir,” Hettie wept.
“Then we shall call it a dozen. A baker’s dozen,” the bailiff said. “But your lesson is not finished.”
Hettie groaned as the bailiff released her neck from the yoke of the pillory. She felt dizzy, and her buttocks burned like fire from the heavy blows of the tawse. Her shoulders ached from the strained position she had been bound in.
The bailiff untied Hettie’s arms.
“Aaah!” She whimpered in relief as the ache in her shoulders eased, until the pins and needles of returning circulation made her cry out in pain. The bailiff shackled Hettie’s wrists together, and opened the foot stocks.
“Now you will stand in the jougs,” the bailiff said. “As an example to insolent women.”
Hettie dropped her head in despair.
Once again he levered her arms up behind her, bending her torso and head down to waste level. He marched her in that humiliating posture, her naked breasts hanging down wobbling and jiggling, to the jail.
On an outside wall of the jail hung an iron collar suspended from a length of chain about seven or eight feet above the ground. A narrow stone pedestal, about two feet in height, stood against the wall below the collar. The top of the pedestal angled down and away from the wall.
The bailiff pulled off Hettie’s shoes, and had her step up on the pedestal.
He climbed up beside her on a short step ladder left for the purpose to lock the collar around her neck.
The jougs was not considered an especially severe punishment, since all the offender had to do was stand for the prescribed time, but it was made more uncomfortable by the fact that, since the surface of the platform was angled down, he or she must scrabble backwards with his or her feet to keep from choking on the collar.
“Someone will fetch you down when you have served your time,” the bailiff said, shackling Hettie’s ankles together. “And you will have learned your lesson.”
And so bailiff Tompkins, having completed his duty, left Hettie in the jougs. He left her bare breasted and bare footed, and softly weeping and lowing in her humiliation and pain.
The jougs. (Sister Dee of Infernal Restraints)
He hoped he would catch up to the warden and get that ale the man owed him.
Most of the women in Hettie’s group had dispersed quickly after giving their names to the secretary, and after having being sternly lectured to at some length by that pipsqueak of a man. Those who lived in Cape Coast hurried away to their various homes and husbands, and the few fellow passengers of Mina’s who had decided to stand up for her, resolved to address their concerns to a more sympathetic government officer or official when they had the opportunity. They eagerly looked forward to leaving this place and continuing their journey.
Hettie’s closest friends had clustered in a tight little group when they emerged from Government House. They had paused for a moment as the bailiff began his work, and flinched as one at the first Crack! of the tawse.
“Ah! Poor Hettie! This is dreadful! How will she endure it?”
“Yes! Poor thing! She is learning her lesson, as we have learned ours. Did I not advise her against this? But she must have her head.”
“We all warned her, did we not? Did we not tell her this was far too rash?”
“My husband will beat me sure when he learns of this.”
“She will have to leave, poor dear. How can she show her face around here after this?”
Of course it went without saying—it was simply out of the question—that the Concerned Ladies of Cape Coast would associate any longer with a woman who had been exposed to such public ridicule and shame.
Once outside the building, the bailiff drew her arms back and bound them above the elbows.
“Please, sir, there is no need for that!” Hettie cried.
“Hold your tongue, woman!” the bailiff said. “Another word and you’ll be wearing the brank!”
The bailiff levered Hettie’s arms up behind her, bending her far over, so that her head was at the level of his waist. She cried out in pain as arms were pulled up, and in this painful and humiliating posture the bailiff walked her to the pillory.
The yoke of the pillory was set at waist height, so the bailiff simply guided her to the center hole, lifted the upper half of the yoke, pushed her head over the cutout, and let the upper half drop, trapping her head. He secured her ankles in the foot stocks at the base of the pillory.
He did not bother to untie her arms and put her wrists in the yoke as well. She would be in the pillory only long enough to be skelped with the tawse. Then it would be the jougs for her.
“A man has not the time to wet his whistle any longer, for dealing with troublesome females!” the bailiff groused. “Well, madam, be assured I will repay you for the ale I could now be drinking!”
The bailiff lifted Hettie’s skirts, petticoats, and shift, rolling them up her legs and baring her buttocks and lower back. He slapped at her clenched hands.
“Open!” he ordered.
He thrust the roll of material into her hands.
“Now hold on to that. If you let go, it’ll earn you another dozen.”
So saying, he gave Hettie’s plush, pale rump a resounding smack.
“Oh! How dare you!” Hettie cried, with a deep, heartbroken sob and a wail of humiliation.
A tawse is a strap of leather with a split down the middle at the business end. It had many applications; from disciplining unruly school students to more serious judicial punishments. When used for school discipline it was typically lighter, and was applied to the upraised palm of the miscreant. When used in a judicial setting, however, the tawse was thicker and heavier, and applied to the bare buttocks. It left no permanent marks, and was considered less severe than either the birch or the whip. When applied with vigor on the bare, however, as the bailiff would apply it, it was an implement to be dreaded. The tawse the bailiff selected was as heavy and thick as a plow horse’s harness.
He had turned to leave when he remembered to pick up wrist and ankle cuffs as well.
When the bailiff returned to the punishment grounds he saw that the few idlers remaining had interested themselves in the woman at the pillory. Their interest had proceeded little further than mockery, jeers, and insults, but he saw that one of them had been bold enough to open the top of the woman’s gown and shift, and expose her breasts. They were larger and more pendulous than Mina’s, the bailiff noted, but a very nice set nonetheless.
The woman was fleshier than Mina as well, but the bailiff found that in her favor, thinking Mina too slender for his tastes. This woman’s features were not as fine, but then Mina Berkeley had the fairest face the bailiff had ever seen. But, though suffering by comparison, this woman was a pleasant enough looking creature. Her clothing alone bespoke the fact that she was more than a commoner. She was certainly not as socially elevated as Mina Berkeley, but she was a woman of some wealth and certainly well above him in social standing.
He saw that the woman had let go of her skirts, no doubt in response to the jeering of the men at her exposed behind, but it had done her no good. One jokester was tormenting her by pulling her skirts up and flashing her bottom at the others, while Hettie protested angrily, and waved her hands to try to sweep her skirts back down over her nakedness.
“Leave off!” the bailiff ordered the man. “And step lively. I have work to do.”
The bailiff rolled up Hettie’s skirts again and put them back in her hands.
“What did I tell you about letting go? What did I promise you if you did?”
“Oh sir, do not shame this way!” Hettie pleaded.
“Another dozen, I said, did I not? You shall count each stroke or you shall receive the same again, do you hear?”
He measured his distance, drew back his arm, and then struck Hettie with all his strength across the crown of her buttocks.
A resounding “Crack!” echoed over the punishment grounds.
The impact of the blow caused a shock wave through the tender meat of Hettie’s backside, like a rock dropped into a small pond. It lasted only a split second, but set her flesh to wobbling and trembling. Hettie grunted in anguish at the force of the blow. Her knees buckled, putting all her weight on her neck, choking her. A blush began to well up on the surface of her butt where the blow had landed.
“Get your legs under you, you silly cow, and present your bum! You did not count that last!” the bailiff cried, “So I shan’t either!”
And when Hettie had straightened up, he struck her again.
The loud “Crack!” rang out, and then Hettie’s gasp and hiss of pain. Once again, her knees buckled at the force of the blow, and she gagged and choked for a moment.
“Count it!” the bailiff cried.
“Two, sir, have mercy, I beg you!”
“The first did not count.”
Hettie groaned.
“What is the count, woman?” the bailiff demanded.
“One, damn you!”
“That earns you another stroke! You will address me as ‘Sir’! Stand up!”
He struck her again.
“Aaagh!” Hettie screamed. “Two, sir!”
“No!” the bailiff said, “That is but one! No more insolence from you!”
The bailiff found himself becoming aroused, much as he had with Mina. He considered his response a sign of weakness. He was here to punish a law breaker, not lust after a bit of fluff. But the woman’s most intimate parts were exposed to him: the slight spread of her legs revealed the brown rose of her anus, and tucked beneath, the slit of her sex displayed just a hint of the pink of her inner lips. They beckoned to him; an inviting burrow hidden beneath the tangled bush of her pubic hair. The pale white flesh of Hettie’s buttocks and thighs trembled enticingly.
Oh! But she is a shameless trollop! he thought.
That she trembled with fear of the of the next stroke, and not to entice him, did not occur to the bailiff, nor would it have mattered to him. Her anguished grunts did not elicit any pity from him either, but only stirred him to greater effort. He wiped the sweat from his brow. And struggled to put his mind back on his business.
Show her what it is to break the law, he told himself. Show them all what it is to be skelped by Bailiff Tompkins!
He delivered the fourth stroke, swinging not just from his arms this time, but driving with his hips as well. The tawse smacked across Hettie’s buttocks with a force the bailiff felt all the way up his arm. He nearly lost his balance, having put all his effort into the blow.
“Aaaagh!” Hettie yelled. “God in heaven, have mercy!”
“Stop your blubbering woman, and count!”
“Ah, mercy sir, two!”
Another loud crack! rent the air.
“Mercy, for the love of God, sir!” the woman cried. “Please, someone fetch my husband!”
Crack!
“Three sir!” gasped Hettie. Her hands twisted into the roll of her skirts, clutching them tightly in her pale fingers.
“Crack!”
“Aaah! God help me! Four, sir!” Hettie cried brokenly.
The bailiff side stepped a bit so the next blow would land fully on Hettie’s left butt cheek. Being right handed, he could see that the impact of the tawse was landing primarily on her right. He wanted both globes well and truly ruddied.
Crack!
“Aaah!” gasped Hettie, “Five sir!”
Her thighs and buttocks were trembling like plum pudding. Her knees flinched and buckled, almost in spasms, as she tried to anticipate the next stroke.
The bailiff struck her again on the left cheek, this time swinging upwards with the tawse. It was not as powerful as a downward stroke, but struck her on slightly different spot.
Hettie vented an anguished grunt and then let out a full throated scream.
She lunged against the pillory yoke, bucking her shoulders into the wood of the yoke as though trying to drive herself through it. As she pulled back, the bailiff heard her teeth clack as her lower jaw hit the yoke on the other side.
“Ah, God!” she cried. “Six sir! I beg you sir, as a Christian man, have pity!”
“And as a Christian woman,” he replied, “You must learn discipline and obedience!”
The bailiff stepped back, noting with satisfaction the deep red blush of her buttocks.
The color was shading into purple on the right cheek as bruising began to form, but the left was coming along nicely. Now she would start to feel it, he thought. He would make sure of that.
The onlookers thought that was perhaps the end.
“She’s just getting warm, sir!” cried one.
Others added their jibes. The bailiff ignored them all.
He walked around to the front of the pillory. He placed the tawse on the yoke of the pillory.
“Madam,” he said.
She was grunting and mewling with each breath. Tears and sweat had turned her face into a shimmering mess.
“Madam,” he said again, and pulled her head up by her hair and looked into her tear filled eyes.
“Thank me for the last six. And ask me very prettily for the next.”
Hettie stared in disbelief and outrage, and gave a broken sob.
““How can I thank you?” she gasped. “You are a cruel and heartless man! Have you no pity?”
The bailiff gripped Hettie’s nose between his thumb and forefinger. He gave it a slow, hard twist to the left and then to the right. She grunted in pain, and her eyes screwed nearly shut, squeezing more tears down her cheeks. She felt her nose would be twisted off her face.
“Thank me, or it will go very hard with you.”
He let go of her nose, and then pinched the inside and outside of her upper lip, getting a good purchase between thumb and forefinger, and twisting it even more tightly than he had her nose.
“Gah abob suh! Ank you! Ank you!”
“I cannot understand your gabble! Speak clear, woman!”
The bailiff released her lip.
“Thank you, sir, thank you!” Hettie gasped.
“And tell me you will never trouble his Lordship the judge, nor myself with your foolishness and insolence.”
“I promise it,” Hettie hissed between clenched teeth.
“I did not hear you, woman.”
“I promise!” Hettie cried.
The bailiff smiled grimly, but he was not satisfied. He had a cockstand that was poling out the front of his breeches. And he was uncomfortably aware that her face was at the level of his crotch. He thought for a moment about how pleasant it would be to have this woman bagpipe him right here and now. But such an act, even in private, even between man and wife, was unnatural and shameful, and the bailiff quickly suppressed the thought.
He picked up the tawse and smacked it against the palm of his hand.
“Beg me for another six,” he said.
Hettie heaved a sob.
“Please sir, another six,” she said.
The bailiff patted her on the cheek.
“As you wish. But I shall not pat you so gently on your nether cheeks.”
The onlookers cheered as the bailiff returned to Hettie’s rear.
Once again he measured his distance, flung his arm back and came down hard with the tawse on Hettie’s buttocks.
“Aaaah! Dear Jesus, help me!” cried Hettie. “Seven!”
Hettie’s backside now had large red and purple swatches on each cheek. The bailiff knew that each stroke would be more painful than the previous ones, for the flesh was deeply bruised and far more tender.
He redoubled his efforts.
A ferocious swipe with the tawse on her left buttock cheek elicited a roar of pain from the woman. An even more forceful one on her right, quickly following, had her bucking in agony.
“Count!” he shouted at her.
“Eight and nine, sir, dear God!”
He took his time with the last three strokes, shaking his arm out after each, and catching his breath, before before winding up and fetching her a blow that was worthy of a winning serve in the game of royal tennis.
“Ten, eleven, twelve!” she screamed with each unbearable stroke, her chest heaving with effort.
She was well and truly warmed up now, he thought. He had an urge to continue and give her the extra twelve that he had promised for dropping her skirts; oh yes, she would feel it now, right enough, but a second thought made him look up at the Judge’s window. He saw Higgens standing there, watching, but could discern nothing from the man’s expression. The judge was a severe, inflexible man, the bailiff considered, and it might well arise his ire if the bailiff were to give the woman the extra dozen.
“What did I promise you for dropping your skirts?” the bailiff asked.
Hettie groaned.
“Please, sir, I beg of you, no more!”
“Count!” he ordered.
Hettie’s wail of despair rose in volume to a scream of shock and pain with the“Crack!” of the tawse across her backside.
“Aaah! God! Thirteen, sir! I beg you, have pity!” Hettie cried.
“Have you learned your lesson, woman?”
“Yes sir!”
“Have you indeed? Another eleven, or have you learned it?”
“Yes sir! I have learned it, sir,” Hettie wept.
“Then we shall call it a dozen. A baker’s dozen,” the bailiff said. “But your lesson is not finished.”
Hettie groaned as the bailiff released her neck from the yoke of the pillory. She felt dizzy, and her buttocks burned like fire from the heavy blows of the tawse. Her shoulders ached from the strained position she had been bound in.
The bailiff untied Hettie’s arms.
“Aaah!” She whimpered in relief as the ache in her shoulders eased, until the pins and needles of returning circulation made her cry out in pain. The bailiff shackled Hettie’s wrists together, and opened the foot stocks.
“Now you will stand in the jougs,” the bailiff said. “As an example to insolent women.”
Hettie dropped her head in despair.
Once again he levered her arms up behind her, bending her torso and head down to waste level. He marched her in that humiliating posture, her naked breasts hanging down wobbling and jiggling, to the jail.
On an outside wall of the jail hung an iron collar suspended from a length of chain about seven or eight feet above the ground. A narrow stone pedestal, about two feet in height, stood against the wall below the collar. The top of the pedestal angled down and away from the wall.
The bailiff pulled off Hettie’s shoes, and had her step up on the pedestal.
He climbed up beside her on a short step ladder left for the purpose to lock the collar around her neck.
The jougs was not considered an especially severe punishment, since all the offender had to do was stand for the prescribed time, but it was made more uncomfortable by the fact that, since the surface of the platform was angled down, he or she must scrabble backwards with his or her feet to keep from choking on the collar.
“Someone will fetch you down when you have served your time,” the bailiff said, shackling Hettie’s ankles together. “And you will have learned your lesson.”
And so bailiff Tompkins, having completed his duty, left Hettie in the jougs. He left her bare breasted and bare footed, and softly weeping and lowing in her humiliation and pain.
The jougs. (Sister Dee of Infernal Restraints)He hoped he would catch up to the warden and get that ale the man owed him.
Most of the women in Hettie’s group had dispersed quickly after giving their names to the secretary, and after having being sternly lectured to at some length by that pipsqueak of a man. Those who lived in Cape Coast hurried away to their various homes and husbands, and the few fellow passengers of Mina’s who had decided to stand up for her, resolved to address their concerns to a more sympathetic government officer or official when they had the opportunity. They eagerly looked forward to leaving this place and continuing their journey.
Hettie’s closest friends had clustered in a tight little group when they emerged from Government House. They had paused for a moment as the bailiff began his work, and flinched as one at the first Crack! of the tawse.
“Ah! Poor Hettie! This is dreadful! How will she endure it?”
“Yes! Poor thing! She is learning her lesson, as we have learned ours. Did I not advise her against this? But she must have her head.”
“We all warned her, did we not? Did we not tell her this was far too rash?”
“My husband will beat me sure when he learns of this.”
“She will have to leave, poor dear. How can she show her face around here after this?”
Of course it went without saying—it was simply out of the question—that the Concerned Ladies of Cape Coast would associate any longer with a woman who had been exposed to such public ridicule and shame.
Last edited:
Jon Smithie
Tribune
I promise--this chapter (Concerned Ladies) is the last chapter before the main event. I debated writing it. It's probably completely unnecessary, but I hope you'll enjoy one more appetizer before the main course.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Very tasty appetizer, but I'm risking calorie overload before the main course. May need to follow the Roman custom to allow more eating!
Jackie1111
Tribune
Finally, I made it through this thread! Whew!
I'm really loving your story, Jon. For me, the most important factor in a bdsm story is how effectively the author brings me into the mind of the victim/sub character. Some authors devote hardly any attention to that. But you have done that brilliantly. Although Mina is more mouthy and self-righteous than I would ever be, I've had little problem imagining myself in her place. As I was reading, the tension she felt, I felt. My god, I can't wait for the cart's tail whipping.
The image of Mina being gagged, her wrists and arms fastened behind her back, and being forced to "double time" through the town was a very exciting one. You didn't bring the reader inside her head for that though, which would have been a nice touch.
As for historical accuracy....well, for this time period and location, I wouldn't know what's accurate and what's not. However, I do appreciate the historical details, and knowing the author devoted time to researching the historical aspects in an effort to get them right does enhance my enjoyment. It adds a lot to the "atmosphere" and makes the story more vivid and believable.
I'm really loving your story, Jon. For me, the most important factor in a bdsm story is how effectively the author brings me into the mind of the victim/sub character. Some authors devote hardly any attention to that. But you have done that brilliantly. Although Mina is more mouthy and self-righteous than I would ever be, I've had little problem imagining myself in her place. As I was reading, the tension she felt, I felt. My god, I can't wait for the cart's tail whipping.
The image of Mina being gagged, her wrists and arms fastened behind her back, and being forced to "double time" through the town was a very exciting one. You didn't bring the reader inside her head for that though, which would have been a nice touch.
As for historical accuracy....well, for this time period and location, I wouldn't know what's accurate and what's not. However, I do appreciate the historical details, and knowing the author devoted time to researching the historical aspects in an effort to get them right does enhance my enjoyment. It adds a lot to the "atmosphere" and makes the story more vivid and believable.
Jon Smithie
Tribune
Finally, I made it through this thread! Whew!
I'm really loving your story, Jon. For me, the most important factor in a bdsm story is how effectively the author brings me into the mind of the victim/sub character. Some authors devote hardly any attention to that. But you have done that brilliantly. Although Mina is more mouthy and self-righteous than I would ever be, I've had little problem imagining myself in her place. As I was reading, the tension she felt, I felt. My god, I can't wait for the cart's tail whipping.
The image of Mina being gagged, her wrists and arms fastened behind her back, and being forced to "double time" through the town was a very exciting one. You didn't bring the reader inside her head for that though, which would have been a nice touch.
As for historical accuracy....well, for this time period and location, I wouldn't know what's accurate and what's not. However, I do appreciate the historical details, and knowing the author devoted time to researching the historical aspects in an effort to get them right does enhance my enjoyment. It adds a lot to the "atmosphere" and makes the story more vivid and believable.
Thanks so much for your comments, Jackie! I 'm glad you're enjoying the story. I think of the story as posted so far as a work in progress. I've already revised most of the chapters; mostly just dialogue touch-ups, added description and so forth, but I think your suggestion that I get more of Mina's point of view during her double time run through the town is a very good one, and I will incorporate it for the final version.
The coming chapter will be mostly from Mina's point of view, but will include others as well. One of the strengths of King Diocletian's original story was that he took us inside the mind of many different characters, both sympathetic and not. I've tried to emulate that in my story. Unfortunately I'm a very slow writer, but I'm going to try to have the next chapter up by next Monday.
Jackie1111
Tribune
No hurry, take your time. When it's done it's done.
It's awesome to hear that there will be an even better version of this someday!
Jackie1111
Tribune
Jon, the way you described Miriam being bound to the frame was particularly delicious....
The young woman was forced up the steps of the platform and positioned at the frame.
One of her guards untied her wrists, but only so that leather straps could be wrapped around them. Her
arms were held out in front of her and a separate rope attached to each strap. Once her wrists were
secured a guard pulled on each rope. The ropes ran through eye bolts at the upper corners of the frame,
and as each guard pulled, her arms were lifted simultaneously. After stretching her arms up, the guards
tied off the ropes to stanchions at the sides of the frame. The woman’s breasts flattened against her
chest, but were full enough that they still jiggled with each panicked breath. Then the woman’s ankles
were wrapped in leather straps as well, and pulled toward the corners of the frame. Mina now realized
that the woman was to be stretched out spreadeagled at the frame! It reminded Mina, with horror, of
the woman who had been flogged at the gangway. But this seemed worse, for this woman, Miriam,
was completely exposed to the crowd. Miriam cried out in despair as she felt both her arms and legs
stretched taut.
I know she was wearing a loin cloth in your story, but I imagine Miriam looked much like this...
The young woman was forced up the steps of the platform and positioned at the frame.
One of her guards untied her wrists, but only so that leather straps could be wrapped around them. Her
arms were held out in front of her and a separate rope attached to each strap. Once her wrists were
secured a guard pulled on each rope. The ropes ran through eye bolts at the upper corners of the frame,
and as each guard pulled, her arms were lifted simultaneously. After stretching her arms up, the guards
tied off the ropes to stanchions at the sides of the frame. The woman’s breasts flattened against her
chest, but were full enough that they still jiggled with each panicked breath. Then the woman’s ankles
were wrapped in leather straps as well, and pulled toward the corners of the frame. Mina now realized
that the woman was to be stretched out spreadeagled at the frame! It reminded Mina, with horror, of
the woman who had been flogged at the gangway. But this seemed worse, for this woman, Miriam,
was completely exposed to the crowd. Miriam cried out in despair as she felt both her arms and legs
stretched taut.
I know she was wearing a loin cloth in your story, but I imagine Miriam looked much like this...
Attachments
Jon Smithie
Tribune
Sorry, I've been slower than usual this week. I won't have the next chapter up today. Hopefully in the next few days.
He went to Tree's School of Typing!!!
Jackie1111
Tribune
Dang. Guess my self-gratification session planned for this evening is cancelled. 
It is only because your wrists and feet are nailed to the cross. Be innovative!!!Dang. Guess my self-gratification session planned for this evening is cancelled.
Jon Smithie
Tribune
Dang. Guess my self-gratification session planned for this evening is cancelled.
I'll try to make the chapter worth the wait.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Worth it to us. Maybe not so much gratitude from Mina.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Sounds like a good plan. However, I worry at the expression, "many different characters." For me, at least, an author can become distracting by jumping between to many minds, too frequently. I enjoy getting into the minds, thoughts, and especially pain, of two, to four characters at a time. Just my personal suggestion. The story so far has been a worthy follow to KD, which is a outstanding accomplishment.
Jon Smithie
Tribune
Sorry this has taken so long. Once again I didn't get as far as I would have liked. But as promised, we are now into round one of the Main Event. Enjoy.
BTW I think I made a mistake in having two distinct characters, the bailiff and the warden. They were both essentially the same character, doing the same job. If I ever get around to a rewrite, there will only be one character from the get-go. And from now on, it's just the warden.
It was late afternoon when Warden Tompkins checked on Mina.
She didn’t even lift her head when he addressed her. She mumbled something in response. A curse or a prayer, he couldn’t tell. She responded only with a soft grunt when he kicked her in the thigh. She was the very picture of misery, a drowned rat stuck in a trap. Her hair splayed in filthy ropes over her outstretched arms, and down her sun burned back and shoulders. Her pale breasts rose and fell at irregular intervals with each labored breath. She was covered with red bumps and spots where biting flies had had a taste of her flesh.
Warden Tompkins could see that she would not be fit to bear what was yet to be done with her if she were to remain exposed to the African sun, the heat, insects, and rowdies who wished to abuse her further. He supposed that she might not even survive another day in the stocks.
He ordered her taken to a cell. But first he detailed a couple of slave women to clean her up, for her reek was too strong even for his jail. Besides which, the warden had to admit to himself, she was not so pretty covered with muck.
She was half carried and half supported, to an area behind the jail. She could barely walk, for her feet were swollen and sore from the falaka. She revived somewhat as the women pulled her shift from her, then dumped bucket fulls of water and washed and scrubbed the naked woman raw. Her pale breasts, belly and legs and her glowing red back were a stark contrast to the glistening ebony of the slave women’s skin.
What a strumpet! Thought the warden, who allowed himself to watch. How she loves to display herself before men!
“That will do!” he said, after Mina had been gone over with stiff brushes and harsh soaps, and had her hair combed out. “She’ll not be attending a ball.”
Mina looked up at the warden with dull eyes. She had never been naked before a man, and she tried to cover herself with arms and crossed legs. One of the slave women had washed and rung out her shift, and helped her put it back on. Mina could tell from the Warden’s expression how the torn and ragged shift clung to her body, outlining every curve. Feeling even more exposed and naked with the shift on, she covered herself with her arms as best she could, and limped painfully to the jail, firmly rejecting the slave women’s assistance.
Once inside the jail, her wrists and ankles were shackled, and she was placed inside a small cell. The warden allowed her a few swallows of water and then slammed the cell door closed.
Utterly spent with suffering, humiliation and weariness, Mina crawled onto a thin, lice infested straw mattress, and fell into a pain haunted sleep.
She awakened time and again throughout the awful night, tormented by aches and pains and filled with dread and terrors from horrid dreams. But her exhaustion was such that she would fall back briefly into the arms of sleep, only to awaken again to the same nightmare perhaps minutes, perhaps hours later.
But even such nights must end. In the morning the warden himself opened her cell.
“Slept well, I trust, Miss Berkeley? Time to break your fast. You must eat, Miss Berkeley. You have a long walk ahead of you on the morrow.”
He set a flagon of water and a bowl of mush on the floor.
The warden had had a restless night of his own. He could not get the image of Mina’s naked, pale, and shapely body out of his mind. He had awakened in a sweat in the middle of the night, thinking that he should check on the young woman in her cell. Just check on her.
He had been warned in no uncertain terms by none other than Commodore Sir Rupert Smythie that Mina Berkeley was not to be outraged. And still uncertain in his position, the warden could not afford to make such a man his enemy.
Unable to sleep, the warden finally arose at dawn and went to the jail. He stayed away from Mina Berkeley’s cell, but consoled himself with beating a troublesome prisoner nearly to death.
Having usefully discharged his energy, the warden brought Mina her breakfast.
“You have admirers, Miss Berkeley,” he said. “I was tempted to visit you last night, but it seems that a certain Commodore wants you all for himself. Perhaps I will visit you tonight. Eh, Miss Berkeley?”
He reached out to touch her.
“No!” Mina croaked, and turned away.
The warden smiled grimly. “You know, it’ll be me who whips you and gives you the bull’s pizzle,” he said. “Perhaps I could go a little easier on you, if you were to be pleasant to me. It would be our little secret.”
“Get away from me you evil, horrible man!” Mina cried.
“You little minx,” he said. “You should enjoy yourself while you can. You will not feel up to it soon enough.”
Though still aching in body and spirit, Mina could not deny her bodily needs. When the warden had turned and left, she drank the water greedily, for she was very thirsty, and even took a few mouthfuls of the mush. Deeply threatened by the words and hot looks the warden had given her, Mina set about restoring both her shift, so that at least it would cover her decently; and her spirits by praying, usually such a comfort. But the present circumstances weighed so heavily on her that they threatened to overwhelm even her natural optimism and determination. Her emotions constantly vacillated between wild hope and black despair.
At times she wept, thinking of her sister Laura back in Madame Louisa’s awful house, and of her own impending punishment. To be whipped naked. . . and. . . and. . .branded. She would go cold to think of it.
Was it even possible? Surely such barbarities had been relegated to the dark ages! Surely someone of influence and authority would intercede! Surely the Governor, the Commodore, the people themselves, would express their outrage at the injustice and cruelty of her sentence, and this abuse of the judge’s authority! Surely there were righteous and God fearing individuals who would stand up for her!
Briefly convincing herself with such hopeful thoughts, vivid images would then arise unbidden in her mind of the women she had seen whipped, screaming and writhing under the lash: the one aboard ship and the one at the frame here on the punishment grounds; of the agonies of her caning; and of her time in the stocks, and how people had mocked and abused her.
And her stomach would churn and she would feel sick with fear.
It did not help that she was visited at intervals by guards. They did nothing more than stare, or make suggestive comments to her, or to each other about her if they came in a pair. It was obvious that they wanted much more than that, and would have taken it too, had they not been warned by their boss, the warden.
Late in the afternoon an imposing black man came to her cell. He was accompanied by a white guard. The guard set her dinner, such as it was, and a flagon of water on the floor.
Mina remembered the black man as Ebo, the man who had whipped the colored girl at the frame.
“What did I tell you, Ebo, quite the little bit, isn’t she?” the guard said.
Ebo said nothing, but only stared at Mina, his cold eyes mocking her. He was wearing a sleeveless jerkin, deeply vee’d, that showed off his powerful arms and chest. His posture, and his arrogant expression, suggested that he was well aware of his physical power, and would not hesitate to use it. Mina stared back at him, trying to maintain some semblance of courage, but knowing that her rank fear must be apparent to him.
“I know you,” she said. “You whipped that poor woman a few days ago. Do you enjoy making people suffer?”
Her voice quavered more than she would have liked.
“Do white girl like suffer?” Ebo asked. “P’raps judge let Ebo whip white girl.”
The guard scoffed, clearly startled by the suggestion.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “Now that would be a sight! Our boy Ebo’s the best whip man I ever seen. Oh, he’d hurt you Miss, and no mistake. But don’t you worry, we don’t let our niggers whip white women. Not usually. Not unless their ‘specially deserving.”
Ebo merely grunted and turned away, walking from the cell.
“A bit uppity, our Ebo. But a good man with a whip.”
The guard shook his head.
“Mr. Tompkins has a good hand for it as well, as you will soon find out. But none like Ebo. Count your lucky stars.”
With a smirk, he left her as well.
Her only palliation was to pray ever more fervently and deeply. She kneeled for hours on the stone floor, until her knees were raw and aching.
“Take this cup away from me,” she prayed.
And ultimately, towards the end of that long day, she attained the same measure of acceptance as the man she had devoted herself to follow had in the Garden of Gethsemane some two thousand years before. As He had taught, all things came to pass according to God’s will. She resolved that she would rely on His help, and, whatever happened, she would endure it with faith strong in her heart.
Perhaps her resolve would have been shaken had she remembered another very like it she had made before facing Commodore Smythie for the first time.
Late next morning the cell door was flung open and the warden and two guards entered. This time, the warden presented a stern and commanding figure.
“On your feet, prisoner!” he ordered.
Trembling in spite of herself, Mina rose to her feet.
“Bring her.” the warden said impatiently, and turned on his heels.
The two guards grabbed Mina by the arms and frogmarched her out of the cell and down a corridor, following the warden.
BTW I think I made a mistake in having two distinct characters, the bailiff and the warden. They were both essentially the same character, doing the same job. If I ever get around to a rewrite, there will only be one character from the get-go. And from now on, it's just the warden.
SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT
It was late afternoon when Warden Tompkins checked on Mina.
She didn’t even lift her head when he addressed her. She mumbled something in response. A curse or a prayer, he couldn’t tell. She responded only with a soft grunt when he kicked her in the thigh. She was the very picture of misery, a drowned rat stuck in a trap. Her hair splayed in filthy ropes over her outstretched arms, and down her sun burned back and shoulders. Her pale breasts rose and fell at irregular intervals with each labored breath. She was covered with red bumps and spots where biting flies had had a taste of her flesh.
Warden Tompkins could see that she would not be fit to bear what was yet to be done with her if she were to remain exposed to the African sun, the heat, insects, and rowdies who wished to abuse her further. He supposed that she might not even survive another day in the stocks.
He ordered her taken to a cell. But first he detailed a couple of slave women to clean her up, for her reek was too strong even for his jail. Besides which, the warden had to admit to himself, she was not so pretty covered with muck.
She was half carried and half supported, to an area behind the jail. She could barely walk, for her feet were swollen and sore from the falaka. She revived somewhat as the women pulled her shift from her, then dumped bucket fulls of water and washed and scrubbed the naked woman raw. Her pale breasts, belly and legs and her glowing red back were a stark contrast to the glistening ebony of the slave women’s skin.
What a strumpet! Thought the warden, who allowed himself to watch. How she loves to display herself before men!
“That will do!” he said, after Mina had been gone over with stiff brushes and harsh soaps, and had her hair combed out. “She’ll not be attending a ball.”
Mina looked up at the warden with dull eyes. She had never been naked before a man, and she tried to cover herself with arms and crossed legs. One of the slave women had washed and rung out her shift, and helped her put it back on. Mina could tell from the Warden’s expression how the torn and ragged shift clung to her body, outlining every curve. Feeling even more exposed and naked with the shift on, she covered herself with her arms as best she could, and limped painfully to the jail, firmly rejecting the slave women’s assistance.
Once inside the jail, her wrists and ankles were shackled, and she was placed inside a small cell. The warden allowed her a few swallows of water and then slammed the cell door closed.
Utterly spent with suffering, humiliation and weariness, Mina crawled onto a thin, lice infested straw mattress, and fell into a pain haunted sleep.
She awakened time and again throughout the awful night, tormented by aches and pains and filled with dread and terrors from horrid dreams. But her exhaustion was such that she would fall back briefly into the arms of sleep, only to awaken again to the same nightmare perhaps minutes, perhaps hours later.
But even such nights must end. In the morning the warden himself opened her cell.
“Slept well, I trust, Miss Berkeley? Time to break your fast. You must eat, Miss Berkeley. You have a long walk ahead of you on the morrow.”
He set a flagon of water and a bowl of mush on the floor.
The warden had had a restless night of his own. He could not get the image of Mina’s naked, pale, and shapely body out of his mind. He had awakened in a sweat in the middle of the night, thinking that he should check on the young woman in her cell. Just check on her.
He had been warned in no uncertain terms by none other than Commodore Sir Rupert Smythie that Mina Berkeley was not to be outraged. And still uncertain in his position, the warden could not afford to make such a man his enemy.
Unable to sleep, the warden finally arose at dawn and went to the jail. He stayed away from Mina Berkeley’s cell, but consoled himself with beating a troublesome prisoner nearly to death.
Having usefully discharged his energy, the warden brought Mina her breakfast.
“You have admirers, Miss Berkeley,” he said. “I was tempted to visit you last night, but it seems that a certain Commodore wants you all for himself. Perhaps I will visit you tonight. Eh, Miss Berkeley?”
He reached out to touch her.
“No!” Mina croaked, and turned away.
The warden smiled grimly. “You know, it’ll be me who whips you and gives you the bull’s pizzle,” he said. “Perhaps I could go a little easier on you, if you were to be pleasant to me. It would be our little secret.”
“Get away from me you evil, horrible man!” Mina cried.
“You little minx,” he said. “You should enjoy yourself while you can. You will not feel up to it soon enough.”
Though still aching in body and spirit, Mina could not deny her bodily needs. When the warden had turned and left, she drank the water greedily, for she was very thirsty, and even took a few mouthfuls of the mush. Deeply threatened by the words and hot looks the warden had given her, Mina set about restoring both her shift, so that at least it would cover her decently; and her spirits by praying, usually such a comfort. But the present circumstances weighed so heavily on her that they threatened to overwhelm even her natural optimism and determination. Her emotions constantly vacillated between wild hope and black despair.
At times she wept, thinking of her sister Laura back in Madame Louisa’s awful house, and of her own impending punishment. To be whipped naked. . . and. . . and. . .branded. She would go cold to think of it.
Was it even possible? Surely such barbarities had been relegated to the dark ages! Surely someone of influence and authority would intercede! Surely the Governor, the Commodore, the people themselves, would express their outrage at the injustice and cruelty of her sentence, and this abuse of the judge’s authority! Surely there were righteous and God fearing individuals who would stand up for her!
Briefly convincing herself with such hopeful thoughts, vivid images would then arise unbidden in her mind of the women she had seen whipped, screaming and writhing under the lash: the one aboard ship and the one at the frame here on the punishment grounds; of the agonies of her caning; and of her time in the stocks, and how people had mocked and abused her.
And her stomach would churn and she would feel sick with fear.
It did not help that she was visited at intervals by guards. They did nothing more than stare, or make suggestive comments to her, or to each other about her if they came in a pair. It was obvious that they wanted much more than that, and would have taken it too, had they not been warned by their boss, the warden.
Late in the afternoon an imposing black man came to her cell. He was accompanied by a white guard. The guard set her dinner, such as it was, and a flagon of water on the floor.
Mina remembered the black man as Ebo, the man who had whipped the colored girl at the frame.
“What did I tell you, Ebo, quite the little bit, isn’t she?” the guard said.
Ebo said nothing, but only stared at Mina, his cold eyes mocking her. He was wearing a sleeveless jerkin, deeply vee’d, that showed off his powerful arms and chest. His posture, and his arrogant expression, suggested that he was well aware of his physical power, and would not hesitate to use it. Mina stared back at him, trying to maintain some semblance of courage, but knowing that her rank fear must be apparent to him.
“I know you,” she said. “You whipped that poor woman a few days ago. Do you enjoy making people suffer?”
Her voice quavered more than she would have liked.
“Do white girl like suffer?” Ebo asked. “P’raps judge let Ebo whip white girl.”
The guard scoffed, clearly startled by the suggestion.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “Now that would be a sight! Our boy Ebo’s the best whip man I ever seen. Oh, he’d hurt you Miss, and no mistake. But don’t you worry, we don’t let our niggers whip white women. Not usually. Not unless their ‘specially deserving.”
Ebo merely grunted and turned away, walking from the cell.
“A bit uppity, our Ebo. But a good man with a whip.”
The guard shook his head.
“Mr. Tompkins has a good hand for it as well, as you will soon find out. But none like Ebo. Count your lucky stars.”
With a smirk, he left her as well.
Her only palliation was to pray ever more fervently and deeply. She kneeled for hours on the stone floor, until her knees were raw and aching.
“Take this cup away from me,” she prayed.
And ultimately, towards the end of that long day, she attained the same measure of acceptance as the man she had devoted herself to follow had in the Garden of Gethsemane some two thousand years before. As He had taught, all things came to pass according to God’s will. She resolved that she would rely on His help, and, whatever happened, she would endure it with faith strong in her heart.
Perhaps her resolve would have been shaken had she remembered another very like it she had made before facing Commodore Smythie for the first time.
Late next morning the cell door was flung open and the warden and two guards entered. This time, the warden presented a stern and commanding figure.
“On your feet, prisoner!” he ordered.
Trembling in spite of herself, Mina rose to her feet.
“Bring her.” the warden said impatiently, and turned on his heels.
The two guards grabbed Mina by the arms and frogmarched her out of the cell and down a corridor, following the warden.
Jon Smithie
Tribune
SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT (cont.)
They emerged into a common room that was occupied by a small group of dignitaries, a few others in common dress, as well as several guards in full uniform.
Mina immediately recognized Commodore Smythie. Her pleading look was returned with one born of both fury and lust. Behind him stood his man, Flaywell. Captain Writhby and Madame Louisa were also present, sharing a barely suppressed amusement at her expense. Standing apart from them, unconcernedly taking a bit of snuff, was His Honor, Judge Higgens. The man looked up as Mina was brought into the room, his expression one of grim satisfaction.
The judge had taken the concerns of the Concerned Ladies of Cape Coast enough to heart that he had decided that the preparation for Mina’s punishment should not take place in full view of the public. He conceded their point to himself, at least, that such a sight could inflame the savage hearts of the natives. But this time, he did not deny himself the opportunity for a close up look at the lovely young woman’s further humiliation.
“Wilhelmina Berkeley,” the warden said, “By order of His Lordship, the Honorable Judge Higgens, you are to be prepared for execution of your sentence. Upon release of your restraints, you are to stand to attention unless directed otherwise. Any hesitation or belligerence on your part will result in further punishment. Prisoner, do you understand?”
“Sir Rupert!” Mina cried. “I thought you my friend!!”
The warden slapped Mina hard across the face, staggering her, though she was in the grip of the guards.
“Prisoner! You will be silent!” the warden roared.
The guards jerked Mina upright.
“Stand at attention! Eyes to the front!”
Mina sobbed once, and then, with one final, pleading glance at Sir Rupert, she stood still, trembling. She tasted blood in her mouth.
Judge Higgens snuck a glance at the Commodore. Smythie was of course furious at being thwarted, but he could not have stayed away from this. He stared hungrily at Mina’s body.
The judge sniffed in private derision. His man Flaywell was a more interesting study. Flaywell regarded the young woman with an unreadable expression that struck the judge as vaguely disturbing. Flaywell’s eyes slid away from Mina and met the judge’s glance. He bowed his head ever so slightly.
“Remove the prisoner’s irons,” the warden said to the guards.
A third guard stepped up while the other two held her. He unlocked her chains. and gathered them. They rattled noisily on the stone floor.
“Prisoner! You will now disrobe!”
Mina took a deep, ragged breath, trying to remember her resolve. She had promised herself that when the dreaded moment arrived, it would be better than awaiting it in anxiety and fear. But she now knew that had been a lie. Now that that moment was here, fear nearly choked her, and rendered her hands numb.
“Strip, I say! Do it now!”
Mina raised her leaden arms and slowly pulled the shoulder straps of the shift down her arms. Hunching, and covering herself with crossed arms, she eased the shift down to her waist. Slowly, pulling one arm at a time out of the shift, she tied the top around her waist.
“What are you doing there, Prisoner?” the warden shouted, “Strip that rag from your body!”
When a woman was sentenced to be whipped naked, traditionally it meant that she was naked to the waist only. Despite what the judge had said during her sentencing, Mina had assumed that was what he meant.
Mina looked at the warden, startled and stricken.
“That is indecent!” she gasped.
Immediately the warden seized her by the throat, throttling her one handed. He squeezed harder, shaking and choking her.
“You are a mutinous, seditious traitor to your God and King!” he growled. “You have no loyalty, you have no honor, and you certainly have no decency!”
He thrust her violently away from him. The two guards caught her and held her up. Impatiently, the warden jerked the shift down her hips, stripping her completely naked.
Mina choked and gagged. Tears streamed from her face, and her body shook.
“Stand at attention!”
The guards forced her arms to the sides, and straightened her up, exposing her nakedness to the group.
A tense silence filled the room. This was supposed to be a judicial proceeding, yet every man there looked upon the trembling woman with lust. Privately they would have all agreed that she was a beauty, a real stunner. Her breasts were round and full, her hips delicately flaring. Her legs were long and perhaps a bit more slender and subtly muscled than was strictly fashionable. The triangle of her pubic hair was a delightful thatch of light, wispy auburn.
What a beautiful creature! Smythie thought. She was everything he had anticipated in the way of physical charms. How he wished his own plan had worked, and that she was even now in the hold of his ship, unmarked, unspoiled, and bound for his plantation in the sugar islands.
He would get his own back from the judge and the governor. He would not forget this. True, soon he would have her, though she would not be in an enviable state. And soon enough, when she recovered, she would discover that she had fallen from the frying pan and into the fire.
“Bring the chair,” the warden said.
Two guards carried a heavy chair to the center of the room. They set it beside Mina.
The chair was made of solid oak, and was thick and blocky. It did not appear that it could ever have been a comfortable piece of furniture to sit in, but, as Mina saw to her horror, had been made even less so by the fact that the seat had been removed. Where once there would have been wood slats, with perhaps even some sort of padding, only the framework of the seat remained.
She was dumped unceremoniously onto that bare frame, and while two guards wrenched her arms behind the back of the chair, another two spread her legs widely apart and strapped her ankles to the rear legs. Her wrists were strapped behind her to the frame of the seat.
“What are you doing?” Mina cried out. “Oh! Stop this at once!”
The position was acutely uncomfortable and brutally revealing. It forced her to thrust her breasts and vulva out as though offering up her most feminine parts for the full appreciation of the spectators.
“Oh, please, you must stop this! Someone! You must help me!”
“Polly!” the warden called, “Shear her.”
A stout and unattractive woman approached Mina from the side. The woman was wearing an apron with large pockets sewn on it.
“There, there, it’s alright, dearie,” the woman’s harsh voice assured her. “This bit doesn’t hurt at all, just a haircut, a trim and a shave, nothing to it, over before you know it.”
Mina turned her head to look at the speaker. Although the words the woman had spoken had sounded reassuring, Mina saw nothing in the woman’s face but a mocking cruelty.
“Please help me,” Mina pleaded. “You’re a woman, please don’t let them. . . look upon me this way.”
The woman was close enough now to pat Mina on the shoulder.
“Now, now, Dearie, there’s a good girl. You stay still now and let Polly Barber do her work.”
“Get on with it Polly,” the warden told the woman.
Polly turned to the group and curtsied with grotesque awkwardness.
“Gentlemen” she said. She took in Madame Louisa with a contemptuous sneer.
Turning back to Mina, she winked and told her quietly, as though confiding a secret,
“Everyone’s in such a rush these days, well, must do as Warden says.”
Producing a pair of shears from one of the pockets of her apron, she grabbed a hank of Mina’s hair, jerked it hard, and chopped it close to the scalp.
“What are you doing?” Mina cried, “Oh God! What in heaven’s name?”
With a smile, the barber showed Mina the hair she had in her fist. Mina’s eyes widened in terror.
“No! No! Please, I beg you, you mustn’t! No!”
Polly only shrugged, and winking at the warden, took another fistful of Mina’s hair and hacked with the shears.
Mina whipped her head to the side, in a panic to not let the woman cut any more.
But Polly grabbed another handful of hair, twisted it ropelike around one hand, and pulled painfully up on Mina’s scalp, holding her head still.
She tapped the points of the shears against Mina’s cheek.
“We mustn’t move, Dearie,” Polly said. “We wouldn’t want our pretty little head to be turned into a bloody mess, now, would we?”
Mina’s eyes brimmed with tears from the pain in her scalp and the horror of what was being done to her.
“Please, I beg you. . .” she gasped.
“Tommy, hold her still, there’s a good lad,” Polly said to one of the guards.
The man grabbed Mina under the chin and behind her neck, holding her head while Mina sobbed and writhed.
There was a click as the shears snapped on another hank of Mina’s hair. The pull on her scalp was suddenly released, only to be repeated as Polly grabbed another clump of hair.
As she cut, Polly collected Mina’s hair into a muslin bag. She would sell it to wig makers, or possibly as souvenirs, depending on the interest. With all the talk about town of Mina, and the anticipation of Mina’s punishment, Polly anticipated great interest, and commensurate profits. She had already got a good price for Mina’s gown. Whether the woman she sold it to would choose to wear it or simply brag about it, Polly didn’t yet know.
Mina wept and moaned as the woman chopped unconcernedly at her hair.
“Please, oh please stop, I beg you! It is too much! Have pity, for the love of God!”
But Polly did not stop, not until Mina’s head looked like a field of hay after the reaper has mown it, leaving nothing but wisps and stubble.
Polly ran her rough hands over Mina’s pate.
“Well, Dearie, I don’t know that this haircut will recommend me to future customers, but I must say the fault is partly yours. I’ve had children mind better.”
Polly put the shears into a large pocket and withdrew a smaller set.
“Now, Dearie, you must mind Polly this time, and hold still. I’ve trimmed many a man’s beard, but never before a woman’s!”
She laughed.
“Polly!” the Warden said.
“Aye, Mr. Tompkins.”
Polly bent down with an intent look on her face. Mina felt a pull on her pubic hair, and heard the snip of the shears, and horrified, realized what Polly was doing down there.
Mina screamed. She thrashed and writhed, trying to wrench herself out of the chair and away from this utter degradation and humiliation.
At a sharp word from the warden, the guards held Mina down firmly, hurting her.
Mina cried out again and again, “Please, oh please, I beg of you, stop this! In the name of God, stop this!”
But the snip of the shears went on relentlessly. It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like an hour to Mina.
“Now Dearie,” Polly said, straightening up. “This is the delicate bit.”
She put the shears into a pocked and extracted a straight razor.
“The delicate bit for your delicate bits.”
She opened the blade of the razor. It gleamed in the dim light of the room. Mina stared at it as if mesmerized, though her chest heaved and her eyes brimmed with tears.
“You must stay still, Dearie. You haven’t been good so far, but you must mind Polly now, and stay quiet as a little mouse.”
Mina minded Polly this time. The fight had gone out of her. She did not struggle as Polly scraped the razor over her vulva, denuding her not only of her pubic hair, but of what remained of her modesty and dignity as well.
They emerged into a common room that was occupied by a small group of dignitaries, a few others in common dress, as well as several guards in full uniform.
Mina immediately recognized Commodore Smythie. Her pleading look was returned with one born of both fury and lust. Behind him stood his man, Flaywell. Captain Writhby and Madame Louisa were also present, sharing a barely suppressed amusement at her expense. Standing apart from them, unconcernedly taking a bit of snuff, was His Honor, Judge Higgens. The man looked up as Mina was brought into the room, his expression one of grim satisfaction.
The judge had taken the concerns of the Concerned Ladies of Cape Coast enough to heart that he had decided that the preparation for Mina’s punishment should not take place in full view of the public. He conceded their point to himself, at least, that such a sight could inflame the savage hearts of the natives. But this time, he did not deny himself the opportunity for a close up look at the lovely young woman’s further humiliation.
“Wilhelmina Berkeley,” the warden said, “By order of His Lordship, the Honorable Judge Higgens, you are to be prepared for execution of your sentence. Upon release of your restraints, you are to stand to attention unless directed otherwise. Any hesitation or belligerence on your part will result in further punishment. Prisoner, do you understand?”
“Sir Rupert!” Mina cried. “I thought you my friend!!”
The warden slapped Mina hard across the face, staggering her, though she was in the grip of the guards.
“Prisoner! You will be silent!” the warden roared.
The guards jerked Mina upright.
“Stand at attention! Eyes to the front!”
Mina sobbed once, and then, with one final, pleading glance at Sir Rupert, she stood still, trembling. She tasted blood in her mouth.
Judge Higgens snuck a glance at the Commodore. Smythie was of course furious at being thwarted, but he could not have stayed away from this. He stared hungrily at Mina’s body.
The judge sniffed in private derision. His man Flaywell was a more interesting study. Flaywell regarded the young woman with an unreadable expression that struck the judge as vaguely disturbing. Flaywell’s eyes slid away from Mina and met the judge’s glance. He bowed his head ever so slightly.
“Remove the prisoner’s irons,” the warden said to the guards.
A third guard stepped up while the other two held her. He unlocked her chains. and gathered them. They rattled noisily on the stone floor.
“Prisoner! You will now disrobe!”
Mina took a deep, ragged breath, trying to remember her resolve. She had promised herself that when the dreaded moment arrived, it would be better than awaiting it in anxiety and fear. But she now knew that had been a lie. Now that that moment was here, fear nearly choked her, and rendered her hands numb.
“Strip, I say! Do it now!”
Mina raised her leaden arms and slowly pulled the shoulder straps of the shift down her arms. Hunching, and covering herself with crossed arms, she eased the shift down to her waist. Slowly, pulling one arm at a time out of the shift, she tied the top around her waist.
“What are you doing there, Prisoner?” the warden shouted, “Strip that rag from your body!”
When a woman was sentenced to be whipped naked, traditionally it meant that she was naked to the waist only. Despite what the judge had said during her sentencing, Mina had assumed that was what he meant.
Mina looked at the warden, startled and stricken.
“That is indecent!” she gasped.
Immediately the warden seized her by the throat, throttling her one handed. He squeezed harder, shaking and choking her.
“You are a mutinous, seditious traitor to your God and King!” he growled. “You have no loyalty, you have no honor, and you certainly have no decency!”
He thrust her violently away from him. The two guards caught her and held her up. Impatiently, the warden jerked the shift down her hips, stripping her completely naked.
Mina choked and gagged. Tears streamed from her face, and her body shook.
“Stand at attention!”
The guards forced her arms to the sides, and straightened her up, exposing her nakedness to the group.
A tense silence filled the room. This was supposed to be a judicial proceeding, yet every man there looked upon the trembling woman with lust. Privately they would have all agreed that she was a beauty, a real stunner. Her breasts were round and full, her hips delicately flaring. Her legs were long and perhaps a bit more slender and subtly muscled than was strictly fashionable. The triangle of her pubic hair was a delightful thatch of light, wispy auburn.
What a beautiful creature! Smythie thought. She was everything he had anticipated in the way of physical charms. How he wished his own plan had worked, and that she was even now in the hold of his ship, unmarked, unspoiled, and bound for his plantation in the sugar islands.
He would get his own back from the judge and the governor. He would not forget this. True, soon he would have her, though she would not be in an enviable state. And soon enough, when she recovered, she would discover that she had fallen from the frying pan and into the fire.
“Bring the chair,” the warden said.
Two guards carried a heavy chair to the center of the room. They set it beside Mina.
The chair was made of solid oak, and was thick and blocky. It did not appear that it could ever have been a comfortable piece of furniture to sit in, but, as Mina saw to her horror, had been made even less so by the fact that the seat had been removed. Where once there would have been wood slats, with perhaps even some sort of padding, only the framework of the seat remained.
She was dumped unceremoniously onto that bare frame, and while two guards wrenched her arms behind the back of the chair, another two spread her legs widely apart and strapped her ankles to the rear legs. Her wrists were strapped behind her to the frame of the seat.
“What are you doing?” Mina cried out. “Oh! Stop this at once!”
The position was acutely uncomfortable and brutally revealing. It forced her to thrust her breasts and vulva out as though offering up her most feminine parts for the full appreciation of the spectators.
“Oh, please, you must stop this! Someone! You must help me!”
“Polly!” the warden called, “Shear her.”
A stout and unattractive woman approached Mina from the side. The woman was wearing an apron with large pockets sewn on it.
“There, there, it’s alright, dearie,” the woman’s harsh voice assured her. “This bit doesn’t hurt at all, just a haircut, a trim and a shave, nothing to it, over before you know it.”
Mina turned her head to look at the speaker. Although the words the woman had spoken had sounded reassuring, Mina saw nothing in the woman’s face but a mocking cruelty.
“Please help me,” Mina pleaded. “You’re a woman, please don’t let them. . . look upon me this way.”
The woman was close enough now to pat Mina on the shoulder.
“Now, now, Dearie, there’s a good girl. You stay still now and let Polly Barber do her work.”
“Get on with it Polly,” the warden told the woman.
Polly turned to the group and curtsied with grotesque awkwardness.
“Gentlemen” she said. She took in Madame Louisa with a contemptuous sneer.
Turning back to Mina, she winked and told her quietly, as though confiding a secret,
“Everyone’s in such a rush these days, well, must do as Warden says.”
Producing a pair of shears from one of the pockets of her apron, she grabbed a hank of Mina’s hair, jerked it hard, and chopped it close to the scalp.
“What are you doing?” Mina cried, “Oh God! What in heaven’s name?”
With a smile, the barber showed Mina the hair she had in her fist. Mina’s eyes widened in terror.
“No! No! Please, I beg you, you mustn’t! No!”
Polly only shrugged, and winking at the warden, took another fistful of Mina’s hair and hacked with the shears.
Mina whipped her head to the side, in a panic to not let the woman cut any more.
But Polly grabbed another handful of hair, twisted it ropelike around one hand, and pulled painfully up on Mina’s scalp, holding her head still.
She tapped the points of the shears against Mina’s cheek.
“We mustn’t move, Dearie,” Polly said. “We wouldn’t want our pretty little head to be turned into a bloody mess, now, would we?”
Mina’s eyes brimmed with tears from the pain in her scalp and the horror of what was being done to her.
“Please, I beg you. . .” she gasped.
“Tommy, hold her still, there’s a good lad,” Polly said to one of the guards.
The man grabbed Mina under the chin and behind her neck, holding her head while Mina sobbed and writhed.
There was a click as the shears snapped on another hank of Mina’s hair. The pull on her scalp was suddenly released, only to be repeated as Polly grabbed another clump of hair.
As she cut, Polly collected Mina’s hair into a muslin bag. She would sell it to wig makers, or possibly as souvenirs, depending on the interest. With all the talk about town of Mina, and the anticipation of Mina’s punishment, Polly anticipated great interest, and commensurate profits. She had already got a good price for Mina’s gown. Whether the woman she sold it to would choose to wear it or simply brag about it, Polly didn’t yet know.
Mina wept and moaned as the woman chopped unconcernedly at her hair.
“Please, oh please stop, I beg you! It is too much! Have pity, for the love of God!”
But Polly did not stop, not until Mina’s head looked like a field of hay after the reaper has mown it, leaving nothing but wisps and stubble.
Polly ran her rough hands over Mina’s pate.
“Well, Dearie, I don’t know that this haircut will recommend me to future customers, but I must say the fault is partly yours. I’ve had children mind better.”
Polly put the shears into a large pocket and withdrew a smaller set.
“Now, Dearie, you must mind Polly this time, and hold still. I’ve trimmed many a man’s beard, but never before a woman’s!”
She laughed.
“Polly!” the Warden said.
“Aye, Mr. Tompkins.”
Polly bent down with an intent look on her face. Mina felt a pull on her pubic hair, and heard the snip of the shears, and horrified, realized what Polly was doing down there.
Mina screamed. She thrashed and writhed, trying to wrench herself out of the chair and away from this utter degradation and humiliation.
At a sharp word from the warden, the guards held Mina down firmly, hurting her.
Mina cried out again and again, “Please, oh please, I beg of you, stop this! In the name of God, stop this!”
But the snip of the shears went on relentlessly. It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like an hour to Mina.
“Now Dearie,” Polly said, straightening up. “This is the delicate bit.”
She put the shears into a pocked and extracted a straight razor.
“The delicate bit for your delicate bits.”
She opened the blade of the razor. It gleamed in the dim light of the room. Mina stared at it as if mesmerized, though her chest heaved and her eyes brimmed with tears.
“You must stay still, Dearie. You haven’t been good so far, but you must mind Polly now, and stay quiet as a little mouse.”
Mina minded Polly this time. The fight had gone out of her. She did not struggle as Polly scraped the razor over her vulva, denuding her not only of her pubic hair, but of what remained of her modesty and dignity as well.