A CART’S TALE
Mina’s exit from the jail and emergence into the bright light of the morning was greeted with jeers, howls, obscene gestures and shouted, indecent suggestions from a boisterous crowd that had gathered in anticipation of her punishment. Some of the onlookers capered and hooted at the fringes of the mob. None had seen a fully grown white woman so utterly naked.
But many others, whites, reacted, as had the Concerned Ladies, with dismay and shock. That negroes and mulattoes would see a fully grown white woman in such an indecent state was deeply disturbing and threatening. Certainly captured negroes for the slave trade had occasionally been paraded through town naked back when the transatlantic trade was legal, and had been whipped naked, but such scenes had been considered distasteful even then, and were discouraged. White and mulatto women were occasionally, rarely, whipped in public, but those had been extreme instances and of course involved women of the lowest social rungs; the dregs of Cape Coast: whores, thieves, debtors, malicious gossips. That a white woman of good birth was to be whipped in public, before a rowdy crowd of undesirables, was unheard of. That she was to be whipped naked was beyond the pale. But there was yet one feature of Mina’s punishment that the upright and moral citizens of the town would find unthinkable.
Mina was mortified by her nakedness and her extreme physical discomfort. Her jaws were jacked wide by the mouthpiece of the brank, which pressed painfully on her upper palate and down on her tongue. Her wrists were bound tightly behind her, and her ankles were shackled with a length of chain. Her eyes no longer ran with tears, but were wide, and darted about. Her senses seemed sharpened into a state of hyper awareness. She distinguished every individual in the crowd surrounding her, and glanced from one to another, as though seeking a single, sympathetic face. Her ears rang with every word directed at her, attuned to the single, overriding voice which would call out above the hubbub: Stop this at once! This woman is innocent! She has done nothing wrong!
But that voice did not sound. Instead, breathless and awkward in her fear, she was literally brought down to earth by tripping in her ankle chains, and despite the soldiers close beside her, falling to her knees.
A drummer at the head of the small detail of soldiers that surrounded Mina beat out a dolorous, monotonous rhythm; the Coward’s Walk, used when deserters from the army were being escorted to their flogging or execution. Two soldiers marched on either side of her, keeping a close eye on her. They jerked her up and pushed her ahead when she stumbled. Mina was painfully aware of their lust filled admiration of her naked breasts and buttocks.
With nearly every step Mina grunted in pain, for the jarring made her feel as though someone were pounding on the brank, driving it deeper into her mouth, and forcing her jaws wider. Her feet had not recovered from the falaka, and flared with pain, as though she were stepping on needles at every footfall. They did not have far to walk, but for Mina, it seemed to take forever.
But Mina knew what awaited her at the end of the walk.
Soon enough, at the sergeant’s command, the detail abruptly halted in front of a large cart. Despite the dread that kindled within Mina as she approached it, the cart itself was completely unremarkable. It was a simple and sturdy conveyance, with large, wide wheels that came up nearly to the level of the top edges of the box. It was used for all manner of haulage: firewood, produce, stone, waste, and occasionally, the bodies of those executed, or those who died of sickness or accident, and whose families could not afford a decent funeral. A heavily built wooden hurdle, looking much like a carpenter’s sawhorse, had been loaded onto the bed of the cart. That its purpose was far more sinister than carpentry was suggested by the thick leather straps that had been secured to all four bases of the legs, and one wider strap across the top of the hurdle. The sergeant shouted another order. The soldiers smartly turned inward, facing Mina. The two soldiers by her side then pulled her forward.
A black native, the driver of the cart, looked with surprised shock at the young woman. Like the vast majority of others in the crowd, he had never seen one of the
fitaa completely naked. He did not find white women particularly attractive; they were too pale, like a ghost! And he was privately amused, as were many African men, with the whites’ fascination with women’s breasts. How they insisted that their teats should always be covered, even in the heat! They were there to feed babies, that was all, and the driver was not a baby. But this white woman’s sex and legs were bare! And not just bare, but hairless! He found it both arousing and interesting, but not that surprising. Why shouldn't a white woman be as hairless as a mole rat down there? After all, he had heard that the lips of a white woman’s sex was different from a normal one: that they went from side to side, and not front to back. That however, was clearly not true.
While Abeeku the driver stared, for it was he, the same man who had driven the carriage when Mina first arrived, Ebo waited beside the cart. He stood in his characteristic pose: muscled arms crossed over his thick chest, an expression of cruel arrogance on his face. His rhinoceros hide whip was coiled like a pet cobra in his hand.
The Warden had not been pleased with the change of plans that had put Ebo in his, the Warden’s, place. He had looked forward to whipping Mina. He was eager to demonstrate to the judge, as well as to the general populace, the strength of his arm in enforcing the law. And he longed to personally teach the uppity little bitch a lesson. But the Judge had insisted.
“I have been much impressed with your initiative and your rigor, Warden,” Judge Higgens had told him. “Do not think for a moment that I order this because I believe that that black savage will do a better job. Only, you see, I wish the young blasphemer and traitor to be shamed and humiliated to the very depths of degradation. What better way than to have your nigger whip her?”
The Warden had not objected as strenuously as he had been inclined to. He found the whole idea offensive and not at all fitting. But he had submitted to the Judge’s will with the best grace he could muster.
As Mina was dragged to the cart, her nightmare suddenly focused on the man with the whip, the imposing and dreadful Ebo. When she saw him, and realized why he was standing there, she grunted in fear and terror, struggling as best she could against the men who easily overpowered her. Hauled up to the rear of the cart, her wrists were unbound and stretched up towards the top corners of the cart box. Wrist shackles, with short lengths of chain, had been affixed there, and her wrists were quickly and securely locked, leaving her arms stretched and raised above her shoulders. The top rails of the cart were quite high, and Mina had to stand stretched up, breathless with physical strain and trembling in terror of what was to come.
While Mina was being shackled to the cart, the Warden climbed up into the box.
“By the order of His Honor, Judge Higgens, Mina Berkeley, being duly found guilty of blasphemy, sedition, and slander, is to be flogged at the cart’s tail from Government House to the town market.
Bailiff,” he said, without looking at Ebo. “You are to do your duty and lay on without sparing. Six strokes well laid on at each stop of the cart. Do you hear me, sirrah?”
Only now did he spare Ebo a glance.
Ebo nodded. “Yes. Boss.” He said, his tone carrying only a hint of the contempt that he felt.
The Warden’s urging had of course been completely unnecessary. There was no possibility that Ebo would show any mercy, for none was in the man.
A shocked silence fell over the crowd when they realized who was to do the whipping. Glances were exchanged, as though confirming that everyone had heard the same thing. It was unprecedented! To many, it was a welcome, delightful surprise, and voices were spontaneously lifted in savage ululations.
“Execution of sentence to begin forthwith.” the Warden cried out, over the sudden roar of the crowd. “Bailiff, you may commence!”
At a shouted order, the soldiers spread out in a fan at the back of the cart, rifles held at port arms, both to give Ebo room to swing his whip and fend off the excited, eager mob.
Ebo stepped up behind Mina. He wanted to paw the delicate young woman’s body, and tell her exactly how he was going to hurt her, but he knew such a thing would not be tolerated. But he would show the whites how to make a woman suffer!
He was yet out of range of Mina when Ebo uncoiled his whip. With a twist of his wrist he flicked the whip in a circle over his head. The whip thrummed like a nest of angry hornets. He took a couple of skipping steps towards Mina. Then driving with his hips, and twisting his body, he jumped up as he brought the whip whistling down, to put the full weight of his body behind the stroke. The whip streaked diagonally across Mina’s back, making a gunshot “Smack!” and welting her from right shoulder to left hip.
The impact drove Mina into the edge of the cart, and blew the breath from her lungs. She grunted a loud “Ugh!”
A searing pain instantly followed, blazing across her back. Her head reared back, and she cried out an agonized, incoherent scream. She wrenched and tore at the shackles that held her firmly to the cart, in animal desperation to escape.
Abeeku winced at the stroke, and his mare startled. He spoke low to her, pulling gently on the reins. She was a good, easy going dray horse, and she quickly settled.
Abeeku looked back at the woman, and with a sudden shock of recognition knew her as the pretty young thing who had been so shaken by the whipping of Miriam several days before, and had confronted the previous Warden about it. Abeeku shook his head. It was indeed a shame that the beautiful white girl was now to experience what Miriam, the woman she had so sympathized with, had experienced. And worse.
“One!” The warden cried.
The crowd shouted approval, encouraging Ebo, cheering his efforts.
The whip whistled again, and smacked hard across Mina’s back.
“Two!” shouted the Warden. “Lay on, you black heathen, lay on those stripes, I say!”
In response, Ebo twisted his wrist and body and delivered a backhand stroke that etched a stripe across the opposite diagonal, from Mina’s left shoulder across to her right side, welting an “X” onto her back. It was a stroke that the Warden could never have delivered, Ebo knew.
“Three!” the Warden shouted.
Another whip stroke followed, another diagonal stripe from right shoulder down to the left.
“Four!”
The whip whistled again, streaking from left to right, crossing the “X” again.
“Five!”
“Aaaagh! Aaaagh! Aaaagh!” Mina cried again and again, as quickly as she could fill her lungs with panting breaths. She jerked and twisted in her bonds. Abeeku could not help but notice how her firm young breasts wobbled in her dance of pain, and how her sweat sprayed at the impact of the whip.
Even the Warden was impressed with Ebo’s strength and skill, though he never would have admitted it. The man was hurting the treasonous little bitch, that much was obvious. Even so, the Warden assured himself, he could have done better. He would have waited longer between strokes, to stretch out her pain. But Ebo, being a black heathen, was incapable of subtlety like that.
Again the whip whistled and cracked against Mina’s back, leaving a sixth livid welt. Mina grunted in agony. The chains rattled in a constant drumming on the box as she twisted and jerked. She was overwhelmed with the pain of each whip lash. They streaked across her back like fire, and all she could do was grunt and pant.
The Warden counted “Six!” and ordered Ebo to halt.
“Driver,” the Warden said, “Proceed.”
Abeeku nodded. “Yes, boss,” he said. He clicked at the mare and slacked the reins. Slowly, the cart started moving forward.
Mina was dragged off her feet for a moment. She grunted in pain as her wrists and shoulders took all her weight, and her toes were stubbed and scraped raw on the hardpack of the roadway. She managed to get her feet under her and walked, pulled along behind the cart.
Of course the person being whipped at the cart’s tail was not whipped while the cart was in motion. It was too difficult to deliver an effective stroke to a moving target. Rather, the cart would be halted at intervals, usually at intersections, and another set of lashes would be delivered.
The drummer began beating out his rhythm again, as the detail fell in behind and started marching, with the cheering, eager crowd following close behind. People lining the street joined in the celebration.
Mina knew herself to be in hell. With only six strokes her back was on fire. She panted and drooled as she was forced along, in a horror of not knowing how many stops the cart would make, or how many more lashes she would have to endure.
“Oh God, Oh God!” she prayed aloud, her words coming out through the brank harsh and incoherent, “A Gah! A Gah!”
The first intersection was not far up the road. The Warden directed Abeeku to stop the cart.
“Stir yourself, there, Ebo, you heathen cannibal, and give the traitor another half dozen.” The Warden ordered.
Mina pleaded incoherently, pulling at her shackles with hopeless desperation. Ebo smiled, and saluted her with his coiled whip.
“Another six for you,” Ebo said in Akan. “I will strip that white hide from your body. You do not yet know what pain is, but I will teach you.”
“You will speak English, Bailiff!” the Warden said. “Do you hear? You will speak a civilized tongue!”
“Yes, boss,” Ebo said, his teeth showing white as he grinned.
He cracked the whip a few times above his head, but this time he did not jump up, but let the whip streak sideways, to cut across Mina’s ribs. The lash struck the side of Mina’s breast, and the tip curled inward and exploded against her nipple.
The pain was like nothing Mina had ever experienced. It felt like she’d been blasted on the tit by a lightning bolt. Like her nipple had been torn off by red hot pliers.
She screamed a throaty, agonized cry, and twisted and writhed like a fish on a hook. Then graying out from the pain, she hung limply in the shackles.
“One!” the Warden shouted. And then, seeing the effect of the stroke, said, “Hold there, Bailiff!”
Ebo waited, a satisfied smirk on his face. Some might say it had been a lucky stroke, but there was a good deal of practice and skill behind it.
The Warden jumped down from the cart and grabbed Mina under the jaw, shaking her head.
“Wake up there, you!” he shouted. “No time to sleep, do you hear! Wake up I say!”
Mina gasped as she roused. Her breast and back were on fire. A low cry of agony issued from her throat.
Satisfied, the Warden climbed back up into the bed of the cart.
“Bailiff, continue!” he said. “Five more strokes!”
The lash snaked out, driven by the sadistic skill behind it, and licked her ribs, curled inward, and welted a line across her stomach.
Mina jerked in response, the delicate muscles of her back and shoulders flinching and bunching as she tried desperately to escape the pain.
The lash struck her four more times, snapping with brutal intensity against her back, her belly, her breasts.
The cart moved on. Mina was only dimly aware now of the people lining the street, watching in varying degrees of shock, disgust, amusement, lust. She trudged onward, mewling and lowing constantly in her suffering.
The cart stopped again. Another six streaks of fire across her naked body.
Onward. And stop again.
Mina was bleeding in places where multiple strokes had opened her skin. It was not profuse, for the whip, and he way in which Ebo used it, was not designed to cut.
Some in the crowd, having witnessed Laura Berkeley’s flogging, held forth, comparing the two.
“Cut to the bone, her sister was,” explained one expert. “Cut to ribbons, I tell you! When they were done with her, you could see the white of her rib bones, or I’m a liar. That was a whippin’! A real Royal Navy floggin’! The Navy knows how to do ‘em right and proper! Flogged ‘round the fleet, she was. Think on it--a dozen dozen with the cat ‘o nine tails! Buy me an ale and I’ll tell you what I saw blow by blow. This--pshaw! This is nothin’! The nigger’s just ticklin’ ‘er!”
Onward.
Another stop.
Mina grunted and writhed as the lash struck her another half dozen times. She could feel the warm blood oozing down her side and back. Her wrists hurt abominably. They were chafed and bleeding from the constant twisting and pulling of her arms. Sweat ran down into her eyes, and she was drooling constantly, though her mouth felt dry and she was very thirsty. But that was the least of her suffering.
Onward.
Another stop. Another six.
The pain was cumulative. Lashes upon already welted and cut skin hurt ever more bitterly. She writhed and twisted and jerked at each impact of the lash, nearly dislocating her shoulders and breaking her wrists, so extreme was her desperation to free herself from her awful suffering.
And once again, at last, the Warden shouted “Six!”
Mina hung in her chains, panting, waiting to be pulled along again.
But this time, the cart did not move forward.
Mina looked around dully as the Warden climbed down from the bed of the cart. She did not see the soldier come up behind her with a bucket. The sudden douche of sea water over her head and back shocked her, startling her into crying out. Then the salt burned into her cuts and welts, and she writhed and screamed, until weary, she hung limply in her chains.
Her wrists were unshackled and lowered. She would have dropped to the ground in her weariness, but was rudely pulled up by two soldiers. Then she was forced along between them, following the Warden to a wide, square platform a few feet high, that had been built in the market square.
The people who had followed the cart now crowded into the square, hooting and laughing as though at a festival. They vied for the nearest and best places to witness the next phase of the punishment.
Four soldiers unloaded the hurdle, and carried it to the center of the platform.
Mina watched uncomprehending, her mind in a red haze of misery and pain. Only when the soldiers began dragging her to the hurdle, did she remember what else she had yet to endure: Thirty strokes of the bull’s pizzle.
