Chapter 6 - Slave Of The North
Slave Of The North
Flora smiled at her gesture and took her hand in return. They had met under one of the most sad circumstances.
Marilyn studied Flora's features also. Her sandy brown hair matched her tanned skin and grey eyes. She would have been more beautiful if she wasn't dressed so poorly, dirty and in a haggard manner.
As they were still getting to know themselves, the door flung open that instant with two huge men barging inside the cabin.
" Hey it's time!" One of the men yelled as he came to stand in front of them.
" Time for what?" Marilyn asked as she stared at Flora's face for answers.
The man who yelled earlier walked close to Marilyn and dragged her by the wrist to pull her outside towards the main room where the slaves were to assemble themselves at the feet of their masters.
" Let me go!" She yelled and was trying hard to free herself to no avail.
" Move!" The second man told Flora and pushed her out also.
Where were they taking them too? And it was time for what exactly? Was the thoughts running through the perplexed girl's mind.
" Twenty one..Twenty two... Twenty three... Twenty four............" Marilyn heard the hoarse voice count the number of girls in the room down to twenty nine before he actually stopped at her.
" And then......Thirty" he said, staring at her with his dark bulgy eyes. He wore a funny looking cap and had a moustache on his face. All the while when he had his face on her, and he wore a crooked smile on his face that made him look evil and .....ugly.
" So Carl found the last one to complete them. Interesting, we now have a round figure" he said to the men beside him.
" The last one was brought in last night" another of the men beside him whispered to him in his ears. She knew they were talking about her.
" I see" the man with the moustache said as he burst out into a sonorous and wicked laughter. " They all look okay especially the new addition"
Marilyn turned her face to look around her, there were many girls like herself in the room, tall ones, short ones, plump ones, thin ones, dark ones, fair ones and every one of them all young. They were all kneeling on the floor and there were some men guarding them all in the rooms holding sticks and ropes. They weren't even animals.
' What was going on here?'
" Alright... we are going to address you guys now. If any of you think of running away or escaping, you'll be dead meat...we can assure you that" the moustache man said to them.
" They would prolly end up drowning in the bottom of the ocean, no doubt" another added and they all burst into laughter much to Marilyn's disgust.
She felt the urge to talk and call them names but Flora who was kneeling beside her cautioned.
" They will hurt you Marilyn if you try to defy them" she whispered to the girl who was getting infuriated.
" But I still need answers....I can't just stay back here and watch them sell me off like that" she said also in a hushed tone as she looked at the men with the corner of her eyes. They were drinking and giving a toast to whatever it was they were celebrating.
" I know you want answers to your questions but please lay low for now" Flora was trying to explain to her. She had seen cases of some slaves getting battered to the point of death all because of their stubbornness and standing up against their lords.
As they knelt beside each other, Marilyn watched as each girls were asked to return to their cabin before they were called for the second examination. It was their rule here every time that the girls would be called over so that they could monitor them closely before each one returned to the cabin to be locked.
Some men took some girls with them and she wondered what was happening.
Flora dragged her by the hand so that they could go back into their cabin when someone stopped them in the dark passageway.
" Hey you!" The man yelled.
" The master wants to see you"
" Master?" Marilyn whispered and was not given enough chance to think about it when he pulled her violently by the wrist and dragged her along into a particular room that was separate from all other rooms in the ship.
Flora watched sadly as the young friend she had just made was taken to the master who was no one else but the wicked and perverted slave lord.
" Leave me alone" Marilyn screamed as he dragged her violently, not caring if he was hurting her with his forceful grip on her hands. She thought that her arms would soon fall off, judging from the way they kept pulling and dragging her all over the place.
She was really tired and even hungry. She had not eaten anything for the night since she left home for the market till now. So her stomach grumbled.
" Oh no! What's happening?" Another one of the girls who was about to leave for her cabin asked Flora who was standing to watch the guard drag her new friend.
Flora turned to check the person who had walked to stand beside her.
" Ena!" She called at the girl who was plump. She was her former partner at the slave lodging in the town before they brought them onboard and were placed in different cabin to be sold to different masters in the new places they were taking them too.
" It's the master. He wants to see her"
" Isn't that the new girl?" Ena asked.
" Yes... she's the one," Flora answered.
" I feel bad for her, she's still very young. Probably the youngest here." Ena added.