Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 01:58:30 +0200
From: Ben Hur <ben-hur-of-judah@outlook.com>
Subject: The Unique Experience Part XII

THE UNIQUE EXPERIENCE: PART XII

   So, after a day and more of being locked up in my cell, I entered the
corridor again, dragged in my chains by the two guards towards the second
vaulting horse. What horror was awaiting me?

   Entering the corridor, I caught quick glimpses to the left and to the
right. To the left, nobody was to be seen, the whole space was empty all
the way to the far end, but to the right there were a lot of other men
standing close to the desk where the chief of the troop was seated. In the
short moment that I was able to look in their direction, I counted at least
six or seven of them, the chief excluded. Most faces were unknown to me, as
far as I could recognize them easy in the flickering light of the corridor,
but as advertized Mehmed and Ali, the bastard who had branded me and the
blacksmith's assistant, indeed were there. And Omar, the main blacksmith
himself, was too. But the others were unknown to me. Most of them took no
notice of me, softly talking to each other; the faces of the few that
looked into my direction showed clear disdain. I was just a slave, reduced
for them to a piece of meat, not a human being anymore.

   Time was too short for me to see if the occupants of the closest cells
were watching us, or just doing their own thing inside. How was slave 48
doing, my neighbor who had been so full of fear when thrown into his cell
on the evening of my own arrival because of his claustrophobia? At least
nobody appeared up against his bars, nor was there any special noises
coming out of them that drew my attention. Either those slaves hadn't
realized what was going on outside - which I doubted - or they were clever
than me, by keeping themselves invisible.

   However, for me it was too late now. I was to be severely punished for
my imprudence, such was clear. For that reason trembling from fear I
reached the vaulting horse now, directed by my guards to take position at
the far end, the end where my feet would become tied up within a minute,
presumably in exactly the same way as that of my already helpless tied-up
black fellow-slave 47 next to me.

   I shivered, but I hadn't the force and will to resist, knowing that this
would be hopeless, and perhaps would just make them angrier, with only bad
results for myself. In that respect, although a brand-new slave, I already
had learned my first instructive lessons during the last 24 hours. What
choice did I have, because what chance did I have, being heavily chained,
against nearly a dozen of strong free men? If even my pleading didn't help
to spare me the vaulting horse, vehemently protesting or physically
resisting wouldn't do either.

   "Bend yourself, slave, and stretch your belly over the saddle", one of
the guards barked to me.

   Still trembling, I did as ordered, having some problems with the chains
connecting my manacles to my right anklet; especially the left chain, as it
was diagonally crossing over from the upper left to the lower right, was in
the way. But the other guard showed himself very helpful to get everything
right, the left chain after that being strained halfway in a right angle
around the nearest of the four sloping legs. Even in this position I was
nearly unable to move. But my captors, as was to be expected, didn't put up
with that.

   "Put your hands on the side supports, G-46".

   Within a second after having done that obediently, each of the guards
grasped one of my hands, and within another few seconds the loose leather
straps that were attached to the side supports were wrapped around my
wrists, just underneath my iron shackles. They didn't need a lock to fasten
them irremovably since a buckle was just enough.

   The rest of the bondage process thereupon was accomplished without
uttering any word to me, as they didn't need my assistance for that. With
my hands tied in a stretched position now, my full weight meanwhile pressed
on my pierced cock, which was sandwiched a bit painfully between the saddle
of the vaulting horse and my body.

   Now completely unable to move from my spot anymore, in my position,
lying on my belly with my face in the direction of the upper end of the
vaulting horse, looking to the far end of the corridor, I was unable to see
what was happening on the lower end. I just felt that my legs were lifted
and bent to get my knees and feet on the other two side supports. Only a
few seconds later leather straps were attached to my ankles, to my shackled
right one as well as to my unshackled left.

   While they were doing that, I turned my head to the right to look at
slave 47, whose head by a thick rope attached to the slave tag of his
collar was forced in an immobile position downwards (the rope was so tight
that his head was fixed even in such an immobile position that he wasn't
able to turn his head to look back to me, he was just gazing
expressionlessly at the floor), knowing that this too would be my fate
soon.

   Indeed it was. There already was a thick rope hanging down from the
crossbeam of the vaulting horse underneath my chin for this purpose. I
didn't get very much time to prepare for it, because immediately after all
my four limbs were secured by those leather straps to the furniture of
torture, one of the guards picked up that rope and pulled it through the
ring of my collar's slave-tag . A firm tug on my throat followed: not able
to resist, my head and neck were bent far down, and in this humiliating
position the rope was fastened to my collar with a big knot. I felt nearly
strangled, when the guard had found the desired tightness to make any
movement of my head furthermore impossible.

   The last to be done was to strap a thick leather belt across my back at
the halfway point, to secure my torso firmly to the vaulting horse. Hadn't
I seen them doing that with slave 47, or was this extra bondage feature
missing from his piece of furniture? As I could no longer turn my head to
the right, forced to look down the whole time, I was unable to check it.

   Like a piece of mindless meat I was tied up now, stretched over the
saddle of the vaulting horse with my head down and my ass up. I felt very,
very vulnerable, knowing that I was totally surrendered to the caprices of
my captors, not being able to escape any of them, whatever they would
be. If I hadn't been tied up so tightly, I would have trembled all over my
body out of fear for what might come, but the straps on my limbs and the
belt keeping my back down didn't leave me enough an inch of space to do
this really and freely.

   Oh, my God, what was to happen now?

   I feared the worst.

   "Both slaves are ready for use, chief", I heard one of the guards
saying.

   "Well, you both may start first, guys", I heard the chief answering.

   "The nigger is for you, and the whitey yours".

   Apparently meanwhile he pointed to one of the guards and then to the
other.

   "After you both are done it's the turn for all the others, and I will
give myself the finishing touch in case of both".

   What the hell did he mean with that???

   Would I perhaps be whipped for their pleasure and for my punishment,
because of all the grief I had caused and the lots of abusive language I
had used during the last 24 hours? They several times had threatened to do
so, or at least hinted at that. Would I be whipped by one after another, to
imprint my new hopeless position of a slave into my soul? Whipped by all
the guards, and then at the end by the chief himself for, as he just had
called it, the finishing touch? But I hadn't seen any whips downstairs, so
I at the same time wondered if this was intended for this very moment.

   I had not very much time to think it all over, as they were starting
their treatment of us soon. I heard some movements behind me and thereupon
recognized how the loin cloth covering my ass was shoved upwards: it was
openly exposed to the view of all now. Oh, my God, were they going to beat
my naked ass?

   But suddenly I felt some warm, stiff part of a human body touching my
perineum. Within a second I was aware what it was: the erect penis of the
guard! They weren't going to whip me, they were going to rape me! What they
intended was a gang rape! Oh, no! No! No!

   You may wonder, that I only now recognized what they intended to do with
me. As the whole enslavement-procedure had been settled in a rather
unerotic way, as they - apart from piercing and chaining my cock to make
future erections impossible - hadn't paid attention to the sexual side at
all, as I was chained to become a galley slave, not dressed to become a
harem slave, as they had talked a lot about the lash that was waiting for
me to discipline me and to turn me in an obedient rowing-machine soon, I
wasn't set for one moment for the possibility of this alternative.

   And I hadn't had any SM experience at all, so I wasn't trained in
identifying special pieces of furniture. As said, I hadn't seen the kind of
vaulting horse I was tied up to ever before. But now I understood: it was a
fuck bench, and with my bare ass sticking immovable upwards into the air, I
was mercilessly delivered to every horny cock that desired to enter my
sensitive ass-hole.

   Did my neighbor-victim, slave G-47, know all this? Was that the reason
that he had resisted the guards when he was ordered to come out, was that
the reason that he had continued fighting his fate even after being already
partly tied up? Or was he just in a general way alarmed by the sight of
this piece of torture furniture, not knowing what exactly was going to
happen, but understanding that he presumably wouldn't like very much
whatever was going to happen?

   Full of fear with all the power that was inside me, I squeezed my
buttocks together to keep my sphincters closed and make an impregnable
fortress of my ass. I felt how the already stiff and steel-hard cock of the
guard was knocking against the door I compulsively tried to keep shut. He
pushed and pushed against my sphincters, trying to break my resistance, as
he was clearly quite horny to enter and penetrate. No! No!

   "Open your ass, you fucking slave", I heard him shouting.

   I moaned softly because of the pressure with which the guard tried to
enter. I heard him swearing in vexation, as it apparently took him more
time to overcome me than he had expected.

   "Open your fucking hole, you damned slave", I heard him shouting again.

   The fury with which he pressed his cock against my asshole grew steadily
more and more. I had no weapons at my disposal to beat off his angry
attack, being tied up to this fucking vaulting horse. Meanwhile I heard my
fellow-slave on the next horse moan louder and louder, and then suddenly
start roaring because of the pain he suddenly had to endure: his attacker
clearly had broken his gate open in the end.

   "Ahhhhhhhhh."

   It was a cry of pain as well as of horror. I didn't know at that moment
if the poor guy was gay, like me, and if he had ever been fucked before. In
case he was straight the whole experience for him must have been even much
more terrifying than it already had become for me.

   But I couldn't help him, I had to concentrate on myself, as with every
second it became more difficult to keep my buttocks together for myself
too. The guard was pushing them apart with his hands now, to free my
asshole from its flank defenses and clear the ground in front for the final
attack.

   The final attack came soon enough. In vain I tried to resist his huge
and merciless battering ram. Suddenly under the enormous pressure my
sphincters were beaten and my asshole gave way. Bluppp! His cock with high
speed rushed inside up to its root, I felt his balls pressing against my
perineum, his huge cock meanwhile completely filling up and than lacerating
my ass-channel. Within a second I felt totally impaled by what seemed a
thick wooden broomstick to me and thus, like slave 47 had done a few
seconds ago, now myself started to roar because of the infernal pain inside
my body.

   "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

   Never before in my life I had been penetrated in such a crude
manner. Yes, I had had some - not very much - experience with being fucked
by another guy in the past, but that always had happened during tender
loveplay, with respect for the sensitiveness of my body. But respect for
the sensitiveness of a slave's body clearly wasn't priority number one on
the sexual wish list of this fucking guard.

   He didn't bother about my feelings - physical and psychological -
because of the discomfort he was inflicting to me at all. To the contrary:
egoism reigned, and he was only interested in his own sexual pleasure,
which apparently was penetrating a helpless slave as if he was perforating
a wooden door. The pain therefore was incredible as was the humiliation,
being reduced to a powerless piece of fuck meat this way. His member
appeared to have enormous dimensions, and I knew that I couldn't stand this
much longer. With all the force left by making shit movements I tried to
get this fucking hostile cock out of my tortured body. In vain. It was to
stay there, and even worse: the guard started to fuck me now really
fanatically, moving his cock with much vigor to and fro, ramming my ass in
a way I had never experienced before, without taking any notice of my pain
stricken howling. I couldn't stand it, but I had to stand it, as I had no
means to escape my fate.

   My repeated shrieks and those of my fellow-slave, who suffered no less
than I did, must have been heard throughout the whole corridor and all the
dungeons attached. All already incarcerated future galley slaves, from
number 100 down to number 1 (if they already were present) must have heard
us both crying - and it would have functioned as a warning for all of them
not to aggravate the guards, as I apparently had done by eavesdropping
them. How much did I regret my curiosity now! If I hadn't taken position so
near to the grated door of my dungeon, I presumably wouldn't have been
chosen by those horny bastards, who just wanted to 'have some fun tonight',
as one of the guards had expressed their desires before having set up both
vaulting horses, as fucking cattle now. At least I would have had much more
chance to escape this selection, although perhaps just for the time being -
I didn't know if this gang rape was going on here now just for the first
(and the last) time, or if they resorted to this kind of recreation more
often.

   I felt totally cloven inside, in the moment the guard, after having
fucked me at least for ten minutes vehemently, at length withdrew his
battering ram. I relaxed slightly when the gland of his cock finally
slipped out of my asshole so that I could close it. But I wasn't really
able to do that, as the opening was brutally stretched and my buttock
muscles and sphincters had slackened. So I couldn't do otherwise than to
wait defenselessly, robbed of my natural fortifications, with a still
half-opened asshole for the next guard stamping to fuck me. I didn't have
to wait very long.

   The cock of my second rapist - to whom it belonged I would never know -
was not so huge as that of the first one, who clearly had to clear the way
for all the others. So it was much easier for this guy to get his member
inside me, and also, I must agree, easier for me to welcome it inside. My
physical resistance in fact being broken, the owner of this second cock
within a fraction of a second had shoved it completely inside. His bumping
wasn't less enthusiastic for that reason than that of his predecessor had
been, but at least I now felt a little less impaled than before.

   After again some ten minutes or so - was somebody, perhaps the chief,
keeping an eye on the time? - he and his cock were replaced by a third
specimen, who handled my asshole in nearly the same way as the second guy
did, only I heard him breathe more loudly, and above that he was perspiring
much more; I soon felt the sweat drops falling on my naked back, and he
smelled as if he had tried out rowing on a galley for some hours under the
threat of the lash himself. Which wasn't the case, I suppose.

    All the time I was still stretched motionless over the vaulting horse,
my head strictly kept downwards by the tight rope, not able to move it for
more than a inch upwards or sideways, my bare ass up, ready for the next
fuck. My loud screaming at the beginning had now changed into soft moaning
again, and it was clearly deafened by the much louder noises my neighbor
was making whole the time at his own torture-spot. Did he have the worst
rapists, or was he just not used to this even less than I was and was his
body more sensitive for pain?

   However, after number four and number five had fucked me deep and long
too, the fourth guy even shooting inside me, it became clear that the row
of rapists wasn't just split up between us both: we both got them all. So
we motionlessly and powerlessly had to wait for the sixth, the seventh, the
eight fucking session of this gangbang. Not all cocks were as thick and
painful, but my asshole by being penetrated nearly without interruption -
the pauses were very short, a few seconds between minutes and minutes of
unending fucking - for much over an hour became wider and wider at the
entrance and rawer and rawer inside. When it was the turn for number nine,
although the diameter of his cock was not much less than that of the one
who deflowered me as a slave at the start, he could enter my fuck hole
without much pressure nearly immediately: appearing to my feelings my
ass-gate in the meantime stood wide open, just a light tap was enough now
to get inside.

   Number ten was the last - and the worst. As the words of his predecessor
made clear - "well chief, go ahead for the last round!" - it was the chief
guard himself. Not only the proportions of his dick were really chief-like,
he behaved by far the wildest of all. Like a wild beast he pounced upon me,
impaling my ass at once as deep as possible with his enormous cock. He
fucked me with so much vigor and vehemence that the whole vaulting horse
shook back and forth. He really did it with ramming speed, as one would
call it in directing a galley. Again I really cried for pain, as I had done
in the beginning. And apparently he had run dry for so long, that just ten
minutes for him weren't enough - at least to me it seemed as if he was
enjoying me for not less than half an hour.

   To be clear: I didn't enjoy him. I was totally exhausted and fucked up
when he stopped. After this last session, it was as if my back entrance had
been worked over with a serrated drill and my former decent tiny alley-like
ass-channel had been widened for ever into a four-lane highway. I feared I
was bleeding inside because of the barbarous treatment.

   They didn't give me much time to recover from my torture that in total
must have lasted not much less than two hours. After the chief had drawn
back his member, he abruptly ordered: "Throw this fuck-slave back into his
cell."

   Immediately two guys began to untie me, first the rope on my collar,
then the belt attaching my body to the saddle of the fuck bench, then the
straps keeping my hands and feet in place. I was ordered to stand up, but
showed myself barely able to do that; they had to help me get on my
feet. Out of the corner of my eye I just saw - as I just heard as well too
- how the chief-guard (because indeed it was him) threw himself on poor
slave 47, who was penetrated from the back now with such a bestial force
that he was crying again out of fright and pain.

   Already after standing for just one second on my feet, I was in imminent
danger of falling down again, because by being tied up for so long in such
an uncomfortable position with my neck bent down, the blood was running
through my head and body again, which made me very dizzy. The guards had to
catch me because within a few seconds I nearly fainted. Not quite by my
senses, I just noticed how they took my chained arms and dragged me back to
my cell, of which they had left the barred door unlocked.

   They didn't go into it much further than just so far that I could feel
the warm straw replace the cold stone underneath my feet. There they just
dropped me on the floor, and withdrew from my place; within a few seconds
its door was shut and locked again. This time I had hardly heard my own
chains rattling, as they presumably will have done - there was not enough
energy left inside me to pay attention normally for my ears - inevitable
sounds when I was moved back from the corridor to my cell.

   For some seconds I just rested on the spot where the guards had dropped
me, and in the position in which I had fallen on the straw. Whereas I heard
my fellow-slave still crying because of the unknown sexual violence from
the chief-guard to which he was exposed now, I thereupon slowly crawled,
although completely whacked out, to the darkest corner of my dungeon, only
longing for one thing: to sleep, hoping to recover from this horrible gang
rape by just sleeping soon.

   In spite of the continuing murmur in the corridor, and the regular
moaning of the still tortured slave 47, I fell asleep rather quickly. This
time the burden of the heavy collar and chains, with which I had struggled
so much during last night and which had prevented me then for so long to
take my desired rest, apparently were overcome quickly. And to be sure, I
had to catch up on sleep, as I had slept too little the previous night and
was awakened too early this morning in the brutish manner I've described
earlier, interrupting my last dream then and thus turning my imaginary
nightmare into the continuation of my real one. I was too exhausted to stay
awake for even one minute more since I had reached the dark back half of my
cell after the guards had left me alone.

   I must have dreamed this second night again, but this time I afterwards
remembered only confused flashes of it. The vaulting horse was in it, as
was again the branding iron to be sure, and at some moment even a galley
turned up, a huge one this time, but its appearance afterwards wasn't so
clear in my mind as the former had been. A lot of chain rattling and a lot
of shouting weren't left out by my dreaming mind too. But no rape, at least
it didn't go as far as that.

   However, this time I woke up earlier than yesterday, and not because
some guard made a lot of noise at my barred cell door. When I opened my
eyes after my second night as a slave, it was still silent in the corridor
outside and the lights still were switched off. But after having my eyes
got accustomed to the darkness, it was clear that all guards were gone, as
were the fuck bench and slave 47, who presumably had been back again in his
cell for several hours too.

   In fact I had slept rather well, and did not feel bad - at least
regarding the bad circumstances I had to cope with. Was I already getting a
bit used to all my fetters? I still was aware of them all the time as soon
as I was awake, of the collar as well as of the manacles, the anklet and
the thick connecting chains that restricted my movements, but in a way they
started to become familiar to me, if that's the right word to use in this
case. Regarding the state of my poorly treated body, my asshole hurt
internally less than I feared - I had physically survived the two hour gang
rape apparently rather well. Would slave 47 have too? The branding still
produced some soaring pain, like the piercing, but it was already less
worse than yesterday.

   Was the new day to become one like the former? I had not the slightest
idea how late it was - I gradually lost all sense of time - but as it was
still silent and dark in the corridor, it should still be early. Curious,
but eager not to draw more attention than necessary - I had learned my
lesson yesterday evening too well! - I crept carefully, keeping both my
chains in my hands to prevent any rattling, squatted at the grated door of
my cell and peered through the bars. Nobody was there to see or hear
outside - apart from some soft breathing around the corner. Apparently one
guard - the chief - was sitting behind the desk. As far as I could see,
slave 47 was still sleeping; he must have been, after what had happened to
him, really at the end of his rope.

   I crept back and - well, what otherwise could I do - tried to sleep
again. But I was not tired enough to succeed, so I just lay on my back in
the straw, gazing at the vault of my dungeon. Oh, how boring was this all,
all those hours of waiting with nothing useful to do! But should I then
perhaps prefer the variety of a new gang rape? Well, I wouldn't call my new
experience of last evening boring - although in the end it had become a
kind of routine, the next penetrating horny cock just taking the place of
the previous one - but it wasn't really an alternative I was looking
forward to have repeated after dinner.

   So I lay on my back, and waited for the things to come. For the next
hours there weren't many things to come. And, while I lay there, I
remembered that they had said that the next slaves would arrive at
noon. Yes, the two black wrestlers from the States, who had been
inseparable for so long and now were to be separated. You may wonder that I
retained the words of the guards about them so well. But if there are so
few things happening around you, if there are so few things to remember,
you just remember everything. That's the reason I could reproduce the
discussion of yesterday, as far as I had been able to understand it, in
detail. And in my mind I reproduced it over and over again, as I had not
very much else to do. After one and a half days spent in this cramped
dungeon, I knew every blade of straw. For the rest, the knowledge that I
wouldn't have to spend all the rest of my life locked up in this
semi-darkness and within some days - or weeks? - at least would see
daylight again, for the moment was the most important straw I grasped at
not to despair completely.

   Suddenly I discovered that the light in the corridor was switched
on. And yes, not long after that there were several noises to be
heard. Then I saw one of the guards passing by, from the right to the left,
apparently starting his duty of walking to and fro. A few minutes later
there were new noises added - and I recognized one of the noises now. The
food cart containing my breakfast was soon to arrive - as you know, room
service was included here downstairs. I guessed I better had to be at the
gate in time, so I moved to the entrance of my cell to be in time there
indeed and prevent new abusive language from the side of impatient guards.

   This time it was my neighbor across the corridor, slave 47, who became
their victim, as this time he wasn't awake early enough. When I heard the
food cart coming nearer and then saw it coming into view, there still was
no sign of life inside cell 47. My black fellow-slave apparently slept -
which he had earned after last night. But that wasn't to the satisfaction
of our two guards. When the one that was responsible for the row of cells
at the opposite side of the corridor didn't find a slave waiting on the
spot behind the bars of the dungeon, he started to do what he had done in
my case yesterday, when I was still sleeping.

   With his boot he hit the bars, and shouted: "Get up, slave! Get up!"

   When there was no immediate reaction - what else was to be expected if
the poor boy was still in deep sleep! - he repeated it, and when, after
some new shouting, there apparently finally was some reaction, he
continued:

   "You fucking nigger, come over here immediately for your food."

   I now could discover vaguely the black slave, as he with rattling chains
hastened himself to the bars to receive his bowls.

   The guard on my side, who had found my neighbor 48 awake - at least
there was no shouting over there - in the meantime had moved on to me.

   "Well slave, did you enjoy having your asshole fucked several times in a
row last night?" he asked sarcastically when he offered me both my eating-
and drinking-bowls.

   Not waiting for an answer, he added with a fake smile:

   "WE at least did".

   Well, I didn?t doubt that.

   After a short pause:

   "And we without any problem will do it again, whenever and wherever we
take a fancy to doing that. Hope you've learned your lesson now, 46!"

   When I still stayed silent, not knowing what to say back, and even not
knowing if I was presumed to say anything back at all, he continued:

   "Hope it's clear to you that your whole body belongs to us and that we
can do with it whatever we like. You will serve us as a slave as much and
as often as we want, here downstairs with your slave hole sexually, later
on the galley with all the strength in your arms physically. You better
learn to obey, as there will be no escape for you, for NONE of you" - when
uttering those last words he made a wide swing with his right arm in the
direction of all the other dungeons along the corridor - "as there is
nobody who will help you to change your fate into a nicer one, and those
chains will keep you securely riveted to your oar. You're a slave now, just
a fucking slave, and you better prepare to be so for the rest of your
life!"

   He spat through the bars into my face, and, as his colleague meanwhile
had finished with handing over to slave 47 his breakfast, before I could
react (if I had intended to do so), he turned his back to me and took the
food cart to continue their delivery. As cells 45, 43, 41 and 39 were still
empty, and my other neighbor slave 44 apparently already was waiting for
feeding time behind his bars, the guards quickly passed out of sight, only
to return to get the food bowl back after I had finished the meanwhile
familiar hunks of bread for breakfast.

   Then tranquility reigned again. Yes: we now had to wait for the arrival
of both new black slaves. At noon they would arrive, one of the guys had
said yesterday. At noon at the airport. Regarding the time needed to drive
to the harbor and thereupon for the whole procedure after that, for the
riveting of the chains and the collar, for the shaving, piercing and
branding, one couldn't expect them much before two o'clock to join us
downstairs. Would they be done together, or would they find a way to
separate them? Presumably the latter, as professional wrestlers wouldn't be
so easy to surrender, if they would be offered the possibility to fight
their slavers together.

   Or were there more blacksmiths and branding specialists active here? The
building was big enough for that, big enough to hide a couple of those
sequences of rooms I had crossed, but on the other hand I doubted it, as
there had been so many chains and shackles waiting for slaves to rivet on
in the room where I got mine, that a multiple of them - in each such
riveting-room a whole stock of manacles, fetters and collars in every
thinkable seize at hand - seemed unrealistic. Unless they were not fitting
out just one galley, but a whole navy of them with slaves. But in that case
several corridors with dungeons were needed to lock all the victims
up. Well - who could guarantee if there didn't exist several indeed?

   You may wonder why I bothered asking myself such kinds of
questions. Well: there is not very much else to bother about and ask
yourself, when your habitat is reduced to just a few square feet. Of course
I could bother about a lot of things going on in the rest of the world, ask
myself a lot of questions about those other six billion people living on
earth, but being turned in a slave for ever, their experience and welfare
was of no relevance for my own life any longer. Of all those six billion
people soon only the handful of slave drivers that would threaten my bare
back with their lashes would count. What would happen outside the galley
would simply evade my gaze and not inflict my living.

   So, with daydreaming like that, I spent the next hours. The only break
was offered by lunch, predictably containing the same stuff as before. No
unkind words were spoken to me this time - no kind ones were spoken either
- as all was handed over and returned without uttering any sound. The
sounds came only long after that - and then indeed a lot of sounds.

   Clanking of chains announced the arrival of new slaves at the right end
of the corridor. Not only clanking of chains announced them. A lot of angry
shouting by the guards announced them too.

   "Quicker, you fucking bastards", I heard one of them barking.

   Thereupon the clanking suddenly even became much louder. I hesitated:
should I move to the bars, not to miss a glimpse of the new arrivals? Or
was it wiser to stay far inside my cell, as I already one time too many had
caught the attention of the guards? After some doubting, I decided to
choose a position halfway.

   The extremely loud clanking of the chains didn't stop. It was indeed
extremely loud, although at the same time they all must still be rather far
away, just at the beginning of the corridor, only at the level of the first
cells. Why didn't they come nearer?

    "Ahhhhhh!"

    Was that one of the new slaves who was crying?

    No, I recognized the voice. It was one of the guards!

    What the hell was going on there?

    A loud bump followed, as if somebody was falling on the floor - but a
loud bump without any chains rattling, as if not one of the slaves, but one
of the guards had fallen on the floor! Were those the two professional
wrestlers? Did they, in spite of their heavy chains - I at least supposed
they were heavily chained already, otherwise they wouldn't be here - try to
resist their captors?!? How many guards in fact were over there? I hadn't
seen those, who as a sentry walked to and fro through the corridor, for a
long time, I realized now. Were they temporarily absent? Had the slavers?
organization made a big mistake by accompanying the two (?) slaves by too
few guards, so that they saw a chance to escape now?

   "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"

   A second cry - from the same guard. And thereupon a loud ruckus, as if
he were hit in his stomach. I heard new rattling of chains and new bumps of
bodies on the floor. It seemed, as if there was a fight there!

   Then suddenly: "What the hell is going on here?"

   This was the voice of the chief-guard - but not coming from the nearby
desk, but from much further away, from the lowest steps of the stairs going
up. I already had started to wonder why he hadn't intervened when things
were apparently going so terrible wrong (from the viewpoint of the
slavers). Hadn't he been at his place all the time?

   "That fucking nigger grabbed Ahmed?s knife, boss", I heard one of the
guards shouting.

   A knife?!? Was the new slave now threatening one of the guards with a
knife? Or had he used it to stab the guard I had heard crying - and was
that the cause of his ruckus?

   From my spot I couldn't get a better impression of what was happening
than I had, and the combatants didn't help very much to clear the situation
either. There was a lot of shouting together, a lot of chain rattling and a
lot of new muffled sounds, making it impossible for me to discover how the
fight - then clearly there was a fight going on there - developed.

   The struggle continued for at least ten minutes. Then apparently the
slavers won a victory - was it to be expected otherwise? For a moment calm
returned, and I heard only the moans of the wounded.

   Thereupon I heard the chief-guard, angry.

   "This of course will have serious disciplinary consequences!"

   "I'll wait here next to slave 12. You two bring number 7 to his cell."

   "And you look after Ahmed".

   I heard some movement of bodies.

   "Chief", I now heard one of the guards shouting, and he sounded really
panic-stricken, "He is dead!"