Still unrelenting, the queen ordered her late opponent to be treated as a dangerous subversive and kept tied up, secured to one of the house posts beneath the floor of the royal residence along with the royal pig stock, securely gagged to prevent the dissemination of further heresies, there to await judgement upon her offensive teaching as soon as the king returned.
“Father will make you leave the island!” Oonea forecast sorrowfully. To Isobel’s astonishment, every word of hers had been remembered by the islanders and all was accurately reported to the king. Her words condemning the abandonment of their culture seemed to particularly alarm him. The king was still revered but had formerly been considered as actually sacred and his life hedged about with such vexatious restraints as he had no desire to return to. Unable to deny her opinions, Isobel attempted to appeal to a superior jurisdiction, calling attention to British Imperial power but only succeeded in further arousing the king’s wrath, he being sensitive to any hint of a challenge to his independent status. When her voice began to rise irksomely, he ordered his women to silence further argument by gagging her again. The trading voyage had not gone as well as he had hoped and his opposite number, proudly boasting a resident native teacher, had twitted Ben, the supposed royal adviser, upon his uncertainty about the details of religious organisation. The king was determined to demonstrate his rigid orthodoxy; the devil’s disciple would be severely dealt with!
“We know that the white captains flog wicked men!” he had said when his soft-hearted daughter pleaded for mercy towards a wrongheaded stranger.
“She is not a man, father!” Oonea protested, but her stepmother countered that with an even more alarming revelation of unnatural beliefs. “She says there should be no difference between her and a man!” So Isobel had been sentenced to a public caning of twelve strokes with a rattan cane, followed by banishment from the island. Her gag restricted any expression of her horrified reaction to such barbarity. Eventually she managed to calm herself somewhat, reasoning that in England, schoolboys suffered worse as a matter of course, surely she could withstand as much and resolved to suffer without disgracing her nationality.
She was brought out from her place of imprisonment by the trio of queens, paraded before the eyes of the entire native population, men, women and children, to find that a special structure had been built to receive her, in the most public place on the island. Pulling the shrinking Isobel to the apparatus with her arms spread wide, the women made her bend forward with the nearest bamboo cross piece pressing against the top of her thighs and the further one coming under her collar bone, her head and neck projecting beyond, facing the watching crowd. With arms at full stretch her wrists were bound in place to the bamboo with fibrous rope. When she felt her skirts being lifted and drawn up and bundled above her waist so exposing the whole of her thinly-clad rear to the public view, her protests were suddenly agitated but of course rendered inaudible by the gag and when she began to kick, her ankles were promptly caught, drawn inexorably apart and fastened with more rope to the stout side pieces of the frame. She shook her head wildly, loosing hairpins and disordering her collapsing hair so that it fell all about her face, but it wasn’t enough to prevent her from being conscious of the array of brown faces, men, women and children in their Sabbath best, all watching her open-mouthed. The king moved into her view, ceremonially robed and crowned with fresh leaves and flowers, progressing slowly and ponderously to take his seat at the centre of the throng. The two junior wives followed him closely, squatting cross-legged by his side, but Isobel heard the voice of the senior wife still fussing somewhere close at hand. Then two hands gripped the seat of her drawers and ripped, the fine lawn giving way easily resulting in a sudden access of cool air. Isobel squealed in shock and outrage but there was little she could do. She was shamefully exposed to the view of all these natives with the rounds of her bottom completely bared.
A wave of giggles and murmurs ran through the crowd who craned to examine a female bottom of a paler and creamier colour than had ever been seen on the island before. There was a further buzz of interest as the sharper eyes spotted and remarked upon the natural red colour of the furred mound visible in the gaping split that fully matched that of her scalp. The extent of her exposure made Isobel go hot and cold by turns, her face flushed deep scarlet and she closed her wet eye-lashes upon the evidence of their interest. The king made a little speech, but Isobel was now far too discomposed to attempt to translate it, especially since she sensed a sudden rise in expectation from the onlookers.
She too tensed in nervous anticipation, but quite failed to detect the slight swish of the descending cane. The rapt audience heard the crisply echoing smack made by the stiff bamboo impacting with Isobel’s plump flesh. To the unfortunate delinquent it felt like a streak of fire landing across her behind that instantly sank in deep and set every nerve end reacting. She desperately wanted to scream but clenched her teeth hard on the gag instead, shrinking in her mind from the violent reality of her punishment. She had only received one stroke! She was to get twelve! How could she bear twelve? She now thought of begging for mercy, but again the gag proved an insurmountable impediment.
The audience watched the white female stranger’s frantic squirms, reacting according to their temperament and sex with groans, squeals, or grunts, but the king’s chief wife had set her plump features into a sterner expression.
“The wicked must suffer in the hope of recalling them to ways of virtue! The results will make a good example for our younger people not to be led astray!” With that little speech, gripping the cane firmly in her plump fist, she raised it again. The second stroke fell only a finger’s width below the first. Isobel’s head tossed and, through the cloud of flying hair, her teeth showed clenched white and her blue eyes suddenly opened wide. The stalwart island matron swung the cane with relish, employing all the strength of a muscular ham-like arm and, with the crisp impact of the third stroke, a shrill if incoherent cry emerged from behind Isobel’s gag, carrying quite audibly to the crowd. All could see her increasingly violent jerks, her horrified expression, and the constant bounce of her exposed flesh as four, and five, and then six, the punitive strokes fell across it in quick succession.
Halfway! The triumphant queen paused for breath, scanning the crowd as if to be sure she had all their attention. Six welts had now arisen across Isobel’s once virgin bottom, bright red and beginning to hint at bluish-purple, in straight lines, evenly spaced and spanning the full width of the contrasted curves. The cane, resuming its descent in due course, fell slightly aslant this time, crossing its precursors in two places, creating two swollen knots of flesh though still not breaking the skin. Isobel positively wailed this time, despite her stick gag, straining her white throat and grinding fibrous fragments from the wood with her teeth. The senior wife paused again and wiped the plump hand that gripped the cane on her skirts, before delivering the next more carefully, choosing to target a wider space where the top of Isobel’s thighs made a crease with her bottom. It left its angry imprint clear across two parts where, within the brief interruption and narrowly missed, lay the wispily furred development of the vaginal crease. The delivery then shifted again, to cross the soft beginning of the bottom crease with the same red line and then falling between the existing weals with better accuracy, two more in quick succession. Isobel had quite lost count; she greeted the last three with sobbing groans, loose hair clinging to her face soaked with tears and, not realising it was the end, waited helplessly for a long time expecting another, only realising that her ordeal was over when her tear-blurred vision registered the easily recognisable figure of the cane wielder among those assisting her royal husband to rise and make his entrance to the church at the head of his subjects.
Chapter Two
The service over, the island women had quickly doffed their Sunday best and clad once more in nothing but their scanty grass skirts, began to stroll with their families from house to h
ouse visiting their neighbours. Several bare-breasted unmarried girl friends came to join Ben’s wife in attending to Isobel, some seeking to apply more ointment and the others solicitously wiping away her tears. They freed her gag but there was little further comfort they could offer. Though some of the men chased them away, they continued to hover at a little distance as if to ensure that Isobel suffered no further abuse. Presently she heard Oonea greeting her husband’s return. A quick glance revealed, to Isobel’s horror, that he was accompanied by another European, a black-whiskered stranger in a blue peaked seaman’s cap and ill-fitting jacket. Isobel cast down her eyes in confusion as they drew near, the involuntary contraction of her exposed bottom cheeks only serving to remind her of the painful evidence of the cane weals. She was sure he must have been staring at such a sight. In shame she kept her eyes upon his boots where they stood before her, alongside Ben’s bare feet.
“Madame! Parlez vous Francaise?”
“He’s a froggie.” Ben said unnecessarily. Despite her overwhelming shame at being found by a civilised European male in this condition, Isobel made an effort to concentrate her mind to frame a plea, “M’aidez, pour merci!” her voice trembled.
“Pardon?” Forced to raise her voice she felt a little rush of fury, repeating her plea. The Frenchman only grunted. She told herself she must remember that such rough low-bred people as made their living at sea in such out of the way parts, would not have the reactions to a lady in distress that she might expect of a gentleman. His next question was to ask if she wished a passage to Sydney Cove.
“She ain’t got any choice!” Ben said brutally, catching the name and the tone of inquiry. “He’s bin trading for sea slugs,” he added to Isobel. “Put in here expecting to get all he wants for a few iron nails. He’ll have to take you with him if he wants the king to allow him food and water!” Then to the French captain, “All happy eh, monsewer? We’ll put her on board when you leave. Let’s go and tell his majesty the good news.”
The sun had descended with only the brief twilight of the equatorial regions, before Ben returned to join Oonea in releasing the exhibited captive. Isobel was far too stiff to move. She was lifted by the hips and propped up momentarily upright, then hoisted into the air and slung bodily over Ben’s naked shoulder, his muscular forearm coming across the back of her thighs. He smelt strongly of sweat and wood smoke and Isobel nervously felt his muscled flesh warm under her belly and across her thighs even through the thin covering of her dress. Only feebly protesting, she was carried in this way, slung over Ben’s shoulder all the way back to the young couple’s home among the coconut palms. Later that night, while Ben snored in the background, his young wife crept to Isobel’s side where she lay, feeling the effects of sweet coconut milk mixed with a strong draught from Ben’s secret rum bottle which the couple assured her truthfully would dull the pain. Producing the ointment jar and caressing the wounded flesh with skilful fingers, the island girl cooed dovelike between gentle kisses.
Isobel recalled the nights when she had watched Oonea work upon her husband’s body in just such a gently skilful way and offered no obstacle when the hands strayed wider and more intimately. The throbbing warmth of her bottom reminded her that she had no status to lose, here among these unsophisticated savages, nothing to gain by maintaining exclusivity. She was far away from the constraints of European civilisation. Gliding down, Oonea’s small hands, which had been so gently caressing Isobel’s wounded bottom, slid round into the deep furrow between the seared rounds, fingers exploring deeper still between Isobel’s trembling thighs. Cupping the furry mound in her hand, Oonea rubbed the ball of her thumb gently but insistently about the little fleshy nub. Isobel could feel it stiffen and lengthen until she nearly cried out, but recalling where she was, managed to keep the outburst muted to little gasps. Her swinging breasts brushing the rough surface of the bed tingled as if it had imparted electric qualities. She lowered herself a little to savour the effect, hollowing her back, tautening and relaxing her throbbing bottom cheeks and grinding her mons veneris into Oonea’s palm until the lower section of her belly seemed to be melting into the condition of hot jelly.
Suddenly there was another brawnier, more massive body sharing and intervening in their embrace, coming from behind and creating strange reactions as it brushed the throbbing weals across her bottom. Isobel knew it was Ben and fully intended to protest, but somehow all her attention was absorbed by her reactions to Oonea’s caresses. The island girl soothed her with sweet words, urging her not to worry; no harm would come of it. Persuaded by now that these people knew more of such things than she, Isobel got no further but gave herself up guiltily to animal enjoyment. The hard male body was pressed between the softness of her thighs and against her quivering belly lay a stiff hot truncheon that slid and thrust, adding a quite different effect to those of Oonea’s lips and fingertips. Isobel gurgled and panted, convinced that the pleasures she was suddenly experiencing could not be construed as a violation. Gasping for breath, head down and bottom up, bathed in perspiration, she waited seemingly ages after she herself had reached the height of ecstasy and come down again, reluctant to be the cause of disappointment. Then she heard the kind of valedictory male grunt she recognised from her spying and Oonea’s delighted giggle in response. An imposition that Isobel had hardly been aware of lifted away from her back and rump, leaving behind a trace of wet stickiness. The girl’s small tongue began at once to lick this carefully away, following a trail from Isobel’s bottom cleft upwards as far as her the middle of her back, while Ben, having blundered heavily away, was shortly to be heard drinking thirstily next door.
“Your last night!” Oonea said sorrowfully, sitting back and licking her lips. “Tomorrow Father says you must go!”
Chapter Three
Isobel crouched in the tiny cabin aboard the schooner ‘L’Allouette’, surveying the dubious stains on the white painted walls and the canvas covered straw mattress, listening to the sounds above, coming through the small skylight, of the half dozen crewmen bumping and jabbering. They had seemed to do a lot of frantic shouting when making sail. “Frenchy no sailors!” Ben had condemned them with the usual prejudice of the lower classes towards foreigners. She gave up trying to tidy her hair, disturbed in its laboriously arranged pile by the blustery sea wind. She must rouse herself to go on deck. One must keep up appearances before a crew of foreigners at least. Reliving the humiliation of her public exposure, she trusted that the Captain had not revealed to his men in what shameful circumstances he had found her.
Lifting her skirts over the lip of the companionway, she emerged nervously from the short flight of steps onto the deck to find the crew in the act of rummaging through her trunks and throwing her journals overboard, a paper trail already fluttering in the ship’s wake. Furiously she rushed to stop them and was simply cursed and flung aside. “Captain!” She screamed a frantic appeal seeing that person at the wheel. “Your sailors are destroying my papers!” before picking herself up and rushing back to the fray. The men threw her off and then, losing patience with her repeated attempts to interfere, a pair of them a simply bundled her across to the mainmast shrouds and, despite her indignant struggles and then frightened cries, fastened her there with her arms stretched upward, pulled up onto her very toes and her wrists made fast well above her head,
“They are not my sailors and we have no captain!” the man she had assumed to be in charge shouted across with a show of teeth. “We are all equal here and share all we get, like good Republicans!” His grin became a more wolfish snarl. “We expected to buy girls for wives on the island, but you interfering missionaries have cheated us of that opportunity!”
Isobel looked frantically about her, but the green line of the island’s palms were a mere line almost below the horizon. She regretted having delayed her emergence so long. Had there been even an island canoe in sight she might have had more hopes of rescue or escape.
“But I am not a missionary!” was all she could think of by way of protest.
“A damned bluestocking then, giving their females ideas! We took you to serve in their stead!”
“You cannot treat a lady in this fashion without consequences!” Isobel cried in panic. “Let me free!”
“An English lady adventuress! We have heard of them!” He and the others sniggered among themselves. Isobel decided it was pointless to protest that she was not English. “We know you have been playing games with the savages’ women!” the man continued. The others were rapidly emptying her trunks, rootling through and discarding clothing, finding and sharing out in the process the small reserve of Mexican silver dollars folded within her underclothes. They made as if to throw the clothing after the papers, though Isobel from her helpless position made another anguished protest. One of them checked the others, suggested that the garments would be useful for trading with the natives. Isobel’s agitated cries had turned their attention upon her and they crowded round her, grinning. There were six of them, the man who had passed as captain and a younger man who were evidently Europeans, two who looked like Arabs or Levantines, one of oriental appearance and a hulking black man, all in singlets and shorts or canvas trousers. They were unprepossessing men, apart from the Negro, being variously scrawny, belly-heavy, or balding, nothing like the golden classical-statue quality of Benjamin or the wave-riding Polynesian islanders.
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