Birds of Prey

Daniel raised his arm high and let the lash stream out over his shoulder then, with a peculiar grace for such a big man, he swung forward. The lash whistled like the wind in the leaves of a tall tree and clapped loudly on bare skin.

"One!" chanted the crew in unison, as the victim shrieked on a high note of shock and agony. The lash left a grotesque pattern over his back, each red line studded with a row of brighter crimson stars where the knots had broken the skin. It looked like the sting from the venomous tendrils of a Portuguese man-of-war.

Daniel combed out the lash, and the fingers of his left hand were smeared with bright fresh blood.

Two!" The watchers counted, and the man shrieked again and writhed in his bonds, his toes dancing a tattoo of pain on the deck timbers.

"Avast punishment!" Sir Francis called, as he heard a mild commotion at the head of the companionway leading down to the cabins in the stern. Obediently Daniel lowered the whip, and waited as Sir Francis strode to the ladder.

Governor van de Velde's plumed Hat appeared above the coaming, followed by his fat flushed face. He stood wheezing in the sunlight, mopping his jowls with a silk handkerchief, and looked about him. His face brightened with interest as he saw the men hanging on the row of tripods. Ja! Goed! I see we are not too late," he said, with satisfaction. Close behind him Katinka emerged from the hatch with a light, eager step, holding her skirts just high enough to reveal satin slippers embroidered with seed pearls.

"Good morrow, Mijnheer," Sit Francis greeted the Governor with a perfunctory bow, "there is punishment in progress. It is an unsuitable spectacle for a lady of your wife's delicate breeding to witness."

"Truly, Captain," Katinka laughed lightly as she intervened, "I am not a child. Heaven knows, there is a great paucity of diversion aboard this ship. just think, you would collect no ransom if I were to die of boredom." She tapped Sir Francis's arm with her fan, but he pulled away from this condescending touch, and spoke again to her husband.

"Mijnheer, I think you should escort your wife to her quarters."

Katinka stepped between them as though he had not spoken, and beckoned Zelda who followed her. "Place my stool there in the shade." She spread out her skirts as she settled herself on the stool and pouted prettily at Sir Francis. "I will be so quiet that you will not even know that I am here."

Sir Francis glared at the Governor, but van de Velde spread his pudgy hands in a theatrical gesture of helplessness. "You know how it is, Mijnheer, when a beautiful woman sets her heart on something." He moved up behind Katinka and placed a proud and indulgent hand on her shoulder.

"I ca

"I think you need not trouble yourself too deeply. My wife has a strong stomach," van de Velde murmured. During their tour of duty in Kandy and Trincomalee his wife had never missed the executions that were carried out regularly on the parade ground of the fort. Depending on the nature of the offence these punishments had ranged from burning at the stake to branding, gar rotting and beheading. Even on those days when she had been suffering the break-bone pains of dengue fever and, in accordance with her doctor's orders, should have remained in bed, her carriage had always been parked in its accustomed place overlooking the scaffold.

"Then it shall be at your own responsibility, Mijnheer." Sir Francis nodded curtly, and turned back to Daniel. "Proceed with the punishment, Master Daniel," he ordered. Daniel threw back the whip, high behind his shoulder, and the coloured. tattoos that decorated his great biceps rippled with a life of their own.

"Three!" yelled the crew, as the lash sang and snapped. Katinka stiffened, and leaned forward slightly on her stool.

"Four!" She started at the crack of the cat and the high scream of pain that followed it. Slowly her face turned pale as candle tallow.

"Five!" Thin snakes of -scarlet crawled down the man's back and soaked into the waistband of his canvas petticoat. Katinka let her long golden eyelashes droop half closed to hide the gleam in her violet eyes.

"Six!" Katinka felt a tiny drop of liquid strike her, like a single spot of warm tropical rain. She tore her eyes from the wriggling, moaning body on the tripod, and looked down at her graceful hand.

A drop of blood, flung from the sodden lash, had landed on her forefinger. Like a ruby set in a precious ring it sparkled against her white skin. She cupped her other hand over it, hiding it in her lap while she glanced around at the faces that surrounded her. Every eye was fixed in total fascination upon the gruesome spectacle in front of them. No one had seen the blood splash her. No. one was watching her now.

She lifted her hand to her full soft lips as though in an involuntary gesture of dismay. The pink tip of her tongue darted out and dabbed away the droplet from her finger.

She savoured its metallic salt taste. It reminded her of a lover's sperm, and she felt the viscous wetness welling up between her legs, so that when she rubbed her thighs together they slid against each other, slippery as mating eels.

There would be a need for lodgings on shore while the Resolution was careened on the beach, her hull cleaned of weed and examined for any sign of shipworm.

Sir Francis put Hal in charge of building the compound that was to accommodate their hostages. Hal took particular care over the hut that would house the Governor's wife, making it spacious and comfortable and siting it for privacy and security from wild animals. Then he had his men build a stockade of thorn branches around the entire prison compound.

When darkness brought the first day's work to a halt, he went down to the beach of the lagoon and soaked himself in the warm, brackish waters. Then he scrubbed his body with handfuls of wet sand until his skin tingled. Yet he still felt sullied by the memory of the floggings he had been forced to watch that morning. Only when he smelt the tantalizing odour of hot biscuit floating across the water from the ship's galley did his mood change, and he thrust his legs into his breeches and ran down the beach to scramble into the pi