“The Ghezala, xebec of Sallee.”
“Where are we bound for?”
“Sallee, on the coasts of Barbary, of course; to be sold as a slave among the heathen infidels. Where did you think you was bound for? Fortunate Isles with rings on your fingers to splice a golden queen—eh?”
“Barbary—infidels—slave,” Ortho repeated stupidly. No wonder Anson had leered as he went down!
He turned, sighing, over on his face. “Slaves—infidels—Barb . . .” and was asleep.
CHAPTER XIX
He woke up eighteen hours later, at about noon—or so his neighbor told him; it was impossible to distinguish night from day down there. The hold was shallow and three parts full; this brought them within a few feet of the deck beams and made the atmosphere so thick it was difficult to breathe, congested as they were. Added to which, the rats and cockroaches were very active and the stale bilge water, washing to and fro under the floor, reeked abominably.
The other prisoners were not talkative. Now and again one would shout across to a friend and a short conversation would ensue, but most of the time they kept silence, as though steeped in melancholy. The majority sounded like foreigners.
Ortho sat up, tried to stretch his legs, and found they were shackled to a chain running fore and aft over the cargo.
His left-hand neighbor spoke: “Woke up, have you? Well, how d’you fancy it?”