Free Silver Angel by Johanna Lindsey

clanging of scimitars on shields, but she was to learn it was only the corsairs who made the racket, which was part of their strategy to terrify their victims. And it worked. The Neapolitan merchantman was easy prey, the crew so taken by surprise that there was little bloodshed. All were made prisoners and the other vessel torched, since the corsairs didn’t have enough men to spare as a crew for the prize.
    For three days after, Chantelle fell into a depression that nothing could shake, thinking of the men now chained in the hold who, like her, would be sold. And like her fate, what would happen to them was unknown. Hakeem had been willing to enlighten her, but not after she was so appalled to hear the prisonerswould be led from the ship near naked and in chains. He refused to continue, assuring her only that her arrival in Barikah would be very different.
    It might be different, but it was no less terrifying, as she found out a short twelve days after the merchantman was captured. Seen through the one small porthole her cabin boasted, Barikah glistened on the North African coast, the Barbary Coast, as the long strip extending from Morocco to Egypt was called. It was a white jewel shimmering in the hot midday sun. Flat-roofed, whitewashed houses crowded together, rising one above the next on steep hills, flanked on both sides by the verdant green of pastures and fields, with the brilliant blue waters of the harbor below, the cloudless azure sky above. Seen from afar, the Eastern flavor stood out starkly in the green-tiled cupolas of huge domed mosques towering above the houses, each with four minarets rising toward the sky like pointed needles. Cone-topped watchtowers stood out, too. So did a large building sitting atop the tallest hill and surrounded by thick walls that could only be the palace of the Dey.
    Closer to the harbor were other large buildings seen just above the high walls that surrounded Barikah: warehouses for the cargoes from the commercial ships of many different nations that crowded the harbor, barracks for the soldiers who manned the walls where twenty batteries protected the bay with more than a thousand cannon, bagnios which housed the huge work force of slaves.
    There was also the spire of a Christian church, but Chantelle unfortunately didn’t notice this. If she had, she might have lost some of the trepidation now filling her violet eyes, for Hakeem had not bothered to tell her the Dey of Barikah was tolerant of Christians,that many lived here who weren’t slaves, that there was a whole European community in the city. A Christian church was a sign of sanctuary, a haven that would be easy to find when she escaped, whereas the English consulate would not be as easy to locate. But she didn’t see it, and she didn’t see the city for very long either, at least not all of it, once the ship came about to maneuver toward its berth.
    Not long after, there was the sound of the male prisoners being led onto the deck after twelve horrid days spent in the hold. The moans, the clanking of chains, sent Chantelle rushing for her bed to cover her ears and stifle her sobs of fear in her pillows. How long before she, too, would be led from this temporary haven? Yes, the ship was now a haven compared with what awaited her ashore.
    But time passed and no one came for her. Her tears dried. Her fears gave way to emotional exhaustion. She was almost ready to accept anything just to get it over with so she could stop being constantly afraid.
    When Hakeem did finally come to the cabin, it was nearing evening. He had a tray of food for her, and clothes draped over one arm.
    Chantelle took one look at the food and thought she would throw up, her stomach was so in knots. “Take it away.”
    “You will not be leaving the ship until late tonight, when the city is quiet. In the meantime you must eat, lalla .”
    “I’d hate to tell you what you can do with that food, Hakeem.”
    He smiled at her surly tone, but it was a sad