Koos Smit

Brendan

Chapters 8-13

"Well done boys! Mother will be pleased!"

Then Brendan's knee buckles and he pitches sideways off his pony. The air rushes past and suddenly he is hurtling down the side of a cliff. His heart pounds in his throat as he braces himself to splatter on the rocks below. He twists his body in mid-flight and manages to land on his back. He hears a hollow thump and he sees stars as the back of his head connects with something hard.

Waking suddenly in a fog of surprise and confusion Brendan puts his hand gingerly to the back of his head, expecting to find blood and mush. He is puzzled to find his head intact. He sits up and starts inspecting the rest of his body for damage. As he does so he hears giggling from above and behind him. He twists around and sees Rodney peering at him from over the side of the bed, his face creased with mirth.

It dawns on Brendan that he has fallen out of bed. He realizes in the same instant that it was Rodney who pushed him off, probably just for fun. He jumps up and stands next to the bed, looking at Rodney anxiously.

Rodney grins at him. "You woke me with your snoring, Brendan, so I hoofed you out of bed. A slave can't sleep while his master is awake!"

"No Master", says Brendan, "I'm truly sorry Master!"

Brendan is pleased and relieved his master has called him by name. It is always a good sign of his master's mood. Brendan realizes that Rodney has been calling him by name more and more lately. He has an inking that Rodney has begun to like him, not that Rodney has been treating him any more kindly of late. In fact, it sometimes seems as if his master goes out of his way to find reasons to beat him. But daring to hope that his feelings for Rodney might be returned in some way, however slight or offhand, gives him the pleasant tingling of butterflies in his belly.

Although Rodney does not seem angry, Brendan thinks it well to try to ingratiate his young master and take his mind off the possibility of punishing Brendan for waking him. Rodney has already whipped Brendan twice tonight, for no reason other than to get himself hard for sex, and Brendan is keen to avoid collecting another dozen or so of the welts that keep him sleeping on his stomach most nights.

With a lurch of fear in his belly he thinks at once of Liam, hanging this very moment from chains in the dank dungeon beneath the great house, unable to sleep and in an agony of pain and anguish as he awaits punishment in the morning.

Liam's crime was that he had dropped a jug of beer in his nervousness this afternoon while serving the Captain and his two gentleman guests drinks on the veranda. Although the Captain had immediately made Liam bend over and grasp his ankles and had administered twenty sizzling strokes across his buttocks with a riding quirt for the amusement of his guests, he had decreed that Liam should spend the night in chains in the dungeon and that he was to be flogged with the bull whip and tortured by the blacksmith the next morning.

Brendan had been sent to help Rodney take Liam to the dungeon. Rodney was clothed for a change in deference to the Captain's guests and was only too pleased to get away and strip off his uncomfortable European clothing. The two naked boys, master and slave, shackled chains to Liam's wrists and then secured them to the rings on either end of a heavy steel bar suspended from a pulley hanging down from the arched stone ceiling overhead. They hauled Liam up onto his leathery toes with his arms spread-eagled above his head. Liam's muscular calves bulged as they took the strain of his weight but Brendan knew that they would give in long before the night was over and that Liam's strong wrists would have to bear the crushing agony of his whole body weight suspended from the steel shackles.

Not content with this, however, Rodney had hooked a two pound iron weight from the sugar cane scale onto the bottom of Liam's cock ring. Then he had stood with his face a few inches from Liam's, studying his agony with a dispassionate, almost scientific, interest. Observing how the increasingly intense pain registered in Liam's blood suffused face and how it manifested in his tear-rimmed blue eyes, his freely perspiring body, the involuntary quivering of his muscles and the soft pleading that murmured behind his clenched teeth.

Rodney had reached out a hand and ever so gently fondled Liam's long thick cock to erection. Then, with long slow lingering strokes he had teased Liam almost to the point of ejaculation before leaving him moaning in pain and frustration, his thick swollen cock quivering and dribbling precum.

Brendan knows that, excruciatingly painful though the night will be for Liam, it will be nothing compared with the back-bloodying lash of the bull whip and the horrible mutilating implements of the blacksmith. He quickly puts Liam out of his thoughts and reaches out a hand to brush the soles of Rodney's feet lightly with the tips of his fingers.

Rodney's feet have become hard and sun-browned and his soles quite tough and leathery since he and his brother Charles took to going about naked and barefoot in emulation of their Irish slave boys several weeks ago. Brendan likes the rough feel and the taut firmness of the thickened skin. Having grown up with his cousin Liam as a barefoot farm boy, it is what he is familiar with. Despite the crush he developed for the aristocratic young English boy, he had always thought the soft pink flabbiness of his young master's feet something of a turn-off.

Brendan likes the other improvements in his master's body also. Rodney is tanned all over almost as brown as his slave boy. And Rodney has had the blacksmith fit him and his brother Charles with cock rings too so that, except for the slave chain tattoo on the right upper arm and the Morton Hall motif tattooed around the belly button, the two young slave owners could easily be mistaken for the slave boys they own.

Rodney purrs appreciatively and his feet twitch with pleasure as Brendan twines his fingers in and out and around Rodney's long toes.

"Aaah" Rodney breathes "Now see how you're making me hard again and I didn't even have to beat you!"

Brendan glances up to see Rodney's fat cock hardening and lengthening as it swivels slowly from where it was lying between his thighs to stretch eagerly toward his navel. Brendan's own inordinately long thick cock starts hardening in anticipatory response and is soon bobbing against his own navel in time with his quickening heartbeat.

Brendan runs his fingers up his master's smooth brown legs, advancing and retreating in a protracted tease until Rodney eventually grabs his hand impatiently, pulls it higher and presses it down hard on his cock.

Brendan grins and closes his fingers around Rodney's by now quivering hard shaft and begins to stroke his fist up and down its length before bending over and sliding it deep into his warm moist mouth.

An hour later the two boys are happily curled up against each other, fast asleep again, their seeming inexhaustible sexual appetites sated for now.

Brendan is fetched early by Isaac, as usual, and he tiptoes from Rodney's room while the aristocratic young English boy is still fast asleep.

Isaac wrinkles his nose as he looks over the naked young slave boy padding ahead of him over the polished wooden floors of the great house. Brendan's muscular sun-browned body is sweat grimed and sticky with dried cum and exudes that strangely attractive animal musk that teenage boys always give off after engaging in strenuous physical activity, especially sex.

"Better get yourself cleaned up quickly!" says Isaac, "There are guests at breakfast and the Master wants you to help Callum at serving since Liam is 3;", he trails off.

Brendan suddenly remembers Liam chained up in the dungeon the whole night.

"How is he?" he asks anxiously

"He is in much pain but he is alright. Don't worry!"

"Where is he now?"

"He is still in the dungeon. He is being made ready for his punishment"

"It's so unfair!" Brendan fumes "To scar his back for life with the bullwhip and put him to torture just over a jug of beer! What if he is maimed or even killed?"

Isaac pulls Brendan short with a hand on his shoulder and clips him hard across the back of his head with his other hand.

"It is not for a slave to question his Master's decisions! Fairness has nothing to do with it. The Master has the right to do whatever he pleases with his slaves. Liam is a strong boy. He will not die. But if he does then that is his lot and you must accept that. Just be grateful that it is not you that will be suffering for the gratification of the Master's guests"

"I'm sorry, Isaac" says Brendan, a tear in his eye, "But sometimes it's just so hard to be a slave! And what will I do if Liam is not there anymore. He's not just my cousin, you know"

Isaac knows that, apart from the fact they have to share the same cot in the slave boys' cell, Brendan and Liam are more like stormy lovers than cousins. With their fiery Irish temperament they fight like cat and dog sometimes and often take pleasure in causing each other pain. But they are never at each other's throats for long and 'making up' is always as passionately physical as the fighting was.

Isaac pulls Brendan in to him and folds his arms around him.

"I know, I know" he says soothingly, pulling Brendan's head onto his chest, "Try not to worry about it so much. Now go get cleaned up before you also get into trouble with the Master."

Captain Morton's guests are his Bridgeport banker and the banker's chief clerk. These gentlemen always look forward to their annual visit to Morton Hall where they know that good food, good whisky and the best slave boys on the island are in generous supply.

Once again, they have not been disappointed. The banker had been slavering over the hugely muscled 18 year old, Donald, the whole day and could scarcely gulp down his after dinner port quickly enough before rushing off to bed with him. The chief clerk has a preference for Negro boys and he chose the exceptionally well-endowed 16 year old, Toby, whom he has enjoyed every year since Toby was 14.

Breakfast is a leisurely affair in the glass enclosed conservatoire overlooking the great sweeping lawns which drop away to reveal a vista of the sea some five miles distant.

The bacon, sausages, eggs and mushrooms that were prepared in the kitchen are being kept warm in silver dishes which stand in a row over oil burners on the great sideboard.

Brendan and Callum stand motionless side by side against the wall, their hands clasped behind them, awaiting the arrival of the diners they are to serve. In deference to the presence of guests, Isaac has issued each of them with a small white satin loincloth which they wear suspended from a length of satin cord around their waists. Far from hiding their maleness, however, the tiny pieces of cloth seem to accentuate it, since their cock-rings force their cocks and balls into an aggressive forward presentation, causing the loincloths to hang over them like sculptures waiting to be unveiled.

One by one the Captain and his guests arrive in their dressing gowns and slippers. Rodney and Charles arrive naked, forgetting about the guests. The Captain orders them to go get dressed, but the banker intervenes:

"No, no, Morton, don't make them dress on our account! I can see they are accustomed to going about undressed. Very sensible custom in this hot climate! When in Rome, hey, what?"

The Captain hesitates, but the banker has been baulking at granting the huge loan that the Captain needs to build his own sugar mill and the Captain is anxious to ingratiate the man. He sees the way the banker licks his lips as he eyes his sons' smooth and well-formed young bodies and he has no qualms about playing that card if it will get him what he wants.

"Very well", says the Captain, "You boys may stay as you are. Rodney, you sit on Mr Pugwell's right and Charles, you sit on Mr Pugwell's left."

The boys take their seats and the banker purrs as he reaches out on either side of him and slides his podgy hands up the inside of each boy's thighs, coming to rest, as if by accident, against their cock ring bunched genitalia.

"Yes indeed!" he coos, "I shall be the thorn between two roses"

"Perhaps they should beware of the thorn's prick!", laughs the Captain, winking at the banker.

"Aha, indeed, Captain!", the banker guffaws, winking in return.

"And now, breakfast!" the Captain claps his hands and the two Irish slave boys step forward.

The Captain eyes their tented loincloths.

"Get those absurd things off, for goodness sake!", he snaps irritatedly at Isaac who is hovering in the background, "I bought these boys precisely because they possess those exceptional attributes – they are there to be shown off, not covered!

Isaac steps forward hurriedly, loosens the bows holding the loincloths up and yanks them from sight.

Mr Pugwell finds it difficult to keep their eyes off Brendan's impressive equipage and Rodney, noticing this, feels oddly jealous. He makes a mental note to whip Brendan extra hard for this later.

Breakfast proceeds slowly with Mr Pugwell using all his ingenuity to create opportunities to grope and fondle both the slave boys and the Captain's sons, so that by the time it is finished and everyone troops down to the dungeon to witness Liam's punishment there is not a limp cock among them.

The dungeon is a long stone-walled room dug deep into the earth beneath the house. It is reached by a narrow stone staircase that is accessed from a hidden panel leading off the large entrance hall. Despite several small air vents cut into the vaulted ceiling the stone walls and floor are clammy with seeping damp and the air is dank and heavy.

Although Brendan and Rodney had left Liam in complete darkness last night, the dungeon is now dimly lit by several flickering oil lamps in sconces against the walls.

The blacksmith, who also does duty as the estate torturer, is waiting for their arrival at the far end of the dungeon. The blacksmith is a burly Londoner who left England one step ahead of the law several years ago and has been on the estate payroll ever since he jumped ship two years ago. Shirtless, he wears canvas trousers and hobnail boots underneath his long leather blacksmith's apron.

At his feet is Liam, on his knees leaning forward with his shoulders hunched and his head hanging down, his wrists fastened together behind his back with leather strapping.

Brendan sees that Liam's wrists are chafed raw where he had hung from them all night in iron shackles and that there are dried trickles of blood all the way from his wrists to his shoulders and down his sides. One of the choke chains used for the Master's hounds has been fastened around his thick neck and the blacksmith is pulling against the leash end to keep it tight.

As the Captain arrives the blacksmith yanks up on the leash and Liam struggles, choking and spluttering, to his feet. As the blacksmith drags Liam over to the heavy wooden torture table the sticky ooze dribbling down the inside of Liam's thighs shows that the blacksmith has already exacted his customary reward from the victim.

Liam's wrist straps are removed and he is made to climb up onto the torture table and lay face down, his arms and legs spread-eagled to the corners where they are quickly strapped. Liam lifts his head and strains to follow the blacksmith's movements and to see what he is doing.

The blacksmith fetches a thick yellow rattan can from a barrel in which about 20 different lengths and thicknesses of cane are standing in brine. The cane is over four feet [1.20 m] long and encrusted with the salt that has crystallized on it from any weeks of soaking in the brine. He moves to the torture table and takes position at Liam's left side. Liam watches him in wide-eyed terror, whimpering softly and straining against the straps that hold him, every muscle in his back, buttocks and thighs bunched tight and hard against the coming pain.

The blacksmith looks at the Captain for confirmation and the Captain nods.

The blacksmith swings the dripping wet cane high above his head and brings it whistling down to crack against the bunched muscles of Liam's shoulders. A welt as thick as a man's finger instantly mushrooms up in a fiery stripe across Liam's smooth brown skin. At first there is no pain. Then, seconds later, an unbearably excruciating pain lights every nerve in his body instantly and explodes unbidden from his lungs and throat in a long ululating scream that leaves him hoarse and breathless.

The blacksmith waits until Liam's screaming dies down to a continuous wail as the afterburn of the salt intensifies the burn.

The Captain's two town guests pale and take an involuntary step back, their hands to their mouths as if to stop themselves vomiting. Brendan and Rodney, the one hardened to receiving and the other hardened to inflicting pain, feel the first stirrings of arousal. They move closer to observe the sobbing and writhing Liam and to admire the blacksmith's expert work. The Captain watches them all with amused indifference.

Again and again the cane slices the thick air of the dungeon to leave its searing mark and extract the most piercing screams from Liam as the blacksmith slowly works his way down his back and onto his buttocks.

As the twentieth stroke whips into the quivering flesh of Liam's buttocks Liam's body billows on the table against his restraints and his piercing screams fill the damp void like an explosion. His screams seem to reach down the banker's throat and wring his breakfast out of him all over the floor. He staggers toward the doorway and scuttles up the stairs, his clerk heaving and retching close behind.

Damn his weak stomach! thinks the Captain, I thought from the way he enjoyed the thrashing I gave this boy's arse yesterday that he would have enjoyed this even more.

"It seems our guests are not impressed" he says to the blacksmith, "No point in going on if I'm not going to get anything out of it."

"As you wish, sir" says the blacksmith, with some disappointment, since he had been enjoying his work.

The Captain thinks for a moment.

"I think you had better give him the flogging with the bull-whip. Can't have everyone thinking I've gone soft. But just 10 lashes, mind! And leave his back scarred but not furrowed"

"Oh father, can we not still geld him also? You said that I can do it this time!" cries Rodney.

"What about your breeding plans?"

"I still have Brendan, father"

"'Brendan' is it now? You are getting far too fond of that boy. You forget that he is just a slave! I think perhaps I should send him away from you into the fields"

Rodney bites his lip and says nothing.

"And no," says his father, "it would be a waste to geld him just for your enjoyment."

Rodney looks crestfallen.

"I promise the next time we geld one of the field slaves I will let you do it" says the Captain, coaxingly.

Rodney still looks glum

The Captain notices that the blacksmith has dragged the still sobbing Liam off the torture table and shackled his wrists once more to the bar from which he had been suspended all night. The blacksmith hauls on the rope and Liam groans as he is lifted up onto his toes again, ready to receive his whipping with the bull whip.

"And you can whip him with the bull whip," the Captain adds.

Rodney cheers up at once.

"Thank you father!" he says and rushes to fetch the long tapering braided leather whip from where it hangs against the wall.

Liam's heartrending screams follow the Captain as he goes up the stone stairs to find his guests and try to retrieve his hopes for the loan, thinking that if all else fails he can always let the fat old codger have his way with Rodney tonight. It is never too early for his son to learn that no sacrifice is too great if it benefits the family.

Chapter 9

The Captain chuckled with pride as he remembered how coolly Rodney handled the situation when it was explained to him that he would have to submit to the podgy banker's every lust and whim for a whole night in order to advance the family's fortunes. He had thought it over a moment or two and then said:

"Well, Father, I will agree to do this since it will get you what you want. But I shall want something in return."

"With the Morton blood that flows in your veins, I would have expected nothing less," replied the Captain, "What is it that you want?"

Rodney had then listed his demands and the Captain had agreed to all of them but one. And so it was that when Rodney entered Mr Pugwell's bedchamber that night he had secured his father's agreement, in writing: that he would buy Rodney and Charles new ponies; that he would give his own 18 year old Irish slave boy, Donald, to Rodney to use as he wished; that he would buy Rodney two more 10 or 12 year old Irish slave boys to replace the 14 year olds, Brendan and Liam, if he got bored with them or when they became old enough to work the sugar cane as field slaves.

The one request the Captain turned down was the right to flog Isaac, the major domo.

"But Father, he must know that I am his Master too!" Rodney had argued.

"He knows it well," the Captain had laughed, "He obeys you and fears your displeasure even though you may not flog him because he knows that if he angers you, you will flog his sons in his stead."

"Then if you will not grant me that, I have one further request, and that is that you allow Charles and I to be tattooed on the belly and the arms like Brendan and Liam. I know you say the tattoos are meant to mark the slaves permanently as the property of Morton Hall, but I reckon that as Mortons we are just as permanently linked to the estate as the slaves are."

The Captain had rolled his eyes at this but had agreed, since Rodney and Charles had been pestering him about it for months, ever since they had taken to going about naked and wearing cock rings in emulation of the Irish slave boys.

Captain Morton felt a pleasant tingling in the tip of his cock as he thought now of his two blonde, blue-eyed sons running about naked on their hard bare feet, their smooth and hairless skin tanned golden brown all over and their silver cock-rings making their already ample cocks and balls stand proud in a permanently semi-erect state. He could understand why Mr Pugwell lusted after Rodney. 'Damn me! If he wasn't my own son I'd roger him silly myself!' he thought.

The Captain's carriage has no sooner moved off onto the driveway when Rodney starts exercising his authority as the Master of Morton Hall in his father's absence.

Rodney and Charles are at breakfast, being served by Brendan and Liam. Rodney sits in his father's chair at the head of the long table and Charles sits at the other end. Between courses the Irish slave boys stand silently waiting at their young masters' backs, ready to respond instantly to their bidding.

The young masters and their slave boys are almost indistinguishable in appearance at first glance. They are all naked and barefoot; they are all deeply tanned; they all have the Morton Hall monogram tattooed around their navels and the slave chain motif tattooed around their upper right arms; and they all wear cock rings (although the aristocratic English boys' rings are silver instead of the usual steel ones that the slave boys wear). On closer examination, of course, the differences are obvious: The Irish slave boys' hands are rough and work hardened and their bodies are rock hard, bulging and rippling with the muscularity acquired in long hours of hard physical labour. The most noticeable difference, of course, is the fact that their backs and buttocks are latticed with the marks of the whip and the cane. Liam, in particular, still bears the scars of the terrible flogging he received a month before from Rodney.

The ten raw cuts that Rodney's bull whip laid across Liam's muscular back are healing well under the ministration of Isaac's potions. Isaac has assured Liam that although the scars are permanent, the livid pink stripes that now criss-cross his teak-brown back will darken with time until they are almost unnoticeable at a distance. Perversely, Liam is proud of his whip scars, as if they are war wounds, and he hopes they will not disappear entirely. And although Brendan would not willingly undergo such a flogging himself, he is grudgingly jealous of the enhanced status that his cousin's whip scars have gained for him in the eyes of the other slave boys.

"Charles," announces Rodney, "I have noticed that you have become altogether too lax with that Irish slave boy of yours, Callum, and I have decided that it is high time that you teach him that you are his master and not his playmate!"

"What do you mean, Rodney?" squeaks Charles, alarmed at his older brother's tone.

"I mean that he hardly does any work at all, you never beat him and you are always playing and romping about with him as if he were your friend."

"But Father said 3;"

"Never mind what Father said!" Rodney retorts angrily, "I am the Master of Morton Hall while Father is away and you will do as I say!"

"Yes, Rodney," Charles mutters, hoping that if he is submissive Rodney will let it go.

But it is not to be. Rodney sends Brendan to fetch Callum to the dining room. Callum is relaxed and stands confidently before Rodney.

"You wanted me, Master?" he says to Rodney with a smile.

"You see what I mean?" says Rodney to Charles, "See the familiarity. He has no appreciation of his place at all."

"But he always does what I tell him!" protests Charles.

"Which is what?" Rodney snarls sarcastically, and he mimics Charles giving Callum orders, "«Oh Callum, would you mind very much picking up this or fetching that?» You have absolutely spoiled him, Charles!"

Charles looks miserable.

"I just don't think you always have to be horrid to a person to get him to do what you want," says Charles

"For goodness sake, Charles, just listen to yourself! He is not a 'person' to you! He is a slave, part of the livestock, and he must fear you or you will never be truly his master!"

Charles looks down at his plate, crestfallen.

"I'm sorry, Rodney, I just thought 3;"

"The problem is that you didn't think Charles! Now it is up to me, as always, to help you right."

"Thank you, Rodney," mumbles Charles, "What do you want me to do?"

Rodney stands up and reaches for the rattan cane lying, as always, on the table in front of him.

"For starters you will get up and bend over the table while I give you a sound thrashing for your laxity"

"Right now?" squeaks Charles.

"Yes, right now!"

Charles reluctantly stands up as Liam pulls his chair back. He pads slowly on his bare feet to a spot halfway down the long mahogany dining table that Rodney points to with his cane. He stands up against the edge of the table and lies his upper body over it so that his belly is resting on the cool polished wood and his arms spread out in front of him. His sturdy legs hang down and his brown toes just reach the carpeted floor. The twin globes of his firm tanned rump clench as he pushes up on his toes and Rodney's cock tingles and stiffens at the inviting sight.

This is not the first time that Rodney has beaten his brother. As the eldest son his father has given him the right to administer discipline to his younger brother and he has never been slow to assert that right, although he has never given Charles more than two or three strokes of the cane or the strap before now and always under the supervision of his father.

But Rodney has believed for some time that Charles needs his backbone stiffened and now with his father away Rodney intends to give Charles a thrashing that he will never forget. He orders Liam under the table to take a firm hold of Charles' ankles and Brendan to the opposite side of the table to grip his wrists.

Without wasting any time Rodney raises the cane high behind him and throws his whole body into bringing it whistling down and across his brother's taut buttocks, instantly raising a bright red blood-flecked weal across those smooth brown orbs.

Charles gasps with the shock and gurgles as a scream rises unbidden from his throat. He tries to push himself up but Brendan holds his wrists firmly stretched across the table.

Before Charles has had any time to recover the next stroke scythes across his buttocks. Again and again Rodney lashes his younger brother's arse, heedless of his screaming and wailing. Finally, after twenty strokes have been delivered, he tosses the blood spattered cane onto the table and calmly walks back to his seat to resume his breakfast. Charles lies there sobbing with the two slave boys still gripping his wrists and ankles.

Rodney looks up from his breakfast and says to the slave boys, "Oh, you can let him go now," and to Charles, "Get up Charles and stop that snivelling!"

Charles drags himself painfully off the table.

"Now take that cane and give your slave boy thirty lashes like the one I gave you. And mind that you lay them on hard or I will give you another thrashing!"

Still sniffing and moving stiffly from pain, Charles orders Callum to assume the same position over the table and Brendan and Liam to hold him down. He then delivers a half hearted stroke across Callum's hard brown buttocks. Callum merely grunts, his tough body used to much worse.

"That's not hard enough, Charles! Give it to him again! Make him scream! And that's one more stroke for you tonight!"

With a look of desperation Rodney delivers the next stroke with all his might.

Callum yelps as the cane bites into him.

"Still not good enough, Charles, you're just tickling him! Take a run up if you have to and don't just smack the cane onto his arse, slice it across from side to side like you are trying to cut his skin open with a knife. Now take it again and that's another stroke you'll get tonight."

Charles takes a few steps back and then jumps forward as he swings the cane from right to left across Callum's buttocks with all his strength.

Callum screams as the rattan slices across his arse, raising a thick welt which instantly oozes blood.

"Much better, Charles, that's number one! Now give him twenty-nine more."

Rodney calmly continues eating his breakfast, pleasantly aware of the delicious tension in his rock hard cock as Charles, now thoroughly angry, mercilessly flogs Callum's arse just a few feet from him. Callum bucks and writhes in agony on the table and his screams bounce off the walls.

When Charles, red-faced and breathless, finally delivers the last sizzling stroke, Callum no sooner struggles to his feet when Rodney orders him to kneel between his knees under the table and suck his now quivering cock to climax.

As Callum's head bounces up and down and slurps enthusiastically on his fat shaft, Rodney instructs his brother:

"From now you will give your little slave thirty lashes like that with the cane every single time he is slack or makes the smallest mistake 3;"

Rodney pauses to shut his eyes as a long orgasm shudders through his body. When Callum has swallowed every spurt of his cum and licked his cock clean, he continues:

"You will give him a thrashing at least once every single week, even if you find no fault, just to remind him that he is your slave and not your playmate!"

"Yes Rodney."

"And if I ever find you being soft on him I will give you another thrashing like the one I gave you now, understood?"

"Yes Rodney."

Rodney notices that Brendan's and Liam's exceptionally long thick cocks are standing up rock hard and ramrod straight, their purple heads swollen and bobbing against their navels.

"I see you enjoyed the floggings too," he says

They blanche instantly with fear.

"No Master!" they chorus desperately, despite the evidence to the contrary.

Rodney laughs.

"Do not fear, I will not beat you for your lack of control 3; at least not now 3; I want the two of you to roger my brother and his slave as further punishment for the both of them."

Brendan and Liam look at Rodney in dumb surprise.

"Does the Master mean right now?" ventures Brendan.

"Yes. The Master does mean right now!" Rodney replies, "Charles, bend over the table this instant and offer your arse to Brendan. Callum, you do likewise for Liam."

Charles reluctantly assumes the position ordered by Rodney. He has only once before had a cock in his arse and that was just Callum's 12 year old cocklet. He did not enjoy the experiment and has never repeated it. He eyes Brendan's long thick weapon with trepidation.

Brendan enters Charles' tight hole roughly and hard. The pain is excruciating. Charles screams and tries to pull away but Brendan pushes him down onto the table firmly with one strong hand gripping his neck and the other hand pushing down on the small of Charles' back. Brendan pulls out and thrusts in again, eliciting fresh screams from Charles which only serve to excite Brendan's lust even more. Soon Brendan is ramming his cock in and out of Charles with the force and rapidity of a hammer mill.

For Callum it is no real punishment and he assumes the position with an eagerness which is fortunately lost on Rodney, spreading his legs and reaching at once behind him to pull his butt cheeks open, heedless of the pain from his lacerated buttocks, his cock stiffening beneath him in anticipation of the hard ride that he knows Liam will give him.

After what seems an eternity, Charles' torture and Callum's pleasure come to an end and Rodney sends Callum to join the wall-building gang for another day's muscle-wrenching labour in the heat and humidity of the Barbados summer. He instructs the overseer not to spare the whip on account of Callum's youth or the fact that he is a house boy.

"A few scars across his back will help him to remember his place," he tells the overseer.

"Aye, Sir," agrees the overseer who, perhaps because he is but one step up from the plantation slaves in the social order of the island, needs very little encouragement when it comes to whipping the backs of slaves raw and bloody.

"An unmarked back is the sign of the free man or boy. The slave's back must show the marks of his servitude," pontificates the overseer.

"Yes," Rodney says curtly and waves the man away impatiently, "Make sure you return him well striped with the marks of his servitude this afternoon!"

Brendan and Liam are sent with Isaac to the stable yard to be harnessed to Rodney's and Charles' dog carts.

They wait patiently in the traces, standing in the middle of the gravelled stable yard under the burning morning sun, as their youthful owners finish their breakfast. The big blonde 18 year old Donald stands by. He has been detailed to accompany his new owner, Rodney.

After about half an hour their masters appear and with a sharp flick of the driving whip against their muscled brown backs and touches on their shoulders right and left the carts are wheeled about and the slave boys move off the stable yard at a brisk walk toward the estate road that leads to one of the slave compounds on the plantation.

As soon as they are on the road their masters signal the slave boys to break into a trot by giving them another sharp flick of the whip against their backs. As usual, Rodney is more enthusiastic than is necessary and his whip flicks raise yelps from Brendan and angry welts on his back.

The Irish boys settle into a steady rhythm as they pound the miles away, their broad chests heaving, their hard bare feet thudding against the compacted earth of the road and every muscle bunching and rippling mesmerically under the smooth sweat glistening brown skin of their magnificent bodies.

Also as usual, Rodney is so mesmerised that he has to stop at one point to roger Brendan's irresistible arse while Brendan stands bent over in the traces. Charles and Liam wait for 15 minutes while Rodney finishes. Then, having sated his lust for the moment, Rodney is in such a hurry to get where he is going that he lashes Brendan into a trot while Rodney's cum is still dribbling down the inside of Brendan's muscled thighs.

Soon they arrive at the slave compound. The slave boys are pleased to be able to stop and they stand unsteadily in the traces, bent over from exhaustion, drenched with perspiration, their lungs heaving as they gasp for air.

As Brendan recovers he sees a Negro slave hanging against one of the whipping posts set into the bare earth in the middle of the compound yard. As his head clears, he realises it is the hugely muscular Negro slave, Jabu, who works on the wall-building gang together with the Irish boys.

Standing nearby with his arms folded is an overseer. A long braided leather bullwhip hangs in his hand. Nearby some other slaves wait dumbly.

At a signal from Rodney the overseer gives an order and the slaves unharness Brendan from the dog cart and pull him roughly toward another whipping post.

Brendan's heart starts hammering in his head and his belly lurches unpleasantly with fear as the slaves bolt a shackle to each wrist and stretch Brendan's muscled arms up the whipping post so that he can just about stand on his toes.

Rodney fetches the bullwhip from the overseer and moves around the whipping posts so that both Jabu and Brendan can see him.

"I have been informed that the two of you have been taking liberties with each other during your rest breaks."

Brendan hangs his head guiltily. He and Jabu have been having sex during breaks in the work almost every day since Brendan first joined the work gang. They both know that it is forbidden for slaves to have sex with each other (or indeed, with themselves) without their master's permission but, since they work far from the main house, they have always believed that the master would never find out.

Brendan wonders briefly who ratted them out. It was unlikely to be the overseer, since he particularly enjoyed the spectacle of the huge negro dwarfing the 14 year old Irish boy as they rutted like wild animals in the dirt. In any event, Brendan occasionally offers his arse to the overseer as the price of his silence.

Rodney's hard voice cuts across Brendan's thoughts.

"Yes. I know, you thought I would never find out. Better you realize that there is nothing that happens on this estate that I do not get to hear about at some time or other."

Brendan and Jabu are silent. There is really nothing to say and begging for mercy will not help.

"For stealing what is mine I intend to flog you both with the bull whip. Jabu, being a man, will receive twenty lashes and Brendan, being a boy, will receive ten."

Brendan remembers the talks he and Jabu have had about manhood, honour and courage, and about Jabu's tribal belief that eating a man's semen is necessary if a boy is to grow into a strong and healthy man.

Before he can stop himself, he calls out to Rodney

"Master, I too am a man. Please give me a man's beating!"

Rodney grins at Brendan.

"You shall have your wish, Irish boy, but I believe you will regret it!"

Rodney takes station behind Brendan and uncoils the whip with a snap that jerks at Brendan's bowels. At least I get mine over with first, Brendan thinks.

Brendan is as taut as a drum as he awaits the first stroke. The muscles of his broad brown back knot up in anticipation. His thick thighs and calves bulge as his strong leathery toes push his body up against the post . Rodney waits until Brendan stops thrashing about and has regained his toehold. The blood that welled up in the whip cut is beginning to trickle down his back. The pain is unbearable and Brendan whimpers unashamedly, his barrel chest heaving and gasping for air.

Brendan tries through the pain and tears to ready himself for the next stroke, every muscle in his back and buttocks bunched and quivering in anticipation of the next stroke.

It takes an age to get through all twenty strokes. By the tenth sizzling stroke Brendan wishes that he could pass out but his constitution is much too strong to afford him that mercy. By the fifteenth stroke, however, the pain is so intense and continuous that the remaining five strokes seem to make no difference.

Brendan is left hanging in the ropes while Rodney whips Jabu.

Finally the punishment is over and the two slaves are released from their bonds and allowed to drop to the ground and lie there on their bellies. Jabu is silent but Brendan sobs quietly. Two of the overseer's helpers bring buckets of salt water and wash the blood from their backs. Another rinses their blood from the long lash of the bull whip.

The application of salt water renews the agony for Brendan and escalates his sobbing to a long drawn out howl.

These rough ministrations have barely been completed when Rodney orders the slaves to their feet. They get up hastily and stand unsteadily. Rodney looks them over and then orders Jabu back to work on the wall-building gang. Turning to Brendan, he says:

"Donald will take your place in the harness for now, but you will run alongside until we get to the practice field. We are having my friends over for dog cart races when my father returns from Bridgeport and I want to get in some practice. Don't think your striped back will excuse you from delivering your best performance! There is plenty of skin on the rest of your body that I will be happy to flog!"

Brendan and Liam spend the rest of the day in the traces, straining every fibre of muscle in their bodies to breaking point as they struggle to shave seconds off their lap times. Rodney and Charles drive them relentlessly. Brendan's whip wounds are opened repeatedly as Rodney mercilessly flogs his back with the driving whip in an effort to spur just that tiny bit of extra speed out of his exhausted slave boy. The mere thought of being humiliated by losing on his own track when Morton Hall hosts the dog cart races in about a week's time is more than Rodney can bear.

Finally even Rodney can see that the Irish boys are too exhausted to do any more and he calls a halt.

"Get some rest tonight," he tells them. "Tomorrow we will return and I had better see some improvement or both of you will spend the next two days in the dungeon with the blacksmith."

Both Brendan and Liam feel a cold clutch at their hearts at this threat. Liam spent just over twelve hours in the dungeon when he was tortured by the blacksmith and bullwhipped by Rodney and the memory still has him waking occasionally at night in a sweat of terror. He is convinced that he could never survive forty-eight hours of it.

That night in their basement dormitory the Irish boys compare their stripes.

"You only got ten!" Brendan says to Liam, turning to show his freshly scarred back to the other two, "I got twenty that's gonna mark my back for ever!"

Young Callum is equally proud of the six raw cuts across his own well muscled young back. The overseer had followed Rodney's orders with enthusiasm and had applied his bull whip with full force whenever it had been necessary to spur Callum to greater effort.

"Look at these beauties, boys! The way the overseer is after me I'll have more than both of yez by the end of the week!"

"But see how deep my cuts are! Master Rodney really laid the lash hard on me!" says Brendan admiringly, "I bet I'm gonna have ridges on my back like the field slaves! Maybe Master will send me to do real man's work in the sugar cane soon and I can get huge big muscles like Jabu!"

Just then Isaac arrives to dress Brendan's and Callum's wounds and the Irish boys stop their chatter. As he walks in he looks at Donald and Liam and jerks his thumb at the doorway.

"Donald, you go with Master Rodney tonight and Liam, you go with Master Charles"

Donald's belly lurches and he grimaces as he swings himself off his cot and pads reluctantly to the door on his broad bare feet. The big muscular 18 year old is terrified of his young owner. Rodney especially likes to demonstrate his power over slaves much bigger and stronger than himself and Donald knows he is in for a long and painful night.

Liam, on the other hand, trips off with delight. Charles is much gentler and more fun-loving than his older brother and except for Brendan, who is perversely in love with the tyrannical Rodney, the slave boys would much rather spend a whole night servicing Charles' uncomplicated sexual needs than spend a half hour in Rodney's company.

Brendan and Callum are too sore to play with each other or with any of the Negro boys, so they lie on their bellies on the cot they share and drift off into a deep and well-earned sleep.

Past midnight Brendan groggily surfaces from his dreams with Callum tugging hard at his arm.

"Brendan! Brendan! Wake up now! There's something afoot!"

Brendan peers sleepily into the darkness, rubbing his eyes as consciousness slowly returns. Suddenly he becomes aware of a commotion going on in the house above them. There are shouts of command and screams of terror punctuated occasionally by muffled shots. The slave boys jump quickly out of their cots and huddle close to each other at the end of the room furthest from the iron gate at the bottom of the stairs. Only Brendan stands at the gate and strains his ears at the muffled sounds coming down the spiral stone stair well.

Suddenly the noise becomes louder and closer and they hear the thudding of boots and bare feet on the wooden kitchen floor overhead. The shouting is close and loud and they can hear furniture being thrown about, the crash of crockery and the clattering of pots and pans falling on the floor. They hear Isaac's voice screaming and babbling something incoherent. There is a loud bang and Isaac's voice is cut short.

After what seems like an age there is a shout of discovery and Brendan jumps back from the gate as booted feet come pounding down the stairs preceded by crazily dancing shafts of light.

Brendan's heart pounds in his throat as he stares at the huge and terrifying bearded apparition that looms up against the iron gate, a blazing torch brand in one giant fist and a great pistol in the other.

The giant stares into the dormitory a moment and then turns on his heel and pushes past the other men who followed him down.

"Break down the gate and bring 'em up," he orders, "Put 'em in chains with the other boys. And keep looking for the landowner's sons. They can't have gotten far."

The iron gate is soon broken off its hinges and Brendan, Liam and the Negro boys are led up the stairs by two rough and evil looking men who are armed to the teeth, carrying one pistol in hand and several others thrust into the sashes around their waists, along with cutlasses and daggers.

In the kitchen the boys have to step over the lifeless body of Isaac, the major domo, a large bullet hole in his chest and a dark pool of blood spreading over the floorboards beneath his back.

Ephraim and Jeremiah cry out in anguish at the sight of their father and try to break away to throw themselves on Isaac's body, but their captors grab them and drag them roughly back in line, punching and kicking them as they do.

With Ephraim and Jeremiah howling their hearts out, the boys are led outside into the yard where they are chained in a line together with Donald, Liam, Rodney and Charles. Even before they get outside they can hear Rodney loudly protesting that if their captors know what is good for them they will let him and Charles go, that when his father gets home they will be in a lot of trouble and more of the same. The motley crew of rough men guarding them simply ignore him, except for one who steps up and cracks him against the side of the head with his pistol.

"Be quiet, you whelp! If you give me any more trouble I'll put a bullet through your worthless body too!"

Bleeding from a cut on his temple Rodney decides it prudent to say no more and he falls into a seething silence as he watches a long line of other men carrying everything of value that they can lay their hands on in the great house. Eventually the slave boys too are laden with booty as they stand in the kitchen yard, awaiting orders from their captors.

Finally, the bearded giant who seems to be in charge appears, swigging whiskey from on of Captain Morton's crystal decanters.

"To the ship!" he orders and his men start chivvying the line of house slaves in order before setting off down the road that leads to the nearest beach a few miles away.

As the slave boys stagger off into the night under their heavy loads they become aware that the great manor house has been set alight. Soon the flames are seen for miles around, attracting the neighbours like moths to a candle and providing a distraction under cover of which the sea raiders reach their ship lying at anchor in the cove and set out to sea with their plunder unmolested.

Chapter 10

The boys are all quiet, numbed by the speed with which their world has been turned on its head and hardly daring to think further ahead than the present. Brendan is also a little pre-occupied with his own discomfort. The twenty lashes that his young Master, Rodney, gave him with the bullwhip three days ago now have left his back criss-crossed with a latticework of scabbed cuts and Isaac's soothing potions have long since worn off.

The pirates mistook their owner's sons, fourteen year old Rodney and twelve year old Charles, for slaves and the pair of them are now shackled together with the Irish and Negro slave boys that the pirates took in their raid on Morton Hall.

Rodney's earlier anger at his fate has given way to bewilderment and fear. Rodney is pressed up against Brendan, who senses his anguish and reaches out to comfort the boy whom he has come to have feelings of love for, despite the cruelty that Rodney has always shown him.

Rodney lashes out at Brendan's touch, his elbow catching Brendan a glancing blow against the side of his head.

"Don't touch me, you filthy Irish brute!" he hisses at Brendan.

"Sorry Master!" Brendan says.

As he says it Brendan realizes that Rodney is his Master no more. Rodney and his brother Charles have been reduced to the same level as the boy slaves by the chains that they now share. It dawns on Brendan that Rodney is just as much a slave as he is. But the servility induced by months of servitude and the fear of the lash is not thrown off in an instant, and Brendan is more rattled than elated by the revelation.

Brendan hugs his knees and rests his forehead against his forearms as he tries to get some sleep. Soon Callum, who is hunched over in front of Brendan, drops into sleep and sags back against Brendan's legs. Brendan welcomes the warmth of the younger boy's beefy back against his shins and soon drifts off himself into a troubled and exhausted sleep.

Some hours later the changed motion of the ship starts Brendan into wakefulness. He finds himself lying curled up on the deck with his head pillowed in the small of Liam's back. Rodney is curled up against Brendan, fast asleep, his face nuzzling into the back of Brendan's neck and his arm draped over Brendan's torso. Brendan lifts his head and sees Callum and Charles cuddled together. All the other boys are asleep in a tangle of naked arms and legs.

Rodney stirs at Brendan's movement. Brendan freezes, afraid of waking Rodney. He knows from bitter experience that when Rodney is woken unexpectedly he is invariably in a bad mood. Just as invariably it results in Brendan bent over the whipping pony in Rodney's bedroom and having his firm round buttocks soundly caned.

Once again it dawns on Brendan that Rodney no longer has any power over him but the habit of slavery is hard to break and, though he yearns to stretch his limbs as far as he can in that cramped space, he continues to lie still.

After a while Brendan becomes aware from Rodney's small movements that he has woken.

Rodney is indeed awake, but he keeps his eyes closed and nestles closer against Brendan's back and buttocks as if the warm familiarity of Brendan's hard muscled body can somehow put off having to face the awful reality of his new circumstances.

Brendan feels Rodney's hand make slow circles against his chest for a while before gliding slowly down his belly, slipping under his morning boner until it comes up against the steel cock ring that holds Brendan's big cock and swollen balls proud of his groin. Rodney's fingers trace the outline of his cock ring around to where Brendan's brawny thighs meet beneath his balls. Then Rodney draws his hand up over Brendan's pendulous scrotum, now drawn up tight against his cock ring and the base of his shaft. Rodney plays the tips of his fingers over Brendan's big balls, sending tingles of delight up the slave boy's long thick shaft and making the quivering tip of his straining cock bounce against the hard ridges of his flat belly.

Brendan feels the familiar pressure of Rodney's own hard cock against his butt cheeks as Rodney's fingers move up to play his shaft like a flute. Brendan reaches round behind him to knead the swollen tip of Rodney's fat cock in his fingers.

Just then they are startled by the thudding of bare feet on the deck planking directly overhead and the banging of the hatch cover bolts. All around them the slave boys are waking and disentangling themselves from each other. Brendan and Rodney sit up quickly, their swollen cocks subsiding almost as quickly as renewed fear takes a grip of their hearts.

Suddenly the hatch cover is lifted off and sunlight shafts into the dark space from the small square hole at the top of the ladder. A shaggy head momentarily darkens the space and yells at them to get on their feet and get up on deck.

The boys struggle to their feet and the big 18 year-old Donald, who is at the beginning of the chain that shackles them all together and closest to the ladder, begins to shamble up the ladder onto the sun-washed deck of the pirate ship.

They mill around for a while on deck as they wait to be told what to do. They see that the ship is at anchor in a small sheltered natural harbour. They cannot tell if it is an island or the mainland. There is a cluster of single and double storey buildings by the shore alongside a small wharf. Wisps of smoke curl up into the still air and they can see a few people moving about their business. One other ship rides at anchor. She is a merchantman and flies the flag of Spain.

As they watch, a longboat detaches itself from the Spanish vessel and starts scratching its way slowly out to the pirate ship.

Brendan puts an arm around the shoulder of his cousin, Liam.

"Where to now, Brendan, I wonder?" Liam asks worriedly.

"Och don't fret yourself, Liam, it will be alright' Brendan replies and, trying to cheer him up, "Maybe the captain will take us for apprentices!"

Tears spring to Liam's eyes and he looks away quickly. Brendan instantly regrets his words. He had forgotten that, were it not for their being taken into slavery by the English, Liam would by now have joined his sea captain father as an apprentice. Liam has long before now given up all hope of ever seeing his father again and has in fact shut the door on that part of his life. But Brendan's jesting remark has set the door ajar and the pain is like a sword thrust to his chest.

Brendan pulls Liam to himself and enfolds him tightly in his muscular arms. Their heads nestle cheek to cheek.

"I'm sorry, Liam, truly, I forgot," he murmurs into Liam's ear, running a work-roughened hand up the back of Liam's thick neck and fluffing the close-cropped bristles of his fiery red hair.

Liam says nothing but Brendan feels the wetness of his tears as Liam puts his arms around Brendan and digs his chin into Brendan's brawny shoulder.

They stand holding each other for long moments until a young ship's boy arrives, carrying a bucket in each hand. Brendan and Liam let go of each other and look curiously at the new arrival.

The boy, a cocky 14 year-old, is barefoot and shirtless. He has a lithe and wiry build and his skin is burned a deep mahogany brown by constant exposure to the sun at sea. His eyes are dark brown and he has long black hair plaited into a pigtail that hangs down the middle of his back almost to his waist. Around his neck is a leather thong hung with shark's teeth and on each wrist he wears several copper, brass, bead and leather thong bracelets. He wears a new pair of bright red trousers that go down to just below his knees. A broad leather belt with a big brass buckle holds his trousers up. On one hip he wears a wicked looking dagger in a leather sheath that immediately attracts the envy of all the slave boys. Looped through the belt on his other hip is a length of rope, back-spliced and tarred at each end, that the Irish boys recognize at once as a 'rope's end," a rope whip used to spur sailors to greater effort and to punish minor infractions at sea.

The ship's boy sets the buckets down on the deck and, yanking out his rope's end, yells at the captive boys to form up in a line down the middle of the deck.

Hampered by the heavy chain the boys are slow to form a line and the ship's boy lays into them with the rope's end. Brendan yelps and jumps to get out of reach as the rough hemp rope scores a fiery line across the whip cuts etched into his back.

The rope's end rapidly works its magic, getting the slave boys sorted into line with alacrity.

Their tormentor explains that they are to use the buckets to empty their bladders and vacate their bowels. They stare at him in puzzlement.

"Doncha understand English, then?" he pipes.

To demonstrate what is required he yanks off his trousers and, to the merriment of the watching pirate crew, demonstrates with exaggerated miming and noisy sound effects what they are required to do.

Then, still naked, he goes up to Donald, grabs him by the penis and leads him to a bucket.

"Come on, ye stupid great git! Get on with it now!"

Still shackled to each other, the boys line up to use the buckets two by two. The slave boys, of course, feel no shame in this public exercise of the meanest of their bodily functions, since slaves have no right to privacy or consideration of any kind. For Rodney, however, the mortification is intense. Rodney at first refuses to squat over the bucket in front of everyone but his protesting bowels and burning bladder confront him with the reality that if he does not use the bucket he will shortly have the even greater humiliation of an involuntary abortion on the deck. His face red with anger and shame, he does what he has to do. His irrepressible younger brother Charles has no qualms about crapping and peeing in public and he does not feel humiliated at all.

Their morning toilet over, a large metal tureen of cold oatmeal porridge is set down in their midst. All the boys except Rodney set upon the tureen and wolf down the porridge. Rodney, forced by his shackles to kneel down between Brendan and Liam as they shovel porridge into their mouths with both hands, looks on in disgust, his arms folded against his chest.

But Rodney's rumbling belly eventually overcomes his pride. He shuffles forward on his knees and grabs the edge of the bucket to find it empty. As Brendan lifts a hand to his mouth to lick it clean, Rodney reaches out and grabs his wrist. Brendan pulls back against his grip and looks at Rodney in surprise. He sees that Rodney is eyeing Brendan's porridge covered hand. Brendan understands at once and relaxes his arm. Rodney takes Brendan's fingers into his mouth one by one and sucks the porridge off them. Then he licks the porridge off Brendan's calloused palm.

Rodney goes on sucking and licking Brendan's fingers and hand even after every trace of porridge has been removed. Brendan finds it strangely erotic and feels his cock stirring between his legs. He offers Rodney his other porridge sticky hand and Rodney sucks that clean too.

By now Brendan's long thick cock is fully erect and leaking dribbles of precum. His balls are bung full of juice from Rodney's earlier unrequited ministrations and he knows it will not be long before he explodes.

Rodney's eyes drop to Brendan's swollen cock and the dribble of precum makes him lick his lips involuntarily. He looks up and catches Brendan's eye. Brendan smiles and nods.

"Jabu taught me that it is good to eat the seed from our man parts. It will make you strong." It takes a conscious effort not to add 'Master' and Brendan feels a little sense of liberation from that.

Rodney notices the omission and it seems to finally drive home to him the position that he is now in. But, driven by his hunger, he throws off the last shred of his inhibition and drops down to take Brendan's rock hard cock in his mouth. Brendan gasps with pleasure as Rodney sucks greedily at his quivering shaft, his lips and tongue frenetically urging Brendan's cock to squirt its life-giving juices into Rodney's yearning throat.

The surrender is not long in coming. As Brendan feels the eruption welling up the flue he puts both hands against the back of Rodney's head and pushes down hard. He feels his swollen cockhead ram into the back of Rodney's mouth and he holds Rodney there with his powerful hands as his cock squirts great jets of hot cum again and again into Rodney's mouth and throat. Rodney gurgles and struggles frantically. It feels like he is drowning in Brendan's cum. But Brendan holds him impaled on his thick shaft for as long as the billowing rushes of pleasure shudder through his body.

"Swallow it! Swallow it all!" he orders Rodney.

Rodney hungrily gulps down as much of Brendan's juice as he can, but gushes of it escape through the sides of his mouth and run down Brendan's thrusting shaft onto his shaved pubic area.

Eventually Brendan lets go and Rodney's head bobs off his cock. Brendan closes a big strong hand around his still erect cock and squeezes the last few dribbles of cum out of the swollen tip. Rodney drops down and licks them up. Then he licks the cum off Brendan's shaft and pubic area. When he has licked Brendan clean, Rodney wipes the cum off his own mouth and chin and sucks it off his hand and fingers.

By now all the slave boys who have been watching are fingering stiff cocks and dribbling precum. Liam rises up onto his knees in front of Rodney and thrusts out his prodigious erected penis.

"If the Lord is still hungry 3;?" he offers.

Rodney looks with interest at Liam's cock but just then there is a stirring somewhere in the after part of the ship and they become aware of a knot of men approaching them. The ship's boy scampers ahead of the men, swinging his rope's end.

"Look lively now, the Captain is coming to look at yez!"

The boys jump up and, to the smack of tarred rope on bare skin and the yelps of its victims, they spread out in a line for the pirate captain's inspection. They stand in the manner expected of slaves being inspected, with their feet apart, arms by their sides, heads bowed and their eyes fixed on a spot on the deck a few inches in front of their feet.

The captain is a tall well-built man with flaming red hair and beard. He is accompanied by the bearded giant who captured them and two other men who have arrived in the longboat. These two, who are evidently Spanish, are speaking to the captain in heavily accented English.

"The boys look healthy at least, Captain! The benefit of a short voyage!" says the one.

The captain, evidently a man of few words, answers with just a smile and a wink.

The Spaniards start with Donald at the end of the chain and then move down the line. Each boy is unshackled from the chain and inspected thoroughly. They feel and prod him, look at his teeth, handle his cock and testicles, probe his anus and check his hands, fingers, feet and toes for any sign of infirmity.

After this they mark the boys they choose with a daub of whitewash on the chest.

Donald, Toby and Jeremiah each pass muster and are sent aft to where other men clamp an iron ring around their necks and fix new shackles to their wrists and ankles.

The Spaniards turn down Ephraim and Callum.

"It is a long way to San Cristobal, " says the Spaniard who appears to be in charge, "And I do not have the patience to nursemaid such young niños over such a long journey."

The pirate captain nods and speaks for the first time:

"No matter. There is a boy brothel ashore that will welcome them."

The effect of his words on both Brendan and Liam is electric.

"Oh!" they gasp and start forward as if they have just been whipped, their heads jerking up as they half turn in the direction of the voice.

The pirate captain darts an annoyed glance at them and is about to motion for someone to discipline them when Liam croaks out: "Father! It's me, Liam!"

The captain rounds on Liam with a fist balled to strike, dumbfounded and furious in the same instant. Then he pulls short and looks at Liam properly for the first time. Recognition hits him like a hammer between the eyes.

"Liam! Liam!" is all that he manages to splutter before he chokes up as he sees before him the son he thought never to see again. He reaches out and enfolds Liam in his arms, hugging him tightly and kissing him all over his forehead and the top of his head. The tears flow freely down their cheeks

The captain recovers enough to roar: "Unshackle him at once!"

Liam is unshackled from the chain and the captain holds his son at arms length as he looks him over.

"What a fine strong boy you have become!" he says proudly and then, as he turns Liam around and sees the whip scars on his back, "My poor boy! What have the Sassenach done to my poor boy?".

"Tis nothing, Father, an Irish back cannot be broken by English whips!"

The captain laughs and ruffles Liam's red bristles.

"Well said, my son, well said!"

"And look who is with me, Father, it is Brendan."

"My oath, is it you, Brendan?"

"It is indeed I, Uncle Patrick!"

"You both have grown into marvelous fine boys in the two years since I last saw you."

A cloud passes over the captain's face. He puts a big hand against the back of Brendan's head and draws Brendan's face against his chest.

"Ah Brendan, I was bitter sorry to hear of your ma and your pa. Terrible times our country is having! So sorry for your loss!"

Brendan is also unshackled.

The captain turns to the Spaniards, who are looking on in confusion, and says to them:

"Gentlemen. These two boys are my own son and the son of my brother, who were taken into slavery by our common enemy, the English, and who have now been miraculously returned to me."

"It is a miracle indeed, Captain O'Neill," says the Spaniard in charge, "And I rejoice for you as much as I am disappointed for myself. Especially since these two look to be the finest of your stock. I was thinking to keep them for myself!"

"You will understand, I am sure, if they are no longer for sale."

"Of course, Captain, but what about these two?" says the Spaniard, pointing to Rodney and Charles.

Liam catches his father's eye and shakes his head imperceptibly.

Not sure what to make of this, the captain says to the Spaniard: "I believe that we must delay the sale of those two until I have had an opportunity to speak to them. I wish to learn more about the circumstances in which my son and his cousin have been held. I shall send you word when we may conclude our business."

The Spaniard is disappointed but realizes there is no point in arguing about it. He gives the order for Donald, Toby and Jeremiah to be loaded into the longboat.

"Father!" says Liam, "Stop them! They are taking our friends!"

"I am afraid that is impossible," says the captain, "They have been sold and I cannot go back on a deal!"

"It's not fair!" says Liam

"I know it is not fair. But it is business. As it is, the price that you and Brendan would have fetched will have to come from my share of the proceeds of this voyage."

Liam and Brendan look puzzled and the captain explains:

"We raid English ships and property under commission from the Spanish crown. The English call us pirates but to the Spanish we are licensed corsairs. We pay a percentage of the profits of our plunder to Spain and we keep the rest. Every member of the crew receives a share of the profits. I cannot simply release you. I have to pay for you and the price will come out of my share of the profits. It is as simple as that."

Resigned to the cruelty of fate, Brendan and Liam watch their three friends depart in the longboat. They wonder what awaits them and they both send up a prayer that the three of them will be bought by someone who will not be too cruel to them. They shudder at the thought of their friends being starved and flogged to death in a Spanish silver mine or on a French plantation.

Liam's father interrupts their thoughts

"Now let's go to my quarters and you will tell me about these two!" he says, pointing to Rodney and Charles, now miserably huddled together in their chains against the mast together with Callum and Ephraim.

"Joe!" he calls and the ship's boy scampers up.

"Captain?"

"Put these four little wretches to work scrubbing the deck!" the Captain says, pointing to the huddle at the foot of the mast, "They might as well earn their keep!"

Joe, who has not yet bothered to put his breeches back on, grins maliciously as he uncoils the rope's end looped around his forearm. And as Brendan, Liam and the Captain go aft to the Captain's quarters they are followed by the sound of the rope's end smacking against flesh and the boys' cries as Joe drives them to work.

Over the next hour Brendan and Liam pour out their whole story to Liam's father, starting from when they were captured by the Roundheads in Ireland and ending with their capture by the Captain's raiders three nights before.

The Captain tells the boys his own story. When he had returned to Galway after a long voyage to the West Indies he found his country in turmoil. Hearing terrible stories of the Roundheads pillaging the countryside and enslaving the people he had gone at once to find Liam. From a villager he heard of the fate of Brendan's parents and of the capture of the boys. Hurrying back to Galway he narrowly escaped capture himself, but found his ship impounded. He rounded up what crew he could find and under cover of night they overwhelmed the English sentries and quietly slipped out of the harbour. Once in the open sea they set sail for Spain, having heard that many of the Irish leaders had fled there. The Spanish King commissioned his ship to go to the West Indies and carry out attacks on the English there. He had had many adventures but his most recent was to put into Bridgeport under the guise of being an English merchant vessel. In the taverns of the town he had gathered intelligence about the wealthiest landowners in Barbados. His raid on Morton Hall was the first of several that he was planning. It had been a profitable raid but he had been disappointed that the Morton boys had eluded capture. He had been hoping to extort a substantial sum of money from their father in ransom.

When he hears that the Morton boys are in fact in his possession the Captain is excited but is immediately conflicted. On the one hand he wants to exact retribution for what the English had done to his family and, in particular, to his son Liam. On the other hand, the two English boys could be worth a vast sum in ransom.

After pondering the matter for a long while he turns to Liam and Brendan: "For now I want you to say nothing to anyone about who those boys really are. Until I decide what to do with them I shall keep them for myself and pay for them out of my share of the Morton Hall booty."

"And what of Callum and Ephraim, Father?" asks Liam, "Can you not buy them too?"

The Captain sighs: "More mouths for me to feed, Liam! What would I do with them?"

"They are strong, Uncle, and they are used to hard work," says Brendan, "There must be many tasks that slave boys can do on this ship."

"And what do you think you will be doing yourselves? There are no idle hands on board my ship!"

"I am sure there will be enough work for all of us, Uncle' says Brendan.

"Please Father," says Liam.

"Oh very well," says the Captain at last, "But I will take their price out of your share in the next raid!"

The boys throw their arms about the Captain in a bear hug.

"Thank you, Father!"

"Thank you, Uncle!"

The Captain sends someone to see if he can find some trousers for Liam and Brendan. He can find nothing, however. Joe, the only boy on the crew, has just two and they are too small for the big built Irish lads. Everything else on the ship is too big.

"We'll get Ezekiel to run something up for you," says the Captain

The boys protest that they don't mind going naked in the hot and sticky Caribbean weather.

"Well, suit yourselves, boys!" the Captain laughs, "'Tis no matter on board ship, but you'll need something for when you ever go ashore. Still, that won't be for a while, so we need not trouble about it for now."

The Captain looks at Liam and Brendan for a long while without saying anything. The boys sense that he wants to say or ask something but is struggling to find the words.

"What is it, Uncle?" Brendan asks at last.

"Well, boys 3; I wondered 3; ah, as you have been slaves 3; I suppose that your Master used you for his 3; ah 3; took you into his bed or 3; ah 3; ur."

Brendan grins as grasps the Captain's meaning.

"Are you asking if our Master fucked us?"

"Well 3; ah 3; yes."

"I lost count how many times the Master fucked me!" Brendan says proudly, "And he has a cock yea long and yea thick!" Brendan shows the size of Captain Morton's prodigious member with his hands.

"And young Master 3; I mean his son 3; Rodney 3; fucked me even more times! And there were others too 3; on the ship, the Master's guests, some of the slaves 3; Jabu, Donald, Toby 3;and 3;," he trails off and blushes.

"And?" queries Captain O'Neill

"Well 3; Liam too!"

The Captain stares at Brendan awhile. Brendan cannot tell if he is angry or not.

"The Masters made us do it, Uncle!"

"They made you fuck each other too?"

"Well 3; no."

"Then why?"

"Well 3; after a while we liked it, Uncle."

"Is this true Liam?" asks the Captain.

Liam blushes.

"Yes Father' he murmurs.

Suddenly the Captain gives way to thunderous laughter.

"Well, well, well!" he roars, "You young scalawags! I thought I would have to introduce you to the Sailor's Vice myself!"

The boys look at him, puzzled.

"'Sailor's Vice' Father?" asks Liam.

"Yes, my boy. We spend many months at sea and there are no women to relieve the ache in our loins. So we use the ship's boys, when we have any, or we use each other. Many learn to prefer the company of men and boys. They are far less trouble. They do not fall pregnant. You do not have to wine and dine them, buy them fine things, flatter them and tell them that you love them. And best of all, boys actually enjoy having sex, as much as you want, whenever you want. They are never 'indisposed' and they don't make excuses."

As he speaks the Captain reaches out and fondles Brendan's half erect cock and his big balls, made especially prominent by his steel cock ring.

"Well we like it lots, Uncle!" grins Brendan, cheekily grabbing at the huge bulge in the Captain's trouser front.

"I can see that, Brendan! And I am pleased to see that both you boys, just like your fathers, are equipped like stallions! True O'Neills!"

Then they hear a commotion on deck and they go out to see what is happening. They find Callum, Ephraim and Charles scrubbing frantically at the deck with their holystones, the angry stripes on their backs and arses testifying to Joe's enthusiastic supervision of their work with his rope's end.

Rodney, however, is standing to one side, being held fast by a couple of grinning sailors, his arms folded mutinously as Joe nurses a bruised eye where Rodney had punched him a few minutes ago.

"Well, what's going on here then?" the Captain roars, his eyes twinkling.

"That little monkey tried to hit me, so I hit him back!" Rodney spits out, looking daggers at Joe.

"I wanted to make him work harder!" yells Joe.

"I am not a slave to be flogged at the whim of a chimpanzee!" Rodney retorts through gritted teeth.

"Well now," says the Captain, "Whoever you may think you are, you are now my captive and, as such, you are my slave, as are these others."

Rodney glowers at the Captain, realizing that he has no answer.

"As I am sure you know, it is my duty as your Master to teach you, as a new slave, to be obedient and respectful to your owners. It is for your own good; otherwise you may never come to accept your new station and you will forever be discontented and unruly, thinking yourself to merit treatment as a free boy, which you are no longer."

Rodney's eyes widen slightly as he digests what the Captain is telling him, but he says nothing.

"To help you to come to a proper understanding of your new position in life you will have to be soundly flogged," says the Captain.

"Oh please, Father, let me do it," Liam begs eagerly.

"I can think of nothing more appropriate!" says the Captain, "Joe, give Liam your rope's end or, better yet, fetch the Cat o' Nine Tails."

Rodney's face reddens and his eyes narrow in anger as he realizes that he is about to be whipped by his former slave.

"You dare not raise a hand to me, slave!" he spits at Liam, "If you do this, know that when my father recaptures you, and he will, you will die slowly and in agony with a stake hammered up your arse like that runaway you saw on the day my father bought you!"

Liam falters momentarily at the memory and looks at his father uncertainly. Then, taking hold of himself, he takes the Cat from Joe and turns to the sailors holding Rodney.

"String him up for a flogging!" he orders them.

A few minutes later Rodney is stretched up onto his toes against the foremast, looking anxiously back over his shoulder at Liam as he takes a few practice swishes through the air with the Cat.

"How many lashes shall I give him, Father?" Liam asks.

"I think twenty will be sufficient for a start, my Son. If he has any pride left after that Brendan can give him another twenty and so we shall continue until his spirit is thoroughly broken."

"Very well, Father," says Liam as he takes up position behind Rodney. He sees how Rodney's back and buttock muscles knot up in anticipation of the first stroke and he feels a responsive tingle in the tip of his cock. Behind him his cousin Brendan, as sexually charged as ever, is already fully erect at the prospect of watching his former Master being whipped into submission.

As he had seen the Bosun do many times on the last ship, Liam combs his fingers through the nine strands of the Cat to disentangle them and let them hang straight. Then, holding the end of the long wooden handle for maximum leverage, he flicks the cat behind and above his shoulder, letting the strands straighten to their full length before whipping them forward, hissing and whistling through the air before biting into the bunched muscles of Rodney's back.

The thin knotted tails of whipcord score a fiery trail of fine stripes over the aristocratic boy's smooth and unmarked back and drive the breath from his lungs. The stripes mushroom instantly to merge into one broad corrugated welt that feels to the gasping Rodney like a scorching iron has been passed over his back. He grits his teeth and manfully stifles the sob of pain that wells up in his throat.

Liam waits, combing the strands of the Cat until he sees the beads of perspiration break out all over Rodney's body, knowing from his own experience of many whippings that this marks the point at which the shock has passed and the pain is most intensely felt.

Then he steps back, raises the Cat behind him and once again whips its shrieking tails with all his strength into the taut muscles of Rodney's back, just below the first wide welt. Again Rodney gasps and shudders but utters no sound.

Again and again the Cat claws at Rodney's quivering flesh until his back and buttocks are covered in one continuous puffy and burning welt. Still Rodney emits no sound but a soft grunt or a strangled sob, though the tears stream freely down his cheeks. Not once does he beg for mercy.

Finally the twenty lashes are delivered and Rodney hangs quiet and still against the mast.

Liam looks at Rodney and then at his father, perplexed.

"How will we know if he is broken, Father?" he asks.

"Ask him!" the Captain chuckles.

Liam steps up to Rodney and turns his head to face Liam. Liam looks into Rodney's eyes. Behind the pain he can see the burning hate.

"Say that I am your Master now, Rodney, and your whipping will stop!"

Rodney glares at Liam and tries to spit at him but his mouth is parched.

"You are not my Master! You are nothing but a slave and you will pay for this with your worthless life when my father catches you," he croaks.

"A spirited youngster!" the Captain guffaws, "You are a credit to your name, boy! It is a pity that we must break such a fine spirit, but break it we must! Brendan, it is now your turn to try. But before we whip him some more I suggest that you try to subdue him with that powerful weapon standing up between your legs!"

Brendan needs no further encouragement. Under his supervision Rodney is released from the mast and tied face down over the breech of a cannon, his legs forcibly spread apart and his ankles bound to rings on each side of the caisson.

Brendan eagerly takes up a position between Rodney's well turned legs, dribbles his by now freely flowing precum into his calloused palm and spreads it over the tip of his cock. He presses a slippery forefinger against Rodney's anus. Rodney gasps and lets out a low moan as Brendan's finger eventually forces entry and starts a painful exploration of his most private space.

Rodney has never had anything inserted into his anus before and he finds the experience intensely humiliating. Brendan starts pushing his finger in and out of Rodney's hole. Rodney's arsehole burns and tears run down Rodney's cheeks as he croons softly in pain.

With effort Brendan inserts a second finger into Rodney's arse ring, stretching against the hard sphincter muscle that squeezes in against his fingers.

Rodney gasps. It feels like his bum is being split apart. For the first time, he lets out a little yelp of pain and then starts to cry softly, the volume rising and falling with each thrust, twist and turn of Brendan's fingers.

Soon Brendan becomes impatient and he lines up the swollen purple head of his rock hard cock with Rodney's now moist and reddened pucker. He takes a firm grip of Rodney's shoulders and then, with a violent thrust of his hips, forces his cockhead through the gate.

Every muscle in Rodney's body tenses and he lifts his head to release a full-throated scream of agony.

Brendan pauses a brief moment to adjust his grip and then rams his great pole all the way into Rodney's channel.

Again Rodney screams, even louder than before. The agony is excruciating and he is convinced that Brendan is tearing his innards apart and that he is going to die.

Brendan pays no attention to Rodney's screams and he begins to thrust his long thick cock rhythmically in and out of Rodney's arse, first burying it all the way in and then withdrawing it until he can feel his cockhead pull up against Rodney's sphincter before ramming it all the way in again.

By now Rodney is screaming continuously and his body is jerking and bucking underneath Brendan as he tries to pull free of his tormentor. Brendan continues to pound mercilessly into him until finally an explosion of pleasure grips his body in a long and shuddering climax and he jets a great load of hot cum deep inside Rodney's arse.

As Brendan pulls his still hard cock out of Rodney with an audible slurping and plopping sound, Liam practically shoves Brendan out of the way and rams his own cock into Rodney's hole, warm and slippery with Brendan's cum.

By the time that Liam pistons himself roughly to climax Rodney is no longer screaming but sobbing continuously.

Then the tough and wiry ship's boy, Joe, takes his turn. By now Rodney is quiet, his eyes closed as he endures the hard and thrusting intrusions. Finally, Callum and Rodney's brother Charles are ordered to have a go. When the last slippery penis is withdrawn Rodney lies still over the gun, his bumhole flexed open and streams of cum dribbling out of his hole and down the insides of his thighs.

At once Brendan has Rodney untied from the gun and half dragged to the mast where he is again strung up to be flogged.

Brendan leans in close to Rodney's face, the Cat hanging down from his hand with the tails reaching down to the deck.

"Say I am your Master, Rodney!"

Rodney just looks at Brendan, his eyes troubled as he wrestles with his pride.

"Say I am your Master!" Brendan repeats, hoping that he will not.

Rodney says nothing.

Brendan quickly steps back, raises the Cat and snaps its tails viciously into Rodney's shoulder blades, overlaying the first welts that Liam had laid there. Now the knots start to lay open the tenderized skin and prickles of blood start to appear. The pain is unbearable and Rodney screams.

Again and again Brendan lays the searing whip strands into Rodney's tortured back. Rodney is now screaming continuously.

Soon Rodney starts begging

"Oh please, please, stop! Please, you are my Master! Oh please stop!" he screams and sobs.

Brendan stops but the Captain motions him to continue to the end of his twenty lashes.

By the time he finishes Rodney is hanging limply from the ropes that hold him to the mast, sobbing loudly, his pride disappeared and his dignity in shreds. The sailors release his bonds and he drops to the deck in a heap, curls up and blubbers.

"Drive home the lesson now, boys, get him up and back to working. You cannot leave him there to feel sorry for himself."

Liam picks up Joe's rope's end and lashes the crying Rodney with it.

"Get up and back to work, Rodney, or you'll taste more of the Cat!"

"No, please, no more!" Rodney blubs as he scrambles hastily to his knees, scrabbles to find his holystone and joins Callum, Charles and Ephraim in scrubbing the deck planking.

Liam and Brendan follow Captain O'Neill onto the quarterdeck aft. The Captain has decided that they will be his apprentices and he wants to start their training in seamanship and the navigational arts without delay. They spend a happy afternoon in the sun learning the names of the parts of the ship and the terminology of the sea.

As Brendan leans on the rail and looks down at his former masters sweating and yelping under Joe's lash along with the slaves they once owned he feels a joy that he has not known in a long while. His love for Rodney has somehow now been made complete by the power he has over him and his heart beats excitedly at the thought of taking Rodney into his own bunk tonight and making love with him. He has yet to learn that it is the cruel and imperious master, that Rodney was, that he loved; not the newly submissive and broken-spirited slave that Rodney had become.

Chapter 11

TheShannon rides peacefully at anchor in a lagoon buttressed by a broken semi-circle made up of one large and several smaller islands which overlap each other, so that from seaward they look like one long unbroken land mass. A couple of miles away a line of white breakers mark the coral reef that completes the circle, protecting the lagoon like a seawall with just one obvious gap more or less in the centre, providing entrance to the lagoon through the reef.

The privateers have been here for two days, waiting for the delivery of the ransom money that Captain O'Neill has demanded for the return of the two English boys captured in the raid on Morton Hall on the island of Barbados.

Immediately upon learning the identity of the two English boys whom his raiders had thought were slaves, Captain O'Neill sent a message to their father, Brendan's and Liam's former owner, offering to return his sons on payment of a ransom of two thousand gold pieces each. Captain Morton being a businessman first and a father second, haggled cold-bloodedly over the price until agreement was eventually reached on an amount of one thousand gold pieces each. Then followed protracted negotiations over where and when the exchange would take place. Finally, with the connivance of the 'neutral' intermediary and on the pretense of agreeing to a place unfamiliar to both parties, O'Neill managed to manouevre Morton into suggesting a meeting at an unnamed atoll that was in fact very well known to O'Neill.

Distrustful of Morton, indeed of all Englishmen, O'Neill purposely arrived at the atoll a few days early. He wanted enough time to prepare for whatever treachery Morton might be planning.

The first thing that O'Neill did on dropping anchor in the clear blue waters of the lagoon was to send a small party ashore to keep a lookout for Morton's ship from the highest peak of the main island.

The plan is that the exchange will take place on the beach of the main island. Morton's ship will anchor in the lagoon a few cables from theShannon with gunports closed. As soon as she is riding to her anchor and her sails are furled the English boys will be taken ashore and held there under guard until the ransom arrives by boat from Morton's ship. After the exchange both boats will leave the beach together and return to their ships, which will then weigh anchor and go their separate ways.

O'Neill knows that once the Morton boys are safely on board their father's ship there is nothing to stop Morton from trying to attack him and he intends to be prepared for that possibility.

Because of the painful slowness of communication by ship between the islands it has taken about five months to reach this point and much has happened in the meantime. TheShannon's crew have captured five heavily laden English merchant ships in this time. Two of these had carried cargo that Captain Morton had invested heavily in, as O'Neill had ascertained with grim satisfaction from their manifests.

They have also carried out shore raids on three more rich English estates on various islands in the Antilles. Brendan and Liam have played their part in all the fighting and their share of the plunder, paid out by their Spanish paymasters in gold pieces, has grown to a tidy sum. Never having owned anything before the two fourteen year old boys feel fabulously wealthy.

The closeness and the shared hardships of shipboard life have all but blurred the social distinctions between theShannon's boys. Whether apprentice, ship's boy or slave boy, all of them do much the same hard physical work: scrubbing, scraping, heaving, hauling, lifting, carrying, scrambling about the rigging and working the sails. All of them receive the same punishment for slowness, slackness or inattention to duty: the swift and searing ministrations of the lash upon their naked flesh.

The few differences between the boys relate only to their status in the eyes of the ship's officers and crew. Liam and Brendan stand at the pinnacle as the son and nephew of the Captain and because, as apprentices, they are receiving tuition in the arts of navigation and seamanship to prepare them to command a ship themselves one day. Joe, being illiterate, ranks below them as ship's boy. He aspires to become an able seaman and one day perhaps a petty officer like the Bosun. Callum and Ephraim are also illiterate but they are slaves and do not aspire to anything. Rodney and Charles, of course, are well educated and well born but they are in captivity and have the status of slaves.

Their shared experiences, however, and especially their shared sufferings, have forged a bond of friendship between all of the boys over the past five months and Brendan is increasingly down-hearted as the moment approaches when he must bid farewell to the Morton boys, especially Rodney. Rodney too seems to have mixed feelings about it. At one moment he is elated at the prospect of going home but at another he is despondent about leaving his shipmates.

As Brendan's eyes open they light upon the sun-browned bare bodies of Liam and young Charles snuggled back to belly in the hammock alongside him. They are both still fast asleep.

No wonder, thinks Brendan, grinning to himself. The pair of them must have rogered each other's arses bloody last night. They were still at it when Brendan got back in the wee hours, bow-legged from several hours of having his own arse reamed raw by the Captain's gigantic cock. And as Brendan fell asleep, exhausted, the last sounds in his ears were of their frenetic rutting as they strove with slack mouths, glassy eyes and deep-throat grunts to satiate their animal lust.

The slave boys, Callum and Ephraim, together with their newly enslaved former masters, Rodney and Charles, have no permanent sleeping quarters of their own. They normally share a hammock or bunk with whichever one of the ship's officers has laid claim to their services that night. If they are booted out after the sex, as often happens, they bed down with Brendan, Liam or Joe or wherever else they can find to a space to lay their heads. All the boys are off limits to the crew, who must be satisfied with rogering each other below decks.

Brendan feels a pang of jealousy as he wonders momentarily where his former master Rodney spent the night. Until he is returned to his father, Rodney belongs to Captain O'Neill as part of the Captain's share of the plunder from Morton Hall. Brendan knows this but the knowledge that Rodney will one day soon be gone serves only to intensify the feelings he has for Rodney that he has just dimly begun to realize may be love. Brendan wishes that Rodney could sleep with him every night and it frustrates him that he has to share Rodney with the ship's officers.

In the hammock on the other side of Liam, Brendan sees that Joe is still fast asleep. Joe has his usual morning erection and Brendan admires his long thin shaft where it lies rock hard against Joe's lower belly, its head nuzzling into Joe's navel.

Brendan turns onto his side, lifts one leg and reaches a hand around behind him to touch a finger gingerly to the sore and swollen rim of his anus. Last night was about the tenth time that he has been with the Captain in the time since he came aboard but the Captain's cock is much bigger even than Jabu's and Brendan wonders if he will ever get used to its massive girth and length. Even Joe, who has been taking the Captain's cock up his arse for more than a year, still struggles, although Brendan takes heart from the fact that Joe is much smaller than Brendan and Liam.

Brendan lies back again and starts fingering his own morning erection as he looks sideways at Joe's taut mahogany tanned body. Brendan is impatient for Joe to wake up and eventually he sits up and throws his pillow at Joe's head. Joe's eyes open suddenly and he catches Brendan's gaze. Brendan grins at Joe expectantly. Joe sits up and swings his legs over the side of his hammock.

"You want some help with that again? " Joe asks eagerly, licking his lips as he stares at Brendan's impressively swollen cock.

"Sure, " says Brendan. This has been Brendan's ritual with Joe every morning and Brendan has come to look forward to it.

Joe quickly slips down onto the deck and pushes his way up between Brendan's and Liam's hammocks. He takes Brendan's hard thick maleness between his fingers and guides its bulbous purple head between his lips and into the warm wetness of his mouth. As Joe's busy tongue sends ripples of pleasure coursing down his shaft, Brendan runs a big work roughened hand down Joe's lithe brown back to explore the crack between Joe's small but firm and well-rounded buttocks. Joe spreads his legs slightly and Brendan works his strong and insistent middle finger as far as it can go into Joe's compliant anus. Brendan pumps his finger into Joe's arse until he can hear muffled moans of pleasure vibrating from Joe's cock-stuffed throat. Then he pushes Joe's head off his cock and motions for Joe to get up onto the hammock. Joe knows exactly what is expected of him and, after swinging himself up as if mounting a pony, he settles down on Brendan's rampant pole, facing Brendan, with his legs hanging down either side of the hammock.

As there is no purchase for his feet, Joe undulates his body forward and back to get his sphincter sliding up and down Brendan's cock. He moves slowly at first and then faster and harder until he has Brendan moaning with pleasure and panting like an eager puppy. Soon Brendan has his eyes shut, his toes curled and every muscle in his brawny body knotted as Joe propels him rapidly to ecstasy. As he reaches climax Brendan's bellow of triumph wakes Liam and Charles. Two heads peer over the side of the hammock in time to watch Joe's long quivering cock spurt silver ropes of cum over Brendan's chest and neck.

Immediately Liam's and Charles' hands are on each other's cocks, but just then the bosun's call shrills and there is a pounding of bare feet on the planks as the men of the morning watch scurry up on deck. The ship's boys, whether apprentice, deckhand or slave, are all expected on deck together with the morning watch. Covered in the detritus of sex and with no time to clean themselves up they all make a dash to get on deck before the bosun starts swinging his rope's end. Fortunately, they are not detained by the necessity of getting dressed, since the boys always go naked while they are at sea. They do so mainly because they enjoy the freedom, but also because it is practical, as blue water sailors both then and since are well aware. Fresh water is always at a premium and there is little to spare for washing laundry, especially for the youngest members on board.

They are late, however, and each of them catches a stinging stroke of the tarred length of coarse hemp rope across the back, buttocks or thighs as they make a dash past the Bosun. Liam and Brendan race each other neck and neck not to be last as it is Captain O'Neill's rule that the last man or boy to muster after the bosun's call has sounded must be flogged on the spot by the Bosun. Brendan manages to elbow Liam into last place just as they arrive in the waist of the ship where the morning watch is gathered ahead of them. Liam's heart lurches as the Bosun crooks a finger at him and points to the nearest gun.

"Your turn to fuck the Gunner's Daughter, boy!', he growls.

With broad anticipatory grins on their faces, two of the deckhands grab Liam eagerly and pull him over the breech of the gun to receive twelve lashes of the rope's end.

Just as they start tying Liam down over the barrel everyone hears a rapid thudding of hard bare feet on the deck and Rodney arrives breathless from the direction of the officers' cabins. Liam is mightily relieved as the deckhands release him and grab Rodney instead. Rodney knows it is useless either to complain or to explain and he submits stoically.

The men and boys of the morning watch crowd closer as Rodney is bent over the gun. Watching one of their shipmates squirm and howl under the lash is always an entertaining start to the day. And when it is the firm smooth buttocks of one of the boys that is being flogged there is hardly a man (or boy for that matter) whose cock is not standing to attention in seconds.

Rodney's wrists are quickly tied together under the barrel and his ankles are tied to rings on either side of the wooden gun carriage, forcing him to spread his legs wide apart as he lies over the barrel.

The watching men and boys lick dry lips as they see Rodney's well used bum hole flexing involuntarily between the hard round globes of his spread butt cheeks as he awaits the first stroke of the rope's end. Globs of fresh cum trickle out of his hole and down the inside of his legs, betraying the reason for his lateness. The boys nudge each other, grin mischievously and call out rude remarks at the sight of this evidence. Rodney has often been flogged for lateness after being detained by the bearded giant who is the ship's first mate. No cares that it is not his fault. He is the last one to muster and he must be flogged for it.

The Bosun stands to one side and delivers the first lash with all the pent-up fury of an extremely frustrated man. Like all the rest of the crew he yearns to fuck Rodney's beautiful boyish arse but, as a petty officer, the boys are off limits to all but the officers and, of course, the other boys.

Rodney's back arches against his bonds as the rough tarred length of hemp rope smacks against his hard round arse, clawing a fiery welt across his smooth tanned skin. He throws his head back and cries out as the searing pain crackles through his body like electricity.

As the Bosun gets ready for the next stroke every muscle in Rodney's back and buttock knots up in anticipation and he strains against the ropes holding him down.

The three foot length of heavy rope flutes through the air and cracks once more across the quivering tautness of Rodney's arse. Again he cries out as his leathery toes scrabble at the deck and his buttocks thrust forward against the breech of the gun in the lewd manner that has given this form of punishment the name of 'Fucking the Gunner's Daughter' (Some historians delicately insist that it was called 'Kissing the Gunners' Daughter', but knowing what sailors are like, this seems unlikely).

Brendan's cock is by now ramrod stiff and leaking glistening dribbles of precum into his belly button. Subconsciously he starts rolling its pulsating tip between his thumb and two fingers and as he glances about he sees the other boys and several of the men doing likewise.

Ten more times the rope's end scores a livid path across Rodney's tortured buttocks before he is finally released to stand up shakily and take his place among the assembled men and boys to receive their orders.

"Now then!', the Bosun calls out. Then he catches sight of Brendan and the other boys still fiddling with their swollen cocks and pauses to admonish them irritably, 'For goodness sake will ye save that for yer frolics with the officers at night and concentrate on the job in hand! Or I'll flog the lot o' yez for inattention to duty!"

Brendan lets go his cock at once and clasps his hands behind his back. The others do likewise. As the Bosun carries on, however, Brendan notices that he cannot seem to take his eyes off Brendan's inordinately large sex tool and cum-bulging balls, the whole assembly held proud by the slave's cock ring that Brendan insists on keeping, still ramrod stiff and bobbing with each beat of his heart like a thing with a life of its own.

Brendan relishes this influence that his exceptional young body has handed him over powerful men and, slut boy that he is, never hesitates to exercise it. In any event, he is also turned on by powerful men and the Bosun is one such man. The Bosun is about 30 years of age, muscular, lean and tanned. His long brown hair is tied in a pigtail that hangs down the centre of his back. Like most of the lower deck crew he is always shirtless and barefoot. His bulging thighs and buttocks always look as if they are about to split his knee-length breeches. Colourful tattoos of eagles, fire-breathing dragons, crossed swords, guns, anchors and Celtic designs accentuate the muscles of his back, his bulging arms and his mighty chest. One tattoo that especially intrigues Brendan is of the diamond patterned body of a snake coiled around his belly button and then plunging down his belly and disappearing into the top of his waist band. Brendan often has dreams about having the Bosun's cock rammed up his arse and the fact that his arse is off-limits to the Bosun's cock just makes the yearning stronger.

He turns slightly to face the Bosun square on with his arms by his side, hands turned outward, hip thrust slightly forward as if deliberately presenting his sex tackle for inspection. The Bosun catches the movement and stares directly into Brendan's eyes. Cheekily, Brendan winks slowly and deliberately closes his hand momentarily around his shaft as he flashes the Bosun a wide, heart-melting grin.

The Bosun stutters momentarily and his face goes red, first with embarrassment and then with anger.

Then Brendan's teasing backfires on him as the Bosun regains his composure and yells at him:

"Boy, did I not just tell you to leave off playing with yer cock and concentrate on yer work?."

Dismay plays across Brendan's face as he realizes that he has overplayed his hand 3; literally.

"Uh 3; yes Chief 3;"

"Then get your filthy carcass over there onto the Gunner's Daughter and make ready to fuck her good and hard!"

Brendan thinks to protest but realizes that he has been outmanoeuvred and that only a show of alacrity and obedience may mitigate the beating he is about to get. He moves at once to the gun and lays his torso over the barrel, arms stretched forward, his legs spread apart with his broad brown feet planted on the deck on either side of the gun carriage.

In a minute Brendan is tied to the gun in this attitude and the Bosun delivers twelve sizzling strokes of the rope's end across the hard round globes of his arse. The heavy rough hemp, made heavier and harder by being dipped in tar, cuts across his beefy arse like a red hot poker but Brendan takes each stroke with little more than a grunt of pain. He is in training as an apprentice to be the commander of such men one day and he has to maintain the reputation that he has already begun to build among the men as a tough kid.

As usual, when Brendan is released after his whipping, his cock is as hard as ever and he knows it will stay like this for some time unless he gets the chance to release the pressure, which he will not have until the end of his watch.

The Bosun realizes his problem, however, and having a soft spot for Brendan, sends him and Liam to spend their watch sorting out the rope store in the remote forepeak of the ship, knowing full well that the two boys will take the opportunity to relieve each other's sexual pressure. The boys know that he knows and are grateful. Indeed, Brendan thinks of a way to say thank you.

After they have sorted out and recoiled the few ropes that were in slight disorder (since Captain O'Neill runs a tidy ship) Brendan sends Liam to call the Bosun down to the rope store on pretext of requiring his decision about something.

The moment the Bosun arrives Brendan kneels down in front of him and reaches out to unbutton his trousers. The Bosun starts back but Brendan shuffles forward on his knees and grabs hold of the Bosun's waist band as he looks up into the Bosun's eyes and flashes that irresistible grin.

The Bosun's belly lurches pleasantly and he feels resistance crumbling. He wants Brendan badly and it is obvious that the boy wants him. He mumbles lamely, 'Ye know we're not allowed 3;."

"Who will tell?" asks Brendan, "Not us 3;."

The Bosun stares at him. Brendan can see the Bosun's cock swelling rapidly underneath the faded blue cloth of his breeches until, within seconds, its swollen head protrudes above his waist band in the deep furrow between the two ridged lines of muscle marching up his belly.

Brendan takes the Bosun's silence as assent, unbuttons the Bosun's trousers and tugs them down to his ankles. His prodigious cock, now almost fully erected, swings down to hang at the horizontal. The mystery of the snake is revealed: Its body runs down the Bosun's belly and becomes, in effect, his cock. The whole of his long thick shaft is tattooed with the diamond pattern scales of the snake. The snake's head, with open maw and fangs, is tattooed about his foreskin, now stretched so much by the erection that it looks like the snake is trying to swallow a large purple plum.

"Wow! " says Brendan, impressed, running his fingers around the tattooed coils and following the snake down onto the Bosun's cock. Liam peers around to have a look and echoes his admiration before settling on his knees behind the Bosun and reaching up between the Bosun's legs to play with his massive pendulous balls.

Brendan takes the Bosun's huge cock in his fingers and guides its swollen purple head into his wide warm mouth.

At once he sucks the swelling shaft in deep until he can feel the head pushing against his throat and his wide mouth feels stretched to cracking. He starts working the back of his strong tongue against the sensitive tip until the Bosun starts moaning and grips the back of Brendan's head as he tries to shove his cock even deeper into Brendan's throat.

Brendan puts both hands against the Bosun's upper thighs and slowly pushes himself off the Bosun's shaft. As the Bosun's cock slides out Brendan grabs the thick shaft with both hands and holds it steady as his lips and tongue work a scintillating magic on the Bosun's tip that has the man weak-kneed and gasping in seconds.

Just as it feels the Bosun is about to blow in his mouth Brendan pulls his head off the man's cock. It comes out of his mouth with a moist slurping sound. Brendan ducks between the Bosun's legs and scoops Liam's hard and bobbing cock into his mouth. Rapidly he sucks Liam almost to climax and then he releases Liam's cock just before he blows and, once again, returns to sucking the Bosun's cock.

After he repeats this a few times he finally allows Liam to shoot his load into Brendan's mouth. From long habit acquired when he was a slave Brendan swallows every drop and licks his cousin's cock clean even as he grips and slowly strokes the Bosun's pulsing cock with his free hand.

Then Liam takes up a position bent over a barrel that contains various odds and ends of rope and presents his arse to Brendan. Brendan does not hesitate. He plunges his engorged member deep into his cousin's well-used hole and rapidly pumps himself to climax even as the Bosun inserts a strong rough digit into Brendan's compliant hole and starts pumping it in and out in preparation for his own entry.

Brendan's body suddenly stiffens and he cries out his pleasure as his vibrant cock starts pulsing jet after jet of hot wet cum deep inside Liam's arse.

The waves of ecstasy are still coursing through his body and his cock is still hard and deep inside Liam when the Bosun, unable to restrain himself any further, rams his thick cock deep and hard into Brendan's pliable channel.

There is the inevitable initial sharp pain but Brendan has grown from regular and frequent use to welcome it, as it is brief and it is the necessary precursor to the indescribable pleasure and sense of physical fulfilment that Brendan yearns for continually, in fact most of his waking and even much of his sleeping moments, like an addiction that can never be requited.

The Bosun is close to climax and, to Brendan's disappointment, withdraws after just a few strong hard strokes and shoots his load all over Brendan's back. Liam is quickly onto Brendan to lick up and swallow the evidence.

The muscular Bosun quickly yanks up his breeches and pads off on his big bare feet, leaving the two boys in the rope store without a word or a backward glance.

But Brendan knows that the Bosun too is now under the spell of his irresistible sexual attraction and that this was just the first of many such occasions. The thought of future, hopefully longer, encounters breathes fresh life into his slowly limpening cock and he looks up at Liam.

"Hey, look what's happenin' again, " he says with a grin, pointing to his crotch.

Liam rolls his eyes.

"Again! Really!"

"C'mon, you know you want it as bad as me!"

"Oh, alright then."

And Liam drops on his knees in front of Brendan with an alacrity that belies his feigned reluctance.

"See, I told ya! " says Brendan huskily, as his cousin's lips close around the throbbing tip of his cock, 'Ain't this just the best, Liam?"

"Yeangf," comes the muffled reply from Liam's stuffed throat.

Chapter 12

The Shannon has been at anchor in the uncharted lagoon for a week, awaiting the arrival of Captain Morgan and the ransom of 2 000 gold pieces for his sons. At daybreak this morning the island lookout signalled the arrival of a ship on the horizon. With the steady fresh breeze that is blowing Captain O'Neill reckons that it will take the ship about 5 hours to reach the atoll. The morning has been spent making preparations for its arrival.

All the Shannon's guns have been made ready for immediate action and the gun ports are unlatched, ready to be swung open the instant they are needed. The anchor cable has been hooked up below a makeshift mooring buoy and the ship made fast to the buoy by means of a looped line that can be quickly released from on board the ship. The furled sails have been lightly tied to the spars with slip knots in lines that can be yanked loose from the deck. All these preparations are so that the Shannon can defend herself and make a quick getaway in case of treachery.

Brendan pads about the sun soaked deck on his broad bare feet, disconsolate that the Morgan brothers, and especially Rodney, will be leaving them soon forever. He does not recognise the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach as grief for the impending loss of his first real love for another boy. If anyone had suggested this to him he would have scoffed at the idea. How could he possibly have feelings of love for the boy who treated him so cruelly when he was that boy's slave? How could he feel anything but hate for the boy who had taken such pleasure in flaying his naked body with a bullwhip, making him writhe and scream against the whipping post as he mercilessly lashed Brendan's muscular back, marking him for life with the scars of servitude?

Brendan would have been unable to articulate answers to questions such as these. He could not have explained, if he were asked, why he bore no grudge or why he so readily forgave Rodney where he may have wanted to kill someone else if he had done the same things. He could not have explained because he did not know the answer: That it was love that made the difference.

Brendan leans with his back against the taffrail and looks across the quarterdeck to where Liam and Rodney are in conversation. He thinks about how different they all look since coming on board the Shannon. They still have their cock-rings and slave tattoos and they still go naked in the stifling hot Caribbean weather. But the bristled slave-boy haircuts and the shaved pubes are gone (except for Brendan, who still shaves his sparse pubic hairs off every day as he prefers the smooth look). Brendan's brawny cousin Liam has a wild unkempt thatch of fiery red straw framing his head like a sunburst. The small spray of pubic hair protruding from the top of his cock ring looks like a patch of flickering flame. Rodney's long blond hair is tied into a pigtail that hangs down the back of his neck, its tip brushing the smooth golden brown skin between his shoulder blades.

Brendan reaches up and runs hard brown fingers through his own long hair, straw blonde with streaks bleached almost white by salt and sun. Brendan likes his hair to hang loose. It covers his ears and frames his broad sun-browned face like a golden hood. A ragged fringe brushes his downy blonde eyebrows, white against the smooth tanned skin of his face. He looks down at his body and likes what he sees. Smooth honey brown skin glides over the hard bulges and ridges of his exceptionally well-muscled body. His big cock and bulbous balls thrust out proudly from his groin, held permanently in a state of half erection by the steel cock-ring fitted by the blacksmith when he first entered slavery on the Morton estate. Hard round butt cheeks. Thick muscled thighs and bulging calves. Leathery brown feet, broad, high-arched, square-toed and tough-soled.

Brendan is a little jealous to see Liam and Rodney conversing so freely and happily. Brendan always feels a little tongue-tied with Rodney though he likes it when they are together, especially when they sleep together, which is most nights. When they have sex, which is whenever they sleep together (Brendan never thinks of it as making love), they communicate mostly by touch and feel, responding freely and naturally to their animal urges and instincts.

Suddenly irritated, without understanding why, and yearning for something he cannot define or even identify, Brendan stalks off the quarterdeck and goes in search of the bosun to see if he might be interested in another hard session of rough sex in the rope store. He emerges an hour later, sticky with sweat and cum, his arse reamed nearly raw and his back stinging and red-welted from the bosun's over-enthusiastic application of the rope's end. But the empty spot in his belly remains unfilled. He clambers into the nets under the bowsprit and lies there wallowing in his black mood as the whole ship's crew awaits the arrival of Captain Morgan.

By the time that Captain Morgan's ship arrives it is dark, however, and she stands off outside the line of breakers, not wanting to risk a night entry through the narrow break in the coral.

Captain O'Neill is puzzled by this, as the ship should have arrived well before dark. He wonders if the late arrival is deliberate. He decides, as a precaution, to double the night watch in case Morgan should attempt to send in boats with a boarding party in the small hours, although he thinks it highly unlikely.

In addition, he decides to move Morgan's sons ashore under cover of darkness. Captain Morgan will believe his sons are on the Shannon but they will be concealed ashore. Brendan and Liam are given the task of keeping the captives secure. Joe, the ship's boy, and the slave boys, Callum and Ephraim, are sent along to help. Captain O'Neil reckons that if things go wrong and something happens to the Shannon at least the boys will be out of immediate trouble.

The Morgan brothers and their boy guards go ashore in the cutter that has been sent to fetch the lookouts on the main island.

"Keep an eye on them and make sure no harm comes to them," Captain O'Neill orders just before Brendan and Liam clamber down the rope ladder to the cutter, "Their skins are worth a lot of money to me!"

"Aye, sir," the two boys chorus and scamper down the ladder after their charges.

Once ashore the naked boys clamber out of the boat, heave their bundles onto their shoulders and splash ashore.

"Be sharp now, and look out for us in the morning!' the coxswain calls out as he sets off back to the Shannon with the lookouts aboard.

The boys head into the jungle just past the treeline where they will bed down for the night. Long accepted as the natural leader among the boys, Brendan takes charge. He chooses the spot where they will camp and organises who will stand watch and when. He orders that no fires or lights will be lit. The boys quickly settle down for the night on their blankets.

Brendan and Liam throw out their blankets on either side of Rodney and Charles. It is the last night they will be together and Brendan wants to make the most of the time he has left with Rodney.

He reaches out, cups his big hand around Rodney's shoulder and pulls Rodney toward him. Rodney rolls over eagerly and they wrap their arms around each other. Soon their open mouths couple and they make passionate love with their tongues. As their hard hot bodies press together Brendan feels Rodney's swollen maleness press against his belly, even as he thrusts his own against Rodney's. Brendan reaches down between them and closes his rough strong fingers around Rodney's fat shaft. Brendan gets onto his knees and straddles Rodney, his ponderous balls swinging against Rodney's chin as he bends down and takes Rodney's thick cock into his mouth. Rodney, gasping with pleasure as Brendan's strong and agile tongue works up and down his shaft, takes Brendan's prodigious cock into his own mouth and begins his own expert ministrations. Blood pounding in their ears they drive each other inexorably toward that headlong rush of ecstasy that, like boys everywhere, they are utterly addicted to. Next to them the intertwined bodies of Liam and Charles writhe frenetically as they too pursue the same pinnacle of pleasure.

Again and again as the stars wheel slowly overhead the boys take turns in plumbing the depths of each other's warm, moist, welcoming channels as they pleasure each with a relentless desperation of lovers who will be parted for good on the morrow.

Finally, spent but not sated, they fall asleep in each other's arms.

Brendan wakes the next morning with a start. The sun is already one hand above the horizon and he jumps up in fright. He looks about wildly for Callum, who should have woken them as the last boy on watch. Callum is sound asleep on his blanket nearby. Brendan jabs him hard in the ribs with a leathery bare toe.

"Get up Callum, why are ye sleeping, ye lazy git!" he yells angrily.

The rest of the boys jump up immediately, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.

Brendan approaches Callum threateningly, his fist raised.

"Please no, Brendan, it's not my fault, Joe was supposed to wake me!"

"I did wake you!" Joe yells, pointing a finger accusingly at Callum, "You must have gone back to sleep again!"

"I 3; I 3; don't remember that," Callum says uncertainly.

"Then I'm gonna flog you both! " Brendan says angrily, "Callum for not staying awake and Joe for not making sure!

Brendan picks up the tarred rope's end that he brought with him to keep the boys in line and gets ready to carry out his threat.

Just then a shout from Ephraim gets all the boys running to the treeline. As they watch from the shadows they see a heavily armed merchant ship, rather larger than the Shannon, slowly entering the lagoon through the narrow break in the corral. Even at this distance they can see that the ship has two gundecks to the Shannon's one.

Even more alarming, however, are the two other even larger ships that have arrived during the night. They fly the ensign of the British Navy's red squadron and, although they are too large to enter the gap in the reef, it is clear that they are there to close the trap on the troublesome Shannon and its captain.

Captain O'Neill has misjudged his opponent, Captain Morgan. He had calculated that Morgan would value the lives of his sons more highly than an opportunity to avenge himself on the men who have been wreaking havoc with his shipping and his profits. In this he was badly mistaken, as he now belatedly realises. He must himself now choose between abandoning his son, his nephew and the other boys to their fate and trying to escape the trap; or staying to fight and probably losing everything.

As an experienced ship's captain, he knows what he must do, though it breaks his heart to do it. He must attempt to escape.

Immediately his mind is made up he gives the order to let go the mooring lines and set the sails. The sails drop instantly and as soon as they are sheeted in they fill with wind and the nimble Shannon leaps forward like a racehorse from its stall.

Morgan's ship, still half a mile away, opens her double row of gunports and the guns are run out, ready to rake the Shannon when she turns to pass on her way toward the lagoon entrance.

But O'Neill has a surprise for Morgan. Instead of turning to pass Morgan he appears to head straight for the island. Morgan watches in astonishment. Surely O'Neill is not going to beach the Shannon? His best hope is surely to try to slip past Morgan, reach the open sea and outrun the heavier and slower ships blockading the entrance.

He puts his glass to his eye and strains to make out what O'Neill might be trying to do. Then he realises that the island is not continuous and that O'Neill is making for a gap between two overlapping portions. He gasps as the realisation dawns on him that if O'Neill gets through to open sea on that side the blockading warships on the opposite side will not have a hope in hell of catching him.

"After them! Put on more sail!" he yells at the Master, "They are making for a channel between the islands!"

The Master responds instantly and his ship puts on a spurt of speed. Morgan realises that his ship is not fast enough to overtake the Shannon but he hopes that he will be able at least to maintain the gap and keep the Shannon in sight. He is prepared to follow the Shannon to the end of the earth if necessary. He orders the two bow chaser cannon to open fire at the Shannon even though they are out of range.

Brendan has also realised what is happening and he watches aghast as the Shannon sails through the channel into open sea with Captain Morgan in hot pursuit.

The boys scramble up the side of the mountain to the lookout spot and watch as the brisk breeze swiftly takes the two ships toward the horizon. By now the two heavier Naval vessels have realised that the Shannon has given them the slip and they set off to follow ponderously.

For an hour the boys watch in silence.

Then Charles takes his brother's hand and asks, "Rodney, where is Papa going? When will they come back?"

Rodney angrily flicks Charles' hand away, "I hope he never comes back! He thinks we're on the Shannon and does not care that we might have been killed for his treachery!" He turns on his hard bare heel and stalks away, heading back down to the beach.

Liam places a comforting hand on Charles' shoulder and they turn to go down to the beach.

Brendan calls all the boys together.

"We're on our own now," he tells them. "We don't know when 3; or if ever 3; they will come back for us. If the Shannon gets away clean the Captain will surely come for us 3; but if they are captured or destroyed we may never see them again 3;"

He pauses and looks at the boys' anxious faces as they absorb this information.

"All we can do now 3; is hope they will be back for us 3; Meanwhile we must organise ourselves to live as best we can."

"But how will we live, Brendan?" asks Joe, "We brought little food and just a small barrel of water from the ship"

"Where did the water on the ship come from, Joe, this last week?" says Brendan, "And the fresh meat and the coconuts and the fruit we been eating all week? All from this island! There's plenty of water here. And food 3; fish in the sea 3; fruit and birds and wild pigs in the jungle!"

The boys look at each other uncertainly. Brendan decides he needs to focus their minds on something other than their present predicament.

"But first things first 3;," he announces firmly, "Joe and Callum abandoned their watch last night and must be punished!"

Joe and Callum look glum. Knowing Brendan they dare not argue the point.

"Joe, fetch me my rope's end! I left it lying on the beach," Brendan orders. "Liam, that big boulder there will be our 'Gunner's Daughter' for now. You and Rodney stretch Callum over it"

Joe finds the rope's end and hands it to Brendan. By now Callum is stretched face down over the big boulder with Liam squatting in the sand, holding his ankles, and Rodney gripping his wrists on the other side of the boulder.

Brendan steps up to Callum's side and, running the length of tarred rope through his calloused palm, announces, "Sleeping on watch is a very serious crime. I am going to give you fifty hard lashes for that on your back and your arse."

The watching boys gasp. The boys on the ship are never given more than about twenty strokes of the rope's end. Fifty seems an impossibly cruel number to them. As Brendan intended, the respect that the other boys have for him has been suddenly augmented by a measure of fear.

Brendan steps back and flings the rope's end as far back as he can reach before jumping forward and bringing it hissing through the air to crack loudly against the bunched muscles of Callum's shoulders. The rough tar-soaked hemp scours a livid stripe across Callum's smooth sun-browned skin and his head jerks up, whipping up his mop of black hair as his back arches in pain. Callum chokes off a scream.

His shoulders heaving with suppressed sobs, every muscle in Callum's back and buttocks is now taut and quivering as he awaits the next stroke.

Brendan's cock is also taut and quivering, though in his case with pleasure, not pain. Rodney's heart sinks a little when he sees this, realising that he is in the power of someone who is not only physically stronger but who is addicted to the pleasure of inflicting pain. Yet strangely, this thought arouses him at the same time. Rodney is mesmerised by Brendan's physical power and beauty, his muscles gliding and rippling under his glistening honey brown skin as he whips Callum with vigour and strength. Rodney's own cock quickly erects and he finds himself fantasizing about being in Callum's place.

By the time that Brendan lays the fiftieth searing stroke across Callum's buttocks, Callum is screaming hoarsely and almost continuously. Rodney and Liam release his ankles and wrists and he slowly and agonisingly pushes himself off the boulder, sobbing as if his heart would break. Then he staggers down to the water's edge and lies on his belly with the cool seawater washing over him and soothing his pain.

Brendan orders Joe to kneel in front of him. Brendan's cock is still huge and swollen and he wants Joe to suck it to ejaculation. Joe attacks the job with great enthusiasm, trying to ingratiate himself with the muscular boy who is about to flog him. The other boys look on with envy as they finger their own cocks, which are erect and bobbing with excitement.

Callum gets back from cooling off his stinging back and arse, eager to watch Joe getting his own whipping. Brendan climaxes just then. He clasps his hands at the back of Joe's head and shoves his cock all the way into Joe's throat. He shoots load after load of spunk into Joe's throat, his toes curling against the sand and his buttocks clenching with each spasm. They see spunk squirting out of the corners of Joe's mouth as he gulps, chokes and sputters, trying to swallow Brendan's hot and slippery jets of cum. Brendan holds Joe's head impaled on his cock until well after the shuddering waves of exquisite pleasure have stopped shaking his body. Then he pulls himself out of Joe's still dribbling mouth. His cock makes an audible slurping sound as it pulls free. Joe licks and slurps at his shaft until he has cleaned off every last globule of cum.

Brendan bends down and picks up the rope's end from the ground. He swings the rope's end through the air a few times before pronouncing sentence on Joe.

"Joe, you're also gonna get 50 hard lashes."

Joe's face falls but he knows better than to quibble once Brendan has made up his mind.

Rodney and Liam eagerly grab hold of Joe and drag him over to the boulder. There they stretch him out and Brendan systematically whips Joe's wiry brown back and buttocks into a latticework of fiery, swollen weals. With each searing stroke Joe screams, bucks, jerks and writhes against Liam's and Rodney's grip.

Finally the whipping is over and Joe is released. Brendan tosses his rope's end aside and calls the boys together. Joe heaves himself painfully off the boulder, moaning softly and sniffing wetly as he joins the other boys.

"Stop that snivelling, Joe!" Brendan orders, "Or I'll give you something more to cry about!"

At the thought of another whipping Joe's snivelling dries up miraculously.

Brendan quickly allocates tasks to the boys: Liam and Rodney are to cut branches and palm leaves and start making a shelter for all of them to sleep in. Charles and Callum are to fill their only bucket with drinking water from the spring and then gather what food they can find in the form of fruits and coconuts. Ephraim is to gather firewood and then light a small fire. Brendan and Joe will try their hand at fishing and hunting.

The rest of the morning is spent in gathering food and drink and setting up a shelter for when it rains. In the afternoon the boys swim and play on the beach and in the balmy water of the lagoon.

Just before sundown Brendan and Liam climb to the lookout spot on the top of the mountain and look all around to see if there any ships in sight. There are none and Brendan decides that there is no need for anyone to stand watch this night.

When night eventually falls all the boys spread their blankets together on the open beach and lie side by side staring up at the stars and chatting about the events of the day. One by one the boys fall silent and their hearts start thumping as first one and then another reaches out to touch the warm boy flesh alongside him. And then they pair off as their hands explore the familiar ridges, curves and crevasses of each other's smooth young bodies, ever more urgently and insistently as they drive each other to ecstasy. Blessed with the inexhaustible energy, endurance and recovery of strong, healthy youngsters everywhere their playfulness turns into something of an orgy of insatiable boyish lust that goes on for hours until every boy has been with every other boy several times and they surrender themselves finally to sleep.

Brendan and Rodney fall asleep in each other's arms. Brendan is glad that Rodney is still with him, perhaps for good now, but time will tell. Tomorrow will bring what tomorrow brings, but for now Brendan is happy.

The days and weeks pass happily for the boys in the balmy paradise that the islands of the atoll provide for them. With ample water, natural fruits and vegetables, fish, crawfish, prawns, wild pig and other small game ready to hand they want for nothing and, having constructed an adequate shelter in the trees at the edge of the beach, have little to do with their time but play, swim, fish, explore and, of course, indulge to the fullest extent their unquenchable sexual appetites.

Brendan is the unquestioned chieftain of their little tribe. His rule is uncompromising but fair, and the boys quickly learn that as long as they do not cross him, challenge him or disobey him their lives will run a pleasant and pain free course. Do any of these things and retribution is swift and painful.

The only boy who really resents being subject to Brendan's power is Rodney. This is not surprising, given that until recently Brendan, as well as Liam, Callum and Ephraim, had been slaves owned by Rodney's father and had lived in constant terror of Rodney and his whip. Rodney has been brought up to believe in the superiority of his race and its right to rule the world's lesser peoples. These include the Irish, as far as Rodney and all other Englishmen are concerned. Rodney believes that for an English boy to be ruled by an Irish boy is a perversion of the natural order of things and he lives in a state of constant indignation and humiliation at his situation. It sticks in his craw that he is now subject to the whim of a boy who, under the law, is actually still his father's property.

Rodney is certain that his father will come back for his sons when he eventually discovers that they are not on the Shannon, however long it may take to run her down. Until that day comes 3; Rodney dreams with great anticipatory relish of the terrible retribution he will exact from his former slaves 3; especially Brendan. But for now Rodney just grits his teeth and swallows his pride.

Rodney is already awake and sitting up as another glorious dawn breaks over the island and the sun's first prickly rays stab through the palm fringe and reach into the open sided shelter where the rest of the boys are still sleeping in a tangle of naked limbs. He watches as the golden light slowly washes over Brendan, highlighting the curves and bulges of his muscled brown body until eventually it glows like burnished bronze.

Rodney would like to go down to the water and rinse off the dried cum and the other detritus of sex from the night before, but he dare not go until Brendan wakes. As on every other morning, Brendan has a raging morning erection and will want Rodney to service it the moment he wakes up, despite the fact that he was rogering Rodney's arse raw with it barely four hours ago. The last time that he was not at hand to service Brendan's waking sex needs; Rodney had paid for his lapse with fifteen strokes of the rope's end across his arse. He remembered how irritatingly reasonable Brendan had been about it:

"Tell me, Rodney," he had said, "What would you have done if we were back at Morton Hall and I was playing games somewhere else when you needed me to service you?"

Rodney had thought hard about his answer, knowing full well that he would be deciding his own punishment. Eventually he had decided that honesty was the best policy:

"I would have flogged you," he had replied.

"So you would've," Brendan had agreed, "And how many stripes would you have given me?"

"Five?" Rodney had answered, thinking to play it safe.

"I think you would have given me ten," Brendan said, "So I will give you ten also, plus another five for trying to wriggle out of it"

Brendan rolls onto his back and Rodney envies for the thousandth time the sheer bigness of Brendan's erected cock. It is as thick as Rodney's wrist and held proud of his body, together with his large balls, by his cock-ring. The shaft arches clear of his belly along its whole length, just the swollen tip bobbing against his navel in time to his blood pulse.

Without the means to shave on this island Brendan's naturally sparse pubic hairs have sprouted a golden tuft at the base of his cock. Dabs of dried cum from last night's sex cling to these hairs like berries on stalks. His bulging cock is grimed with dried smears of cum and saliva. Rodney grimaces as he realizes that he will soon have to take that big dirty sausage into his mouth. Yet at the same time the thought injects a tremor of life into his own cock, which begins to fill and lengthen where it rests between his legs.

Soon, with his cock at full erection, the pressure on his balls becomes too much for Rodney, and he lifts Brendan's cock as he bends over to take Brendan into his mouth.

Brendan wakes to Rodney wetly slurping Brendan's shaft energetically in and out of his mouth, teasing electric magic out of every nerve-ending in Brendan's long maleness 3;

Half an hour later, their teenage lust momentarily blunted (though never sated) and with a healthy aperitif of each other's cum down their throats, the two boys leave the others still sleeping and sprint down to the water's edge to bathe before going to find some fruit to breakfast on.

As they burst through the line of vegetation onto the beach they nearly run headlong into a group of men advancing up the beach. Both the boys and the men stop dead in their tracks.

Brendan does not recognize any of the men and realizes they are not from the Shannon. Like most sailors in these waters the men are barefoot and shirtless. They are armed but their weapons are sheathed or slung and they are carrying cargo nets and water barrels. They are obviously here to replenish supplies and were clearly not expecting to come across any human beings. Brendan deduces from this, as well as from their wild appearance, that they are not Captain Morton's men either. He looks beyond the men and sees a black-hulled vessel anchored in the lagoon. The ship is flagless and Brendan's heart sinks as he realizes that these men are probably pirates. He curses himself inwardly for discontinuing the lookout that he had started when they were first abandoned on this island.

Rodney also realizes that the men are not from the Shannon, but in his eagerness to be rescued from captivity, he makes the assumption that these must be his father's men.

"I am Rodney Morton," he announces as he steps forward, "Captain Morton's son"

A big fearsome looking man with a black beard and a cutlass scar that runs from his temple across his cheek to the corner of his mouth seems to be in charge. In Brendan's mind he instantly becomes "Scarface". Scarface looks Rodney up and down:

"And who might Captain Morton be?" he growls.

Rodney stops short, realizing that he has mistaken the situation.

Brendan steps forward quickly:

"Don't mind him, Scar 3; I mean Sir," he says, making a circle motion to his temple with a forefinger, "He's a little touched by the sun."

Rodney takes his cue from Brendan and bobs his head, grinning like an idiot.

"Are you boys alone?" the man asks after pausing a while to process this information.

Brendan realizes that no purpose will be served by pretending 3; the foragers will quickly discover the other boys:

"No Sir," he replies "We are seven boys from Captain O'Neill's Shannon. We were left ashore when the Shannon left to evade the English warships that called here"

Scarface looks alarmed.

"English warships you say? When were they here?"

"Just a few days ago, Sir," Brendan fibs.

"I know the Shannon" Scarface says, "Irish captain who privateers for the Spanish, does he not?"

"It is so, Sir," says Brendan.

"Well, go fetch your shipmates here, and let's get you boys off this godforsaken island before the English return."

"Captain O'Neill will be coming for us, Sir, we should wait for him," says Brendan.

Scarface looks through Brendan with eyes like an awl.

"If the English are on his tail he may never come. You are coming with me and that is that!" he says flatly.

Brendan starts walking back slowly with Rodney to where the other boys are still sleeping.

"Get a move on!" Scarface yells after them, "We must be away quickly!"

"Wake up! Wake up!" Brendan says urgently as they shake the other boys awake, "A pirate ship has come! We must get away quickly!"

"No, No!" Rodney argues, "It is our best chance off this island! We must go with them!"

"You stupid idiot!" Brendan snarls, "They are pirates! We will be their prisoners and they will sell us as slaves!"

"You are slaves!" Rodney sneers, "But Charles and I are free Englishmen! I will persuade them to ransom us to our father. Perhaps my father will buy you back too!"

The other boys, just awoken from sleep are bewildered.

"We should do as Brendan says, don't you think, Rodney?" says Charles.

"Shut your mouth, Charles! I am going with these men and you are coming with me. I don't care what the rest of these slaves do!," Rodney says and he takes Charles by the hand.

Charles pulls away, "No! I am staying with Brendan!"

Infuriated, Rodney grabs Charles and starts pulling him in the direction of the beach.

Brendan steps in front of Rodney.

"Leave him be!" he orders, "Go to them if you must, but Charles stays!"

Red-faced with anger Rodney launches himself at Brendan and they go down together, arms and legs flailing and fists pummeling as they grapple in the sand.

The others try to pull apart the fighting boys. Nobody notices that Scarface and his men have moved up and now surround them, their weapons now in hand.

Scarface watches two struggling boys with amusement for a while before he wades into their midst, kicking left and right to separate them.

"Enough of that, ye little beasts!" he roars.

Brendan lies panting on the ground, his eyes shut with fury as he realizes that the slim chance they might have had of escaping has passed. He aims an angry kick at Rodney, who is lying next to him.

Quickly the seven boys are lined up. The pirates tie the boys' wrists together and then link them all to a length of rope to form a human chain before leading them across the beach to the boat. Brendan and Liam dig in their heels and try to resist but they are quickly whipped into submission.

Half an hour later the seven naked boys stand on the deck of the black ship, still tied together and waiting for the captain. They are pressed in by a crowd of villainous looking men and they huddle together instinctively. Brendan's belly lurches momentarily with the familiar mixture of fear and excitement as he recognizes the glint of lust in the men's eyes and the revealing bulges in their trousers. He feels his cock tingling and swelling at the thought of having a man's full sized dick up his arse again after such a long while. He notices Liam's cock responding in a similar way.

Suddenly the throng of men opens to a tall muscular yellow-bearded man with cold blue eyes. Barefoot and shirtless like his crew it is his air of command and authority that sets him apart from them. The sexual butterflies in Brendan's belly flutter with increased vigour and his cock erects instantly.

The Captain notices this and he looks Brendan over for what seems like ages before speaking:

"What have we here?" he asks.

"Boys abandoned by the Shannon when she was surprised by British men o" war a few days ago', answers Scarface, "From their body marks they's captured slave boys, I reckon. They say the Shannon's comin" back for them, but I reckon O'Neill's got a lot more to worry about than a bunch of slave boys just now!' he laughs.

The captain looks at the boys with renewed interest. One by one he feels their muscles, looks into their mouths and runs his hands over their bodies as if appraising horse flesh at a sale. He grunts approvingly.

"Fine strong boys!" he pronounces at last, "Should fetch a good price in the market at Tortuga"

"Sir!," says Rodney, "I am Rodney Morton and this here is my brother Charles. Our father is Captain Morton of Morton Hall on Barbados. These others are my father's slaves, stolen by Captain O'Neill in a raid. My father would reward you handsomely if you were to return my brother and I to him. I am certain he would even make you a gift of these slaves"

The captain stares at Rodney coldly.

"A likely story, brat!," he says at last, "How is it then that ye bear the same slave marks as these others?"

"My brother and I had ourselves done like this just for fun, you see," Rodney explains slowly, as if talking to a simpleton.

The captain flushes suddenly in anger. He reaches out and slaps Rodney so hard against the side of his head that he staggers and almost falls.

"Do ye take me for a fool?" the captain snarls menacingly.

"Uh 3; uh 3;. No Sir! I would never do that Sir!" Rodney stutters.

"Put them all in irons!" the captain orders, "Except this one," pointing to Rodney, "I want to teach him a lesson in manners!"

Crew members bring chains and irons and soon all the boys except Rodney are shackled hand and foot and linked to a length of chain that is bolted at each end to the deck.

Rodney is led over to the fife rail at the foot of the main mast and made to kneel on the deck in front of it while ropes are unhitched from the belaying pins and bound to each wrist. Then two sailors pull on the other end of the ropes and hoist him up until he is hanging two feet off the deck, his arms stretched above him in a 'V' shape. Rodney groans in pain as his wrists take the full weight of his body. Now the sailors hitch the ends of the ropes on the fife rail and set about tying other ropes to Rodney's ankles and running them through pulleys shackled to the deck, stretching his legs apart.

They adjust the ropes so that Rodney is wholly suspended in the air, spread-eagled in the shape of an 'X'. They pull hard on each rope until it is tensioned like a piano wire. With each pull it feels to Rodney as if his wrists and ankles are being torn apart and he screams in agony. The ropes cut into his skin and beads of blood turn the white hemp pink.

The other boys squat on the deck and watch these preparations with the mixture of fear and excited anticipation that they have learned to associate with both observing and experiencing bodily punishment and torture. Their tingling cocks begin slowly to swell and lengthen where they hang down between their haunches. Unashamed, Callum and Joe begin to finger the tips of their stiffening cocklets.

From a barrel of sea water lashed to the taff rail Scarface fishes out a coil of plaited rope, thick as a boy's wrist at the butt and tapering to a point which ends in a single strand of knotted whipcord. He swishes and cracks this whip a few times through the air behind Rodney, lacing his back with a spray of water that glistens briefly on Rodney's teak coloured skin before drying rapidly into traces of white salt.

By now Rodney is whimpering with pain and terror.

"Lay it on from shoulder to arse!" orders the captain.

Scarface steps back and shakes out the whip's coil. Then he flings his arm out behind him. The instant the lash straightens out he takes a quick step toward Rodney and expertly snaps the lash forward and across, making it whistle as it cuts through the warm air and cracks across the bunched muscles of Rodney's shoulder blades. The knotted whipcord scours a fiery line across his sun toughened skin that springs instantly into a thin raised welt which soon begins to ooze tiny droplets of blood. With fists clenched and toes curled, Rodney's body jerks violently against the ropes holding him. The shock instantly propels all the breath out of his lungs. His throat rasps hoarsely as he struggles to regain his breath. The moment his lungs fill with air again Rodney lets out a shrill scream of anger and pain and his whole body shudders and writhes in the ropes.

Rodney's scream has just barely subsided into sobbing when the lash bites into his back again. Another piercing scream wells up out of his throat and his body thrashes helplessly in the ropes.

"Oh please, sir, please! 3; no more, please!," Rodney begs, all his arrogance evaporated in two searing strokes.

For answer Scarface lays a third searing stroke against Rodney's back.

"Nooo 3; Please, noooo!" Rodney screams and sobs.

By now Brendan's prodigious cock is rock hard and pressing against the muscles of his belly. He wraps the fingers of one big hand around his shaft and starts pumping it.

The captain spots what Brendan is doing. He quickly steps up to Brendan and swings his big bare foot hard into Brendan's balls. Brendan yelps in surprise and doubles over with pain.

"Get your hand off it!" the captain snarls at Brendan, "It doesn't belong to you - it belongs to me!"

The other boys who had all been fingering their cocks jerk their hands away in sudden fear.

"Yes sir! Sorry sir!" Brendan apologizes.

"Yes sir! You're going to be much sorrier soon sir," the captain sneers. He turns to Scarface and orders

"When you're finished with that one, give this one a dusting too!"

"Aye, cap'n!," Scarface grins, "It'll be my pleasure!"

It takes Scarface twenty strokes to work his way down from Rodney's shoulders to the top of his thighs. When he finally allows Rodney to be taken down, the boy collapses face down on the deck, barely conscious. A sailor drags him out of the way and tosses a bucket of seawater over him to revive him before shackling him to the other boys.

Meanwhile Brendan is released from his irons and strung up with the same ropes, ready to be flogged.

Scarface leaves Brendan hanging in the sun for some time while he refreshes himself with a flagon of beer.

Brendan is determined to show Rodney up by taking his whipping without screaming. So when the first sizzling stroke lashes across his muscled shoulder blades, his teeth clench, the veins in his neck stand out and his whole body tenses and quivers but nothing more than an agonized hiss of air escapes his lips.

The captain raises an eyebrow and looks Brendan over with new interest. He sees a handsome and exceptionally well-made boy with a wild thatch of bleached blonde hair and blue eyes. The boy has a superb musculature under smooth golden brown skin. He boasts a phenomenally big cock for his age, held proud of his groin by a steel cock-ring and still half erect despite his pain. His firm, well-rounded butt makes the captain's belly lurch. His thighs and calves are thick with bulging muscle and his broad leather-soled feet are high-arched and beautifully formed.

Scarface lays a fiery latticework of welts across Brendan's back and buttocks but fails to elicit anything more than agonized grunts and low moans from him. After twenty strokes he stops but the captain motions him to carry on, intrigued to know at what point Brendan will break.

During the next ten strokes Brendan's chest heaves with quiet sobs and his moans become a little louder with each bite of the whip, but Brendan does not scream.

Finally the captain decides Brendan has been punished enough and he orders him released. Brendan falls to his knees but immediately struggles to his feet and walks unsteadily back to his place in the slave chain.

By now it is about noon and the sun is bright and hot. The boys are left chained on deck as the pirates skillfully manouevre their ship out of the lagoon and into the open sea.

A brisk wind carries the vessel quickly out of sight of land. The boys spend the night huddled together on the bare planks of the deck. A rainsquall adds to their miseries but it is mercifully brief and they finally fall asleep.

The next morning they are woken by Scarface releasing them one by one from their irons.

"Cap'n says if ye want to jump overboard and swim back to the island ye're welcome to try," he says, guffawing at the joke.

"Ye will be loosed from the chain in daylight so ye can work. At night yez'll be shackled to the chain unless ye're needed for other services!"

The boys rub their wrists and ankles, relieved to be free of the shackles.

After being fed and watered they are put to work scrubbing the decks, carrying water, polishing metalwork, caulking planking and performing the many menial labours that keep a sailing ship functioning at sea.

As slaves they have no berths of their own.

"Ye'll lay yer heads here on deck along the slave chain," Scarface tells them, "Though I daresay some of ye will be sharing the berths of the officers more often than not!"

"Can we get pallets or mats to sleep on?" Charles asks.

Scarface laughs loudly.

"Sure ye can go down and draw feather mattresses from the storeman!," he says sarcastically.

"Can we go now?" Charles asks innocently.

"No, ye little scamp," Scarface yells, clipping Charles hard against the side of his head, "Ye don't get mattresses to sleep on! Who d'ye think ye are? Ye sleep on the bare deck like the slaves ye are!"

Charles lifts his arm to shield himself from another blow.

"Oh 3; I'm sorry sir 3; I thought 3;" says Charles.

"Don't think!," Scarface says, "Get to work!"

Scarface works the boys hard all day. He sets a villainous looking petty officer, inappropriately named "Angel" to watch over them. Apparently he is a Spaniard and his name is really Angelo.

"But he ain't no "Angel o'Mercy", I can promise ye," Scarface explains with an exaggerated wink at the petty officer.

Angel carries a length of hemp rope; its ends whipped and dipped in tar, which is used to "encourage" deck hands to move quicker and to work harder and faster. The boys know it from their time on the Shannon as a "rope's end" or a "starter". He uses it liberally on the boys all day and frequently there are anguished yelps from one or more of the boys as the rough rope bites into his straining, sweating flesh. By the end of the day every boy has felt its sting across his back or his arse several times.

At last the long, hot and dreary day comes to an end. The exhausted boys, muscles aching and bodies sticky with sweat and grime, are finally ordered back to the slave chain and the steel shackles are once again clamped about their wrists and ankles.

Angel makes them stand in a line and inspects them from the rear. He counts the welts traced across their backs and arses by his "starter". Liam has the most welts, ten in all. Angel clips Liam against the back of his head with a hard hand.

"You, boy, you got the most lashes today, are you proud of yourself?"

Liam grins like he had won a competition.

"I can take it, Sir, I'm the toughest boy on this ship," he says proudly.

"Most lashes means you was the laziest boy on this ship today!" Angel leers at him, "On your knees! Let's see how tough you really are!"

A crestfallen Liam sinks to his knees. Rodney and Brendan are ordered to grip a wrist each and stretch Liam's arms out sideways while Angel fishes the whip out of the barrel of brine.

"You got ten lashes with the rope's end 3; now you get twenty with the whip!"

Liam's face blanches under his teak brown tan, but he bites his lip, determined to prove his toughness under the whip.

For the next ten minutes Angel slowly and systematically overlays Liam's rope welted back and buttocks with twenty searing slices of the whip, laid on with the practised skill of an overseer of slaves, which is what Angel was before taking to the life of a pirate.

Crew members gather silently to watch the entertainment, openly fingering the bulges straining against the fronts of their breeches. All that can be heard, other than the sound of the wind in the rigging and the creaking of the ship, is the hiss and crack of the whip as it bites into Liam's muscled flesh and Liam's stifled grunts of pain. Every one of the boys also has a hard and quivering erection, but they know better by now than to touch their cocks

Finally, it is over and Liam's arms are released. He collapses onto the deck but pride drives him to get up quickly and he stands swaying in the line of slave boys, white-knuckled hands gripping his hips and his face contorted with pain.

"What have you learned, boy?" asks Angel.

"I 3; will 3; work harder 3; tomorrow 3; Sir," Liam hisses painfully through clenched teeth.

"We will see!," says Angel.

The Captain has been observing Liam's punishment from the rail of the quarterdeck. Now he calls out:

"When the slaves have been fed, wash down that red-haired boy and the big tow-head next to him and send them to my cabin!"

"Aye Cap'n!" says Angel before turning to Liam and Brendan:

"I hope for your sakes your arses have been well stretched. If you're virgins, Gawd help you, you're gonna get your bums split wide open tonight!"

"We not virgins!" Brendan replied scornfully, and then, proudly, "We had more real men's cocks up our bums than you had breakfasts!"

"Oh ho! Is that so now?" laughed Angel, "Let's see what you'll be saying tomorrow morning when the Cap'n kicks your bleeding arses outta his cabin!"

Despite his bravado, a shadow passes over Brendan's face at these words. He had seen the massive bulge in the Captain's breeches and he suspected that the Captain may prove to be more than a match for the biggest he and his cousin had experienced thus far.

But his momentary anxiety is quickly overtaken by the sense of excitement and anticipation that had set his belly lurching when he first saw the Captain the day before. After two whole days without sexual release Brendan feels like his balls are about to burst and his fully erected cock is already leaking precum.

An hour later, fed and washed, Liam and Brendan follow Angel to the Captain's cabin. Their ankle irons have been removed but their wrist irons have been left on. They hold the shackles at the ends of the lengths of chain in their hands to stop them dragging on the deck. Angel carries the whip he used earlier on Liam, now coiled in his hand, and two large wooden belaying pins that he pulled out of a fife rail (Belaying pins are meant for tying down the ends of the rope halyards used to haul up sails and they look like truncheons or, perhaps, like dildos. A fife rail is a strong wooden rail with a row of holes into which the belaying pins are inserted).

The boys' hearts thump in their chests and their bellies wobble with fear and anticipation as Angel raps his knuckles on the cabin door.

"Come!," the Captain calls and Angel motions the two boys inside.

The Captain has his back to them as he completes his ablutions in front of a small mirror. He is naked and Brendan feels his belly lurch once again as he looks over the Captain's hugely muscled body.

Angel tells the boys to kneel on the deck and shackles their wrist chains to a large steel ring bolted through the deck. The Captain half turns at the sound of clinking chains.

"Did you remember the implements, Angelo?"

"Aye, Cap'n," Angel says, holding up the salt water soaked whip and the belaying pins for the Captain to see.

"Leave them on the table," the Captain orders.

"Aye, Cap'n," Angel obliges and leaves the cabin.

Brendan and Liam kneel quietly on the deck while the Captain finishes what he is doing, scarcely daring to breathe.

Eventually, the Captain turns and looks them over. Both boys' jaws drop at the sight of the improbably huge python hanging down between the Captain's legs halfway to his knees. Brendan's anus nips involuntarily at the thought of that gigantic cock rock hard and ramming into his arse. He realizes that, as skilled and as practised as the two of them are in the arts of man sex, they are about to experience a whole new level and a whole lot of pain. As usual, though, the expectation arouses him at the same time, so that his own cock, permanently half erected as a result of his slave cock ring, starts to swell and harden into a full erection.

The Captain pads over to the table on his big bare feet and picks up one of the belaying pins. The lower part is a cylindrical rod about a foot long and one and a half inches in diameter. This is the part that is inserted into a hole in the fife rail. The upper part, which is about ten inches long, has a flare of about three inches in diameter at its base, narrows quickly to about two inches and then swells gradually into an elongated bulb at the head which is about three inches in diameter.

The Captain holds the rod end and smacks the bulb end repeatedly into the palm of his other hand as he approaches the boys. Brendan tenses his body. The Captain obviously intends either to bludgeon them with it or shove it up their arses. He can't think what else he might do with it. He is not sure which would be more painful but thinks he would probably prefer to have it shoved up his arse.

"Get down on your knees and elbows, boy, with your arse in the air!" the Captain orders Brendan.

The Captain hands the belaying pin to Liam.

"Get that up your mate's arse!," he orders, "I want to see the thick part go in all the way down to the base here. If he can take that up his arse my cock won't damage him too much to heal in time for the market"

Liam takes the belaying pin and shuffles over on his knees to Brendan's upturned bum. He spits liberally on the bulging head of the pin while he rubs the middle finger of his other hand in small circles against Brendan's sphincter to tease it open. Brendan's well-trained ring quickly flexes open and the Captain murmurs his appreciation of the circular hole that beckons so invitingly between the perfect orbs of Brendan's butt cheeks.

"You have been well trained, boy, that is plain to see. Now let's see if you can handle the girth."

Liam places the saliva coated head of the pin against Brendan's hole and begins to push. With a lot of grunting and grimacing from Brendan, Liam manages to get the pin almost to the widest part of the bulge, where it sticks and will not go any further. Liam pulls it out momentarily, spits all over it once more and tries again. Again it gets stuck in the same place, as if Brendan's sphincter has reached its maximum stretching point. Brendan rises up onto his toes, spreads his legs further apart and twists and contorts his body in an effort to coax the thick wooden pin inside him.

Liam looks at the Captain pleadingly:

"Sir, it won't go in!," he says.

"Of course it will! You're not trying hard enough!" says the Captain as he pads over to the table, picks up the whip and shakes out its coils.

The Captain flings the whip back over his should and brings it whistling through the air to crack against Liam's back. Caught by surprise, Liam yells in pain and renews his efforts to get the stubborn belaying through Brendan's reluctant sphincter.

As Liam does so, the whip lash cuts across his back once more. Again he yells his pain and scrabbles to get the belaying pin in. Brendan too is moaning loudly at the excruciating pain radiating throughout his whole body from his anus.

A third time the lash bites into Liam's back. Liam shrieks and at the same time slams his callused palm against the butt end of the belaying pin in a frantic effort to force it in. Finally it slides through the opening to the accompaniment of an agonised scream from Brendan as the flesh of his anus tears and a small trickle of blood moves down the inside of his leg.

A few more shoves and the thick belaying pin is entirely buried in Brendan's arse.

With another crack of the whip across Liam's back the Captain orders:

"Now fuck him with it 3; hard!"

Liam grips the protruding rod with both hands, draws it slowly almost all the way out and then strains to push it all the way back in again, with Brendan all the while moaning and arching his back in pain.

The whip snakes through the air and leaves another livid stripe over Liam's back.

"Faster, boy, faster!" the Captain orders.

Liam starts pumping the fat makeshift dildo as fast as he can in and out of Brendan's straining arsehole. Slowly Brendan's moans of pain turn to moans of pleasure.

The Captain notices with approval that Brendan's big cock has remained ramrod stiff throughout his painful ordeal, as indeed has Liam's.

"Very well, that's enough!" says Captain.

A flicker of disappointment flits across Brendan's face.

"Leave it inside him!" the Captain orders as he fetches the other belaying pin from the table and hands it to Brendan.

"Now you get that into your mate's arse, and quickly," the Captain directs, flicking the whip menacingly.

Liam lifts his arse to receive the belaying pin and Brendan hastily shuffles over on his knees to do the Captain's bidding.

Brendan finds it no easier than Liam did and he takes several new stripes across his back before he finally manages to get it all the way in and pumping in and out of his moaning cousin's arse.

Then the Captain orders Brendan to remove the belaying pin from his own arse. He does so with some difficulty. The Captain unshackles Brendan from the steel ring and when he stands up the Captain shoves him in the direction of his bunk. Brendan scrambles onto the bunk and flips onto his back, pulling his knees all the way to his shoulders and spreading his butt cheeks with his big hard hands to expose his fuckhole, now gaping wide open in welcome, for the Captain. His eyes widen in alarm at the sight of the Captain's enormous erected penis, quite simply the largest Brendan has ever seen. Even the Shannon's Bosun's cock seems insignificant by comparison and feelings of panic well up in Brendan's chest.

The Captain grabs Brendan by the back of the neck and pulls him up before slapping him hard against the side of the head and dropping him back onto the mattress.

"Don't you presume to know what I want, boy! Wait until you are told!"

"Yes Sir! Sorry Sir!" Brendan splutters, his head reeling.

"Get up and suck my cock!" the Captain demands.

Brendan hastily scrambles onto his knees and lowers his head to take the huge swollen head of the Captain's cock into his wide mouth. The Captain puts both of his huge hands on the back of Brendan's head and shoves downward until his cock rams into the top of Brendan's throat. Brendan struggles, chokes and splutters but there is no getting away. The Captain's cock fills his mouth to breaking point and Brendan is simply unable to ply his exceptional skills with tongue and lips, so the Captain is left no alternative but to face fuck Brendan, which he does roughly and vigorously.

After a while the Captain pulls his monstrous cock out of Brendan's mouth and throat and slaps him again along the side of his head by way of getting him to lie on his back. He lifts Brendan's legs by the backs of his knees and forces his thighs back against Brendan's shoulders, his knees at his ears, with his arsehole riding up high and exposed. Brendan reaches down his sides and spreads his butt cheeks apart to open the way even further for the Captain's cock. The Captain pushes his great purple cockhead against Brendan's hole and roughly tries to enter. A few inches in and it seems to get stuck. The Captain edges forward on his knees and arches his back preparatory to forcing an entry, rather like a battering ram being pulled back on its swing before being sent crashing against the fortress door. Then, with all the power at his disposal, the Captain thrusts his battering ram against Brendan's sphincter and breaks through. Brendan screams in pain. He puts his feet against the Captain's chest and tries to push him away, but the Captain is too big, too heavy and too strong. Brendan feels like his bum is being split open as the Captain's enormous hard dick ploughs deep inside him.

Again and again the Captain's cock pistons into Brendan and Brendan's screams fill the cabin. Scarface hears them where he paces the quarterdeck above and he chuckles and winks at the helmsman, who sniggers:

"Them boys is gonna walk funny the rest of the week, Mr Mate"

"Aye, if they can walk at all!" laughs Scarface.

"They looks like a strong pair o" boys, Mr Mate, I reckons they can take it and more', opines the helmsman.

"Aye, ye may be right," Scarface replies, "Not like that little nancy boy we took off the Frenchman last time!"

"Great pity that was 3; and such a pretty lad too"

"Aye, nearly crippled the lad 3; could hardly give him away at market 3; lucky he was taken up by a bleeding heart or we'd have had to drop him in the drink"

"Poor lad 3; orphaned into slavery like that"

Scarface looked at the helmsman in surprise.

"As I recall, you was the one that orphaned him!"

"Well, the papa tried to resist my taking of the boy, so I had to cut him down. And then his mama made such a vile fuss about it that I had no choice but to split her skull too!"

Scarface laughs at the recollection.

Just then fresh screaming signals that the Captain was now plumbing the depths of Liam's fuck channel.

Huddled together on the deck in the waist of the ship the other slave boys hear the screaming too and stared at each wide-eyed in terror. Charles started to cry.

Rodney put his arm around Charles to comfort him.

"Don't cry, Charlie," he said, "You're too little for them to do that to you"

'I'm not crying for me' Charles sniffled, 'I'm crying for Liam and Brendan. What if that mean man kills them?

Rodney wanted to retort, "I hope he does!" but he did not.

"Don't worry, Charlie, Brendan and Liam are tough and strong. They're hard as nails. They'll be alright"

"I hope so, Rodney," Charles said wet-nosedly, "I do hope so. What would we do without them?"

What indeed? Rodney thought to himself, though he hated to admit it.

Eventually the screaming stopped and there was a long period of silence which had the boys wondering in terror what had become of Brendan and Liam.

An hour later there is more lusty bellowing from Brendan and Liam, showing that they are still very much alive and kicking. The other slave boys are so relieved to hear this that they all quickly succumb to the exhaustion that has overtaken them. The morrow will in due course reveal the secrets of the night.

NEXT PART