When he came to, Carl found that he was lying on a cot in a small cell, dimly lit by a single luminance plate. When he tried to move, he discovered that both his wrists and ankles were shackled. He slowly recalled being assaulted and drugged in his barracks room. Unsure of what had happened to him, he forced himself to relax, using meditation exercises—while awaiting his fate.
It was perhaps an hour later that the cell door opened and two men entered. That they were pirates was clear from their garb. One was an enormous black man with a powerful physique, the other a small white man who was bald, wiry and had a short, grizzled beard. They said nothing, but lifted him up. The black man then slung him effortlessly over one shoulder and carried him in this way, out of the cell and along a ha
