picture of white buttocks, and voluptuous female flesh writhing and twisting and struggling in a most outrageous fashion to hide themselves from the view of these prurient male eyes which seemed to gloat over the helplessness of their intended victim.
After a few moments, the leader made sign to his acolytes, who immediately began very carefully and slowly to draw back the panting woman's dress, which they folded back as far as her waist. Then they served a stout travelling flannel petticoat in the same way, and also a rose-coloured silk petticoat that she wore next to her drawers.
This latter article of feminine toilette calls for special remark. There is great psychological significance in the quality of woman's drawers. We firmly believe, with the talented author of an extraordinary book, which in itself is a perfect exposition of the philosophy of female discipline, — that the tightness or roominess of ladies' drawers exercises inevitably a most powerful influence upon their sexual desires and morals.
We take the liberty of digressing for a moment to quote a passage from that classic of flagellation literature: “The Mysteries of Verbena House, or Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving, attributed to George Augustus Sala, who is said to have been a most notorious flagellator. A passage which should be written out in letters of gold and hung up in the chief room of every thorough-going English family: “The greatest enemy of woman's chastity is contact. Let her wear her things loose and she may keep her blood cool. Nuns — continental Ones at least — don't Wear drawer's. Peasant women, who are chaste enough as times go, don't wear drawers; and when they stoop you may see the bare flesh of their thighs above their ungartered stockings. But the bigger the whore — professional or otherwise — the nicer will be the drawers she wears, while the prude, or the cantankerous old maid will either wear the most hideous breeches imaginable, or none at all. I positively knew a lady once who not only repudiated drawers herself, but would not allow her daughters to wear them.”
The drawers worn by Mrs. Sinclair were of the finest cambric texture, fringed and most beautifully embroidered.
They seemed to cling to her skin with the caress of a man's hand, and were quite warm from the contact of her body. They were what we should call “indecent” drawers, for they could not have failed to give birth in the bosom — and something else — of their charming wearer to most voluptuous feelings.
At a further sign of the leader, one of the men produced a pair of scissors, and proceeded ruthlessly to cut away the strings and tapes that bound them. The second subordinate then tore them off, and exposed her naked bottom, laying bare the most wonderful riches that it has ever been the lot of man to gaze upon. For such a sight the Turkish Sultan would have given all the treasures of his palace, and an American nabob would have bartered all the auriferous Mines of Klondyke for one view through the carriage window.
But the train still tore on its mad, headlong course, and the Turkish Sultan slept between the thighs of his favourite odalisque, little dreaming of such a scene as this.
Her buttocks, though rather small, were exquisitely shaped, and the flesh was firm, and beautifully white, and smooth. Angry and helpless as Brandon was at the thought that he could not help his mistress, he was struck by her charms, and despite himself, his tool stood stiffly, and he could not help confessing that if he would have liked to have birched that pretty little bottom it would only have been to a sufficient degree to give a higher zest to the delicious poking which would have followed.
She blushed scarlet when she found her body exposed to the gaze of five men, and the blush suffused her whole body making her well-rounded buttocks flush a rosy red.
“Shall we gag her?” asked one of the men.
“I should like to enjoy her screams,” I replied the big man, “and then should know for certain she was feeling her punishment, but I suppose it is better to be on the safe side, so you had better gag her in case her screams should be heard.”
The third man quickly tied a handkerchief loosely over her mouth, leaving her nose free, in order that she might breathe.
“It is a pity we have not a birch rod,” said her brother-in-law, “we could have tickled up her arse in fine style, but I suppose we shall have to give her the strap.”
“You will find a nice pliable cane amongst my sticks and umbrellas,” said one of the men. “Here, up in the rack.”
The giant went to the place indicated, and found a long thin pliable cane, which he swished in the air half-a- dozen times.
“Yes, this will make the little bitch jump,” he said, “but I will prepare the way for it by first giving her a dozen with the strap.”
He twirled the strap in the air, and brought it down with a dexterous sharp jerk across her buttocks diagonally from the left flank to the right thigh. A bright red band marked the expanse of white.
Shifting his position slightly, he brought down the strap again and this time it was followed by a red mark which crossed the bottom in the other direction.
“By Jove!” said one of the men who was holding her down, “you have marked her bottom with St. Andrew's Cross.
“And now it looks something like the Union Jack,” said Sinclair, as he brought down the strap straight across both cheeks of her arse.
The woman had borne the pain pretty well. Though her pretty bottom was bright red all over long before the twelfth blow had fallen, the pain though severe was not intolerable, and she only moaned and sobbed, more with the thought that her naked person was exposed to the lustful gaze of so many men rather than from the physical pain she suffered.
“The tawse doesn't seem to have hurt her much,” said one of the men.
“No, but it has made her nice and tender for the cane,” replied the big man. “You had better handle that, Jock, and I will take your place and hold her down. I am a bit too heavy-handed, and I might hurt her too much — besides you are a schoolmaster and ought to know how to apply a cane properly.
“You bet I do,” said the man grimly. “You hold her, and I'll soon show you.
The two changed places, and the schoolmaster raising the cane above his shoulder, brought it down smartly with a quick motion of his forearm. Instantly a thin white line crossed the bright red buttocks, but it disappeared again and gave place to a livid weal.
The effect of the cut on Mrs. Sinclair was remarkable. She uttered what would have been a piercing shriek if the handkerchief had not stopped it in a great measure, and her struggles were so great that the two strong men who were holding her were hardly able to keep her still.
Down came the cane again, and another weal marked her bottom, and the woman, in her vain efforts to shield her cruelly treated bottom, tried to turn over, and despite the two men holding her, turned completely on her
