there seemed too small for lethal purposes. Next, her glance lit on the nearest chair. It had spindle legs and was quite light, so she had no doubts about her power to lift and swing it. But it was within a few feet of him. Could she reach and grab its back before he reached out and seized her?
Her momentary hesitation proved her undoing. He was already up on his knees again. As she darted forward he drew back his right arm and hit her with all his strength in the stomach.
With a gasp of agony she doubled up. Coming to his feet he clutched her by the shoulders, swung her round, and threw her backward on to the bed. Every flicker of breath had been driven from her lungs. The pain in her middle was excruciating. Momentarily she was blinded by it so utterly that she was incapable of movement. Now he had her at his mercy. His eyes aflame, blood running down his cheek, slobbering at the mouth, he muttered, 'You white bitch! You white bitch!' and flung himself at her.
Her determination to resist returned, but the blow in the stomach had drained the strength from her limbs. She could struggle only feebly. Tears were running from her eyes and her mind was distraught with anguish. She felt that she would never be clean again; that, for the rest of her life, she would loathe the lovely body she had been given. To go through life with the knowledge that as the result of her own folly she had suffered such degradation was too much. Drug or no drug, how could she ever excuse herself for having invited her husband's murderer to become her lover? There was only one thing for it. As soon as she could get away she must kill herself. The Thames was only a few hundred yards distant. She would go straight to the embankment and throw herself into the river.
While these appalling thoughts flashed through her brain, her wind was coming back. Now she suddenly opened her mouth and snapped viciously with her teeth. They met in his lower lip.
He let out a yelp of pain, threw up his hands and grabbed her by the throat. For a second time that night she knew the foretaste of strangulation. As his thumbs compressed her windpipe, her teeth unclosed, releasing his lip. He jerked his head back and again cursed her in his native tongue.
Her stomach still felt as though it had been kicked by a mule, but the strength was ebbing back into her muscles. She made a new attempt to throw him off, but he had a firmer grip on her than before. With an awful sinking feeling she knew that she was nearly finished. Another few moments and she would be compelled to cease her struggles from complete exhaustion.
While doing his utmost to keep her still, he was looking down into her eyes. Suddenly she realized that he had now decided to hypnotize her into obedience. Recalling how swiftly Honorius had succeeded in rendering her unconscious, she instantly shut her eyes and renewed her efforts to break free. By now her breath had returned to her. Hate, rage, agony, loathing and despair, all combined into one impulse. Opening her mouth she shouted, 'Oh God! Help! Save me! Help!'
This desperate struggle had occupied only a few minutes, and during them she had needed all her breath to fight off her attacker. Even now, as instinct forced the despairing cry from her,
she was vaguely aware of its futility; for if anyone did chance to hear it and came in to see what was the matter, being of the Brotherhood they would side with Ratnadatta.
Nevertheless, he attempted to stifle her cries by clamping a hand over her mouth. Snapping her teeth again she bit into the lower part of his middle finger. With an imprecation he dragged his hand away. Hysterical now, she recommenced her screaming. 'Help! Murder! Help! Help! Help!'
With his open hand he slapped her face. Momentarily that silenced her. She moaned and twisted her head from side to side, but there was little else she could do. With a bitterness beyond description, she knew that she was at the end of her tether.
Neither she nor Ratnadatta heard the door open, and both of them were taken by complete surprise when a loud, deep man's voice enquired from close by:
'What the heck is going on here?'
As though a magic wand had been waved, for a moment the struggling couple seemed frozen into complete immobility. Only the rasping of their breath broke the silence of the quiet room. Then Ratnadatta turned his head in the direction from which the voice had come. At the same moment Mary took a quick peep between her lashes. Seeing that he was no longer looking down at her, she slapped a hand on to the side of his face and thrust him violently away. The impulse from her thrust threw him back on to his feet. Letting go of her he swung round to face the newcomer.
Mary sat up and also turned in his direction. Instantly she recognized him as the fair-haired colossus who had picked her up off her feet on the night she had been presented as a neophyte. He stood a good six feet five and was broad with it. She had thought of him as about thirty, but when she had seen him before he had been wearing a mask; now that she had a clear view of his features, she judged him to be in his early forties.
His forehead was broad but not high, his nose a great hook, his mouth a thin hard line, his chin aggressive and deeply cleft in the centre. In striking contrast to his ash-blond hair, his eyes were black and his complexion ruddy. An ethnologist would have graded him at once as a cross between a Scandinavian and a Red Indian. Too overwrought to feel any surprise at the fact, she saw that he was wearing the uniform of an American officer. Actually, it was that of a Colonel in the United States Air Force.
Launching herself forward, she ran past Ratnadatta and fell on her knees in front of the hook-nosed giant. Hinging her arms round his legs, she wailed, 'Oh save me! Help me! Save me from this fiend!'
The deep, slightly husky, voice came again, addressing the Indian.
'Say now, what's all this in aid of?'
'For you it has nothing to do,' Ratnadatta replied angrily. 'Plees to leave this room. It ees private.'
'I wouldn't like to get you wrong,' the Colonel's husky voice was lazy, 'but am I to understand that you're telling me to get out?'
There was a moment's pause, then the reply came: 'I tell you only that this ees private matter. With you nothing to do.'
'Is that so. Well, happen I'm curious. Private or no, I'd like to hear about it.'
'You haf no right. . .' the Indian began, but the American cut him short.
'None of us has any rights, son, 'cept those we take. An' I take plenty. Spill it!'
'I tell you, then. This woman ees neophyte. Tonight she become initiate. She must perform Service to Temple. I
