Immediately, a blood-curdling cry, inhuman in its agony, came from the tortured body of the victim.
This pitiless blow was succeeded by another of precisely the same nature on the same spot. Then the voice, hoarse with torture, of Miss Virginia was heard:
'Forgive me! Forgive me!'
'We will discuss the question of your forgiveness presently, Miss.'
A third violent blow was directed at the delicate membrane.
'Oh! Stop! In the name of pity! Have done! I can't endure any more! Oh l I shall die of it! Have pity!'
'Did not I tell you so, Miss?'
'Oh! Have mercy!… Everything that you desire… I will do… My lady! My dear, good mistress; have pity upon me!'
'I have already told you, Miss, that I shall have no pity.'
'Oh! You are killing me!'
'No But I have not finished. The blood has not yet flowed, but this will make it!'
She had stepped to one side and raised herself on tiptoe. Then she lifted her whip on high and brought it down with a slashing blow across the buttocks.
The poor young lady gave a piercing cry, a yell of real agony.
'And here's another for the sake of variety!' said Lady Flayskin, striking a blow at right angles to the preceding one.
'Presently the marks will swell up. I shall then beat them. The skin will burst and the blood spurt out.'
The girl was now in a pitiful condition. Beside herself with pain and terror, she uttered, in hoarse feeble tones, words without meaning, intermingled with faint cries and sobs.
The head-mistress addressed her.
'Well! Are you still as proud as before?'
'Oh! Oh! No!'
'I hope not indeed! Are you now disposed to obey me humbly and absolutely?'
'Oh! Oh! Oh! Yes!'
'I think so too: Nor do I think you will readily forget the respect you owe me. To make assurance doubly sure, here is something with which to engrave the memory of this duty upon your mind. As for me, I always keep my word. There is the noble red blood spouting from your behind. And I have not yet ter minated…'
It was true. The flesh which had swollen as the result of one of the first blows, had broken, and though the blood did not, as the 154
directress averred, spout out, it nevertheless was oozing forth.
If it had been the design of the directress to increase her victim's terror by her highly coloured words, she fully succeeded.
It is probable that if at this particular moment, the two under-mistresses had not kept a very firm hold of the handkerchief which bound the victim's wrists, the poor girl would have fallen backwards, her body pulled over by the heavy weight of the hinder parts. She had fainted. The fact was established for certain when not so much as the slightest movement responded to the next blow. Not a groan was heard. It seemed the silence of death.
In such cases, the directress was wont to cease flogging immediately. Attentions of an energetic, if not very tender nature were lavished on the sufferer.
The present case offered no exception in this respect.
The two strong maid-servants, who shortly before had given such powerful aid in over coming the resistance of the young scholar, now re-entered the room. They had been dismissed so soon as the wrists of the victim had been firmly bound by the handkerchiefs of the under-mistresses, and in accordance with their instructions had waited outside the door until summoned to re-enter.
Lady Flayskin had used smelling-salts to the fainting girl, and poor Miss Virginia at length feebly opened her eyes. She looked around her in a dazed way and then whept showers of tears.
The two maids took hold of her, one under the armpits, the other by the feet, and in this way they carried her from the room. The scholars were conscious of an indescribable feeling of agitation although not a word was spoken. A feeling of terror and a deep strirring of the sensibilities were the chief effects of this scene upon those who wit nessed it.
CHAPTER VI
For several days the girl was very ill. She lay upon her stomach in bed and cried out with terror so often as the maids pulled down the bedclothes with the charitable object of rubbing some oil into the skin of the injured parts.
I was well again before she was. It is true that my own whipping was mere child's play in comparison with that to which the cruelty of the head-mistress had treated her, with the object of crushing her haughty dis position once for all.
When she returned to her lessons, therefore, I was able to witness the effects produced.
Ah, what gentleness of expression! What humility of mien! Strange indeed was the contrast between this timorous self-effacement and those haughty airs we had witnessed when first she came among us! She now seemed fearful of exciting the least attention. Directly the head-mistress entered the class-room, every eye was turned upon Miss Virginia. The girl dropped her head upon her bosom; her face was strangely pale and she trembled like a leaf.
Lady Flayskin signed to her to follow her. Miss Malville obeyed instantly.
After her interview with the head-mistress, she was even paler than when she rose to leave the room, while she appeared to have difficulty in making the least movement. Her waist had become smaller and it was plain that she wore a corset very tightly laced. Her elegant buckled shoes she wore no longer, but, instead, high boots with high heels of an exaggerated type, excessively arched at the instep.
We were not long in learning what had transpired. For, in this establishment, the servants were as communicative as we were inquisitive. The head-mistress was alone in the belief, that anything was kept really concealed in this extraordinary school.
When Miss Virginia, in obedience to the imperious gesture, had followed the head mistress into the latter's private room, she did so as though hypnotised. Her walk was halting, plainly showing that her legs tottering beneath her, could scarcely support her body.
When the door closed behind her in the private room of Lady Flayskin, the girl in an apparently overpowering access of devotion, seized the hem of the mistress's robe and put it fervently to her lips. The mistress removed her dress from the girl's hands, and said to her gently, as slavishly she knelt before her:
'Do not fall from one excess into an other. Too proud to begin with, you are now too humble. Getup, sit there and listen attentively to what I have to say to you.'
The girl, slightly confused, sat down on the edge of a chair. Her pose expressed extreme contrition.
'This is what I have to say to you, Miss Malville. Greatly to my personal regret, I have been obliged to employ the whip in order to tame you. I hope and believe that the lesson will not be without its fruit. You will not oblige me to subject you to so terrible a chastisement…'
At this point, Lady Flayskin's words were broken into by a storm of tears and sobs. Miss Virginia's whole frame quivered with anguish and uncontrollable emotion as she recalled what she had been through. In tones of entreaty, she cried:
'Oh! Never! Ah! My lady, it was indeed awful!'
'Did you deserve your punishment!'
'Yes, my lady!' said the poor girl with lowered eyes, deep crimson suffusing the cheeks so deathly pale a moment before.
'It is an excellent practice to confess the faults we have committed.'
She looked fixedly at the girl and continued:
'Pay good heed to what I say. When you arrived here and your father, worthy Lord Malville, presented you to me, I was able to 161
