LITMIR.BIZ

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none of the others uttered a word or made a movement. We stood bunched like statues.

      Tala Mag was speaking again. “Tell them, Roland Cuyler, how completely they are in my power.”

      Cuyler shuddered. “You cannot escape. There are two walls, neither of which can be surmounted. And then those terrible servants. Believe me, I didn’t want to lure you here. But she would have found another way and—and they whipped Clara.” Clara Cuyler moaned and swayed against her husband. She was wearing a sleeveless dress, and sunlight, streaming through a window, glinted on a bare white shoulder, and I saw an ugly welt, like a ragged finger, mar her flesh and disappear under the dress.

      The sight of that whip mark brought vividly home to me the torment I myself had suffered and what mercy Helen and I and the others could expect from Tala Mag; and I snapped out of my trance and hurled myself at her. My hands were on her at the moment when she cried out. My fingers closed about her throat. I felt her body thrash against me; I saw her gray eyes almost pop from their sockets as I bore her down to the floor. And all about me voices screamed in fear and horror, but I ignored them, conscious only that I could save Helen from hell only by ridding the world of this creature.

      Suddenly my fingers were torn away from Tala Mag’s throat, and I was plucked off her as if I were a child in a strong man’s grip. I was lifted high in the air and tossed down to the hard floor. Stunned, I lay there, trying to clear the fog from my brain.

      The screams went on. Painfully I sat up and looked about at a nightmare scene.

      Emil, Tala Mag’s huge servant, had torn me away from his mistress, and there were three other men in the room, as big as Emil or nearly as strong. One was Si, the squat servant who had brought us the drinks, and his massive shoulders gave him the power of Emil. And there were two others, hulking brutes, against whom our average human strength was puny.

      * * * *

      Three of the servants were each holding Bord and Spaulding and Rooney, while the fourth had a whip in his hand with which he kept our four wives in a screaming huddle in a corner of the room. Tala Mag had risen to her feet and was holding her throat where my fingers had bruised her and her body trembled with excitement. Roland Cuyler offered no resistance; he stood holding his wife to his chest, both their spirits utterly broken.

      I bounded to my feet and hurled myself at Si, who was holding Bob Spaulding. My fist drove into his face. The blow hadn’t the slightest effect. He dropped Spaulding, whom he had knocked unconscious, and turned to me. He crushed me in a bear’s hug, pinning my arms to my side, and he lifted my thrashing body and carried me into another room. There he shoved me against a wall and held me with one hand in spite of my most violent struggles, while with his free hand he fumbled with something. I heard the rattling of chains, felt gyves snap about my wrists. He left me there more helpless in the chains than ever I had been in his tremendous grip.

      I noticed then that I was in a bare stone room. On either side of me other chains were imbedded in the wall. One by one the other men were brought in and their wrists were fastened to chains, Even Roland Cuyler who had no resistance left in him.

      When we were all chained, our wives were driven in by the servant who had the whip. I cried out when I saw the murderous tip bite into Helen’s back as she stumbled; futilely I tore at the chains. Then the five women cowered moaning against the wall on the opposite side of us, not making a motion for fear of the whip.

      “Les!” Helen wailed. “Oh, God, Lester!”

      And terror tore from the throat of each woman the name of her husband, and none of us men could do anything to help them.

      Tala Mag entered the room. Triumphantly she ran her eyes over all of us and laughed. In my despair I saw a fragmentary hope to save Helen and the others.

      “Tala!” I cried. “You wanted me once. Let them go and I will be your slave.”

      Her lips curled. “You are too late by several weeks, Lester Marlin. I could have loved you more than any man was ever loved. Now I hate you.” She turned to one of the servants. “Wick, bring in Portia Teele.”

      There was an interval of suspense, during which the wailing of the women continued and the groan of the men. And then Portia Teele, the writer of sentimental love stories, was led into the room by the servant called Wick.

      She was a plump woman, past the bloom of youth. She stopped in her tracks when she saw us and a moan passed her lips. Wick closed a big hand over the back of her neck and thrust her forward so that she came stumbling to the center of the room.

      Tala Mag stood there waiting for her. Portia fell on her knees before her and clawed at her dress.

      “Tala, for God’s sake, haven’t I always been your friend?”

      “Friend!” Tala Mag sneered. “Yes, you helped me with my literary style, but would you publish my masterpiece under your name?”

      “I couldn’t, Tala. My reputation.”

      “Let the fact that your reputation remains unblemished console you now,” Tala Mag chortled. “Clops, attend to her.”

      The fourth servant lifted Portia. Wick stretched a hand toward the ceiling and pulled down two chains on pulleys, like those to which I had been fastened in Tala Mag’s library. Portia shrieked wildly as she struggled in that powerful grip. Wick secured her wrists to the chains and pulled a rope over the pulleys, lifting Portia’s writhing body from the floor. And she hung there, her face frightful with terror, her eyes pools of impending madness.

      “Tala!” she shrilled. “In the name of heaven! I’ll do anything you ask.”

      Tala Mag shrugged her bare shoulders. “The time for mercy is past. Besides, my dear Portia, I require somebody to be made an example of for my other guests, and you have been selected.”

      I knew then that her statement that she hated us because we had not helped her advance her literary career was a lie. She hadn’t cared about that at all. Her manuscript, at least where I was concerned, had been simply an excuse to thrust herself at me. Her literary pretensions had been simply an act to inculcate in herself hatred for us. Because she wanted to hate and find expression for hatred. Something subhuman and diabolical in her demanded that it be sated by the torment of others.

      She stepped to where Portia Teele hung. “You are about to experience sensations which are denied to most of us. For long, long minutes you are going to live as fully as any person has ever lived, with every nerve quivering and throbbing, every atom of your being fully alive.”

      And with her own hands she ripped the clothing from Portia Teele. Then she stooped and pulled off Portia’s shoes and stockings, and Portia hung naked from the chains, sobbing and shrieking and writhing.

      “All right, Clops,” Tala Mag said.

      All heads turned to the door through which the giant Clops was coming. Before him he wheeled a brazier in which irons glowed white-hot in burning coals.

      CHAPTER IV

      THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER

      It is said that there is no pain as great as the pain inflicted by fire. Seeing how Portia Teele suffered, I can believe that. The whipping I had received from Tala Mag was nothing compared to what the servant Clops did to Portia with those hot irons.

      We all turned our eyes away, of course, and our wives sank to the floor and buried their faces in their arms, but we couldn’t shut out her inhuman screams. Some of us had to look now and then, as if invisible wires drew our gazes.

      After a while one of her large breasts melted away under the iron as if it had been ice. There was no blood, for the heat cauterized as it burned. Clops shifted the iron to a fresh spot; momentarily it sizzled as it touched the clammy perspiration covering agonized flesh. Then the stench of burning flesh grew heavier.

      And Tala Mag watched intently with bosom heaving and nerves twitching under her high cheekbones, her stare missing no detail of the torture.

      Minutes or hours may have passed

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