Dennis Wheatley - The Rape Of Venice

Roger was an optimist by nature and, however desperate his situation, his resolution had never failed him; but he was forced to admit to himself now that to escape from Bahna,, without help from outside, was beyond his capabilities. If he attempted to kill his jailer and failed, he could expect a frightful beating. If he managed to get up into the palace, to the gate, or even out into the city, his eventual recapture, wherever it might take place, would certainly be accompanied by kicks and blows. Apart from a few bruises he was still in good shape, and he decided that it was better that he should remain so rather than expose himself to serious injury in attempting a forlorn hope. As long as he continued sound in wind and limb there was at least a chance that an opportunity would occur for him to spring upon and kill Malderini. If he could do that, whatever the Rajah's people might do to him afterwards, he would have the consolation of knowing that he had saved his sweet Clarissa from being made use of in some abominable Black Magic ceremony.

What sort of ceremony Malderini intended to perform, Roger could only guess at. But the Venetian had spoken of using Clarissa's body as an altar; so it sounded like a form of the Black Mass. Roger recalled a book he had read while in France which described the Marquise de Montespan's efforts to recapture the love of King Louis XIV. Apparently the discarded favourite had secured the infamous Abbe Gibourg to perform a number of Black Masses dedicated to that intent. There had followed a description of the Abbe saying the Mass backwards over the naked body of the beautiful Marquise, then cutting the throat of a kidnapped infant; after which both had drunk of the blood of the sacrifice and finished up blood-​spattered and mouthing obscenities in a violent sexual embrace.

From the mental picture of Malderini and Clarissa, under hypnotic domination, engaged in such a scene, Roger's mind revolted. He felt that if he allowed himself to think of it for any length of time he would go mad; so he sought desperately for some other matter upon which he could concentrate his thoughts.

The possibility of their being rescued seemed terribly remote; but at least it was a subject he could speculate upon. As he realised now, the three men of his escort had been deliberately murdered to ensure that no news of what had happened to him should get back to Calcutta. There, only Hickey knew that he had set out for Bahna; but Hickey believed that it was Gunston who had carried off Clarissa. He would therefore expect that Roger would regain possession of her and return with her towards the middle of the coming week or, should he fail to do so, presume that Gunston had proved the better man and that Roger had either been killed or seriously wounded by him in a duel. Either way, as far as he was concerned, it was a private quarrel between two young men over the possession of a pretty young woman and, whether or not he learned the outcome of it, no matter about which to go to the Governor.

If, after several weeks, Roger did not return, and when Gunston did but without Clarissa, Hickey's curiosity would naturally be aroused. Then, because he was representing Mr. and Mrs. Brook in the case against Winters, if for no other reason, he would set active enquiries on foot; but, by that time, Roger had good reason to suppose he, and probably Clarissa as well, would be beyond human aid.

That left only Gunston, who, presumably, was still encamped with his miniature army some twenty or thirty miles to the south, in Orissa. By this time he would have reported to Sir John Shore his failure to extract the twelve lakhs of rupees from the Rajah of Bahna; and Sir John might have sent him fresh instructions. Being so well aware of the Governor's pacifist policy, Roger could pin no hope of these being an order to attack the city. At best, Gunston might be ordered to request the Rajah to receive him again so that they might discuss matters further. And if he did arrive on a second visit, that would be of no help, because it was quite certain that no one would tell him that two English people were being held prisoners there.

Thinking of Gunston caused Roger to feel a little guilty about the intense, and quite unjustified, hatred he had been stoking up against his old enemy during the past few days. It was abundantly clear now that Gunston was in no way responsible for Clarissa's abduction. All the same, Roger was inclined to excuse his injustice on the grounds that Gunston had pursued Clarissa and a firm belief that, had he had the wit and opportunity, and had she been a weaker, vainer woman than she was, he would have carried her off, if only to score for once off her husband, who had so often got the better of him.

Time drifted by while a series of ghastly images chased one another through Roger's tired brain. Clarissa innocently shooting at a paper target forming the centre of an apparently solid six feet square of covered straw in which, after being gagged, he had been embedded; the arrows penetrating the taut muscles of his behind; Clarissa naked on a stone slab in some heathen temple; the blood streaming from his torn face as Malderini ripped it with a piece of jagged glass; Clarissa screaming and struggling vainly in the grip of a great gibbering baboon; the young, hook nosed, sensual mouth Rajah looking on with gloating pleasure at these sadistic acts conjured up by the evil mind of the Venetian.

These tormenting pictures flickered in turn like the steps of a treadmill, each of which kept coming to the surface in swift rotation, across his distraught imagination. So obsessed, in fact, had his mind become with these threatened horrors that the sounds of a struggle outside the dungeon did not consciously penetrate it. Not until the door was flung open and two men ran down the steps towards him did he rouse up with a sudden start.

One held a lamp. He was a smallish man and wore a red jacket with gilt buttons. His teeth gleamed very white under a thin moustache that had long drooping ends. Evidently he was the leader as he stood by while the other, who was robed in plain white, used the jailer's hammer to knock out the bolts that secured the shackle round Roger's ankle.

The moment he was free, the man in the red jacket grabbed him by the arm, pulled him to his feet and hurried him towards the door. Outside it a ghoulish scene was taking place. The big jailer lay sprawled on his back, his own knife protruding from his chest. He was near naked, as he had already been stripped of his robe, and a third man knelt above him swiftly unwinding the turban from his head. Snatching up the jailer's blood-​stained robe, the leader of the party thrust it at Roger, signing to him to put it on over his clothes.

Roger needed no second bidding. The sight of the dead jailer had told him only a moment before that he was not being fetched to provide fiendish sport for Malderini, but was being rescued. Almost choking with excitement, he bent his head so that the greasy turban could be bound about it. Out of the corner of his eyes he glimpsed the jailer's body being thrown down the steps into the dungeon, and suppressed a semi-​hysterical laugh. By using the man's own knife to kill him, taking his clothes and leaving his body within a few feet of where his prisoner had been chained to the wall, it was being made to appear as though Roger had actually carried out the plan that he had contemplated, and had abandoned only because he could see no hope of getting away from the city unaided.

The man in the red jacket sent one of his minions up the steep stairs, evidently to see that the coast was clear, as it was not until a low whistle sounded from above that he followed with Roger; the third man brought up the rear. On reaching the ground floor of the palace, they followed their advance guard at about twenty paces down a dim corridor, then through a doorway that gave onto a starlit court. The man who had gone ahead was waiting there and signed to them to halt. For two tense minutes they crouched in the shadow of the arched doorway, holding their breath, as they listened to the heavy tread of guards making a round some fifty paces distant.