Dennis Wheatley - The Rape Of Venice

It was on that day, the Thursday, that Roger was informed that Gunston's force was approaching the city. At the time Clarissa was sleeping; so Roger left her and held a short conference with the new Rajah.

During the past half-​century, there had been numerous instances of revolutions in the native states, in which the Company had played a part in deposing an ill-​disposed Prince and substituting one whom they hoped would prove more cooperative. In every case, following Eastern custom, the new occupant of the throne had showered gifts upon all those who had helped to set him on it, and British officers and agents had come in for a handsome share in these gratuities. Rai-​ul-​daula had needed no prompting to follow the practice.

He had not only paid in Indian coin the equivalent of the thousand guineas promised by Roger to the men of the squadron, but doubled that sum. Each of the officers had received a small sack of gold, bales of silk and beautifully chased weapons. Philip Laker was better off by a year's pay, two splendid horses, a jewelled sword, and numerous rich garments. Roger had received special treatment. The cross-​eyed Rajah had taken him to the treasury, spread out his hands, and said, 'All this I owe to you. Take of it what you will, my friend, and be welcome.'

Roger had politely demurred; but Rai-​ul-​daula had thrust upon him rings, strings of pearls and uncut stones that he knew must be worth several thousand pounds. He knew too, that, if Gunston's forces entered the city, the new Rajah "would feel obliged to make him and his officers considerable presents, and he saw no reason at all why they should share in these benefits.

As a result of Roger's talk with Rai-​ul-​daula, an order was given for the city's gates to be closed, and he went up to the roof of one of the towers that flanked the main gateway.

Gunston, accompanied by a small staff, was riding at the head of his force. When he had come to within fifty yards of the gate, he looked up. saw Roger, and shouted, with a frown:

'What's the meaning of this, Brook? Why are the gates closed against us?'

'Because your presence here is no longer necessary,' Roger shouted back.

'What the devil d'you mean?' cried Gunston, angrily. 'I'll give it you that capturing the place with only a squadron was a fine piece of work. But you can't hold a city this size permanently with two hundred men.'

'I'll not have to,' Roger told him. 'I had Jawahir-​ul-​daula hanged on Monday, and made my good friend, Rai-​ul-​daula, Rajah in his place.'

'So I heard. But though you think him your friend, you can't rely on these fellows.'

Roger leaned over the parapet and gave full vent to his bitter, feelings. 'I did better by relying on him than on yourself. Had I left matters to you, Clarissa would have been dead before I got here. You and your men played no part in taking Bahna, and shall derive no benefit from it. Did I let you in, I know well enough what would happen. Your sepoys would treat the place like a captured city. They'd start to loot it and rape the women. I couldn't stop them and you would not try. The new Rajah is my friend and I mean to protect his people. It is I who now command four thousand troops, and you eight hundred. Should you attempt to force this gate, I'll lead them out against you. Now get back to your camp at Bamanghati and skulk there in it as long as you like.'

Turning away, he left Gunston purple with rage and mortification, and with no alternative other than beating a shamefaced retreat. But this triumph over his old enemy gave him no pleasure. He would a thousand times rather that Gunston had placed him eternally in his debt by using as an excuse to ignore Sir John Shore's orders, the fact that an Englishwoman had been kidnapped; for Clarissa might have been rescued while still in full health had he marched his force on Bahna when first implored to do so.

As it was, her state continued to cause Roger such terrible anxiety that he hardly left the pavilion, from fear that at any moment one of her frightful paroxysms of coughing might end in a fatal convulsion. Being so constantly at her bedside enabled him to exchange a sentence or two with her at times when she became conscious; while, at others, he was perforce harrowed by her ravings during periods of delirium. It was largely from those ravings, confirmed by occasional sentences whispered when she was lucid, that he learned what had happened to her.

It was the news brought in by Jawahir-​ul-​daua's scouts on the previous Saturday, that Gunston's force was approaching through the mountains, that had evidently caused Malderini to act without waiting for any particular phase of the moon. That night he had had Clarissa and himself carried in a palanquin some two or three miles outside the city, and into a jungle where they had halted at a ruined temple.

Clarissa had only the vaguest impression of the place, as the starlight did not penetrate there and it was lit only by the flickering torches carried by some of Malderini's native servants. Moreover, Roger gathered, ever since the Venetian had kidnapped her he had kept her in a dreamlike state; so that although she was subconsciously unhappy, and occasionally feebly rebellious, she was neither fully aware of what had happened to her, nor of her surroundings. She knew only that the temple was small, partially ruined and overgrown with creepers; and that she had been taken down a broken flight of steps to its crypt.

At the far end of the crypt there sat, cross-​legged, a hideous, many-​limbed idol, that Roger guessed must have been one of the evil god Siva-​the Destroyer and. below it, a long flat stone altar slab. Down there it was reeking with damp and hideously cold, but Malderini had ordered her to strip. Being completely dominated by his will, she had obeyed.

He had made her stretch herself out flat on her back on the stone, then proceeded with his evil rites, muttering incantations while anointing various parts of her body with an unguent that stank abominably. How long she had lain there naked, she had no idea; only a memory of her teeth chattering violently as the creeping cold paralysed her limbs.

She thought that, for a time, she had fallen into a coma, but had been roused from it by a faint wailing, and the feel of something warm upon her chest. Suddenly, it had penetrated her bemused mind that the thing Malderini had laid upon her was a very young baby. She had attempted to sit up, but his will held her down as firmly as if she had been bound by a dozen cords. He had held the infant's head between her breasts, then cut its throat. Streams of warm blood had run down to her armpits and across the lower part of her neck. Next moment she had felt Malderini's mouth against her flesh as he guzzled up the blood. Then she had fainted.

She remembered nothing more until she had come round still shivering, as she was being put to bed on her divan in the harem. Malderini had been standing over her, his terrible eyes lit with excited triumph; and he had said to her:

'I have no more use for you, and release you now for the little time you have to live. You have served my purpose. I am confident that the sacrifice was accepted and that I shall become Doge of Venice.'

Utterly exhausted, she had fallen asleep. On waking on the Sunday morning, her mind was clear and, for the first time, she was fully conscious of all that had happened to her since she had been abducted. But her chest pained her she had begun to cough and, by the afternoon, she was in a fever.

Roger alternately shuddered and cursed silently as he gradually built up this terrible picture. If he could have got at Malderini during those days and nights, he would have torn him limb from limb with his bare hands. Yet, above all, he was tortured by the thought that he might lose Clarissa, and even went to the length of making a vow that he would forgo his vengeance if only the God he had long neglected would permit her to recover.