Richard and Simon had come to their feet just inside the screen of trees. The cat-woman could not see them. Her head-dress had fallen back, revealing her face. It was that of a girl in her twenties, and disordered by terror. Her eyes were bulging, her mouth gaped open and her dark hair streamed out behind her. With all the speed she could muster, she was blindly heading for the nearest cover.
That happened to be within fifteen feet of where Simon was standing. Swiftly he moved sideways towards the spot where she would enter the trees. Richard followed him. As he did so, he glanced over his shoulder. In all but a few cases the violent writhing among the tangle of bodies had ceased. Most of them had released their partners, or broken away from the lascivious groups of which they had formed members. More than half of them now nude, they were staring in consternation at the running woman. Their animal cries and screams provoked by sadistic acts no longer made the night hideous. A tense, stunned silence was broken only by von Thumm’s continuing to shout for the guards.
They had not been slow to answer his summons. Richard saw that two of them had emerged from the trees on the far side of the lawn. With their Sten guns at the ready, they were giving chase.
As the cat-woman dashed in among the trees, Simon grabbed her arm, intending to guide her to the place in the wire fence beyond which the car was waiting. Scratching at his face with her free hand, she resisted furiously, and gasped in English:
‘No morel Let… let me go! I won’t submit again. I won’t. I won’t!’
Simon gave her a quick shake. As her teeth snapped together, he said hurriedly, ‘For God’s sake don’t struggle. Trust me! We’ll help you to escape.’
Doubtless it was because he had spoken to her in English that she relaxed, and allowed him to pull her, still panting for breath, in the direction of the spot from which he and Richard had been watching the orgy. Seeing that Simon had the girl, Richard ran on ahead, pulled on the rubber gloves and held the strands of wire apart, so that they could get her through the fence. The two gunmen had just reached the place where their quarry had entered the belt of trees, a third could be heard crashing through the trees to the right. They were not far off. Richard feared that, at any moment, they would hear the sounds made by himself and his companions. To hold the wires apart, he had to drop his cudgel, so he had not even that with which to attempt to defend himself.
The thought of the gunmen made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. They were somewhere behind him. The Sten guns they were carrying would not be only to scare people. He had not a doubt that their orders were to shoot at anyone they found spying on the doings of their employer and his guests. They certainly would at anyone helping an unwilling participant to escape. Simon, too, was seized by the awful fear that, at any moment, bullets would come smashing into his back and that, choking up blood, he would die there.
Somehow they got the girl through the fence. As Simon followed her, she slumped to the ground and lay there inert. She had fainted. Richard swore under his breath. The odds against their getting away were now a hundred to one, unless they abandoned the woman. Before they could carry her, unconscious, to the car, it seemed certain that the gunmen would be upon them.
In desperate haste Richard tore off the rubber gloves and thrust them at Simon. It took only a moment for him to pull them on, grab two wires and hold them wide apart so that his friend could get through, but every second was precious. The sound of trampling feet was now loud. One of the gunmen, if not two, must be within a dozen yards of them; and they were screened from sight only by the trunks of the trees and the tall patches of undergrowth.
Stooping over the woman, Richard saw that the cat costume she was wearing zipped down the front. The two sides had fallen open. Beneath it she had on only underclothes that were torn and bloodstained. It was imperative to bring her out of her faint, so that she could take at least part of her weight on her own feet. Without compunction he slapped her hard across the face. She moaned and opened her eyes. Between them, they dragged her to her feet. To their utter consternation, not yet having fully regained consciousness, she failed to realise that they were trying to save her. Desperately she endeavoured to break away and again began to shout: ‘Let me go! Let me go! I won’t let you! I won’t! I won’t!’
Answering shouts came through the trees. The woman’s pursuers were no longer in doubt about the direction she had taken. To silence her, Richard jabbed his elbow hard in her ribs. Grasping her arms, they thrust her forward. Another minute and the three of them were out in the lane. But they had misjudged the place where the car had put them down. In the bright moonlight they could see it clearly; it was a good fifty yards away in the direction of the main road. Puzzled by the shouts, Philo McTavish had just got out of the car and was standing beside it.
The girl had now realised that they were helping her to get away. She no longer resisted, nor used her weight to hamper them. Fear of capture lent her new strength. With the two men still holding her arms, she began to run with them towards the car.
Richard threw a glance over his shoulder. The sound of their feet pounding on the earth could not fail to be heard by their pursuers. It needed only one of the two, or perhaps by now any of the four they had seen earlier, to reach the road, and the game would be up. The fence would prove no obstacle to them, because it would cause them no concern if they set alarm bells ringing.
Simon was not used to exerting himself. He had broken out into a sweat and was gasping for breath. As he ran he shut his eyes in an agony of apprehension. He felt certain that before they were halfway to the car they would all be riddled with bullets.
They would have been, had not the Lords of Light intervened to save them. Unnoticed by them during the past few minutes of intense activity and excitement, a dense black cloud had been approaching the moon. Almost as suddenly as though an electric light switch had been pressed down, the cloud blotted out the moon. At one minute the light was so bright that one could easily have read by it. The next they were plunged in stygian blackness.
Philo had switched out the lights of the car, to save the batteries. Now he switched them on again. The glow of the rear lights made two red spots ahead in the all-pervading gloom. It was at once a beacon of hope and a new danger: a perfect target for the gunmen to aim at. Richard yelled:
‘Put out those lights! For God’s sake, switch your lights off!’
It was at that moment there came a blinding flash behind them. It was followed by a scream of agony. The wires of the fence had been electrified, but not, as they had thought, only to operate an alarm bell if they were cut. They were fully charged, to inflict grievous injury on anyone who, without being insulated, touched them. In the darkness, one of the gunmen had blundered into the fence; and, as he would have been holding his Sten gun in front of him, the metal coming into contact with the wire must have caused the explosion.
Their lungs nearly bursting from the strain put upon them, the three fugitives reached the car. Philo had ignored Richard’s shout, but opened all four doors. As he slipped into the driver’s seat, the other two men pushed the girl into the back of the car, and Simon scrambled in after her. Richard ran round to the front. The second he slammed the door, Philo pressed the starter of the engine. He let it rev up for a moment, then threw in the clutch. The car moved forward along the bumpy track. At that moment, one of the gunmen opened fire.
All other sounds were drowned by the furious clatter of his Sten gun. Then came the thud and clang of bullets as they smashed into the metal of the boot. The rear lights were shot out. But again the Lords of Light gave their protection. No bullet hit a tyre, and the car was within yards of a bend in the lane. Only seconds later, they were round it and out of danger.
As they turned into the main road, Philo asked angrily, ‘What the heck has been going on? I didna’ bargain to get meself shot at.’
It was Richard, having got his breath back quicker than Simon, who answered him. ‘As we thought possible, it was a wild party. So wild that Lincoln B. Glasshill thinks it worth while to employ gunmen as a protection against snoopers. We were darned lucky to get away.’
‘You certainly were. How come the dame?’
‘She wasn’t enjoying the party. I suppose it was wilder than she had expected. Anyhow, she broke away and made a bolt for it. We could hardly sit tight in the bushes and watch her being dragged back to be raped again.’
Simon spoke from behind him. ‘What are we going to do with her?’
‘We’ll drop her off wherever she is living.’ Philo volunteered.
‘No, we can’t do that,’ said Richard promptly. Those people would get hold of her again. God alone knows what they might do to stop her talking.’
‘Take her to some small hotel, then.’
‘How can we, dressed in this fur cat’s thing?’ Simon protested. ‘And if she takes it off, she’s next to naked.’
‘Yes,’ Richard agreed. ‘Somehow we’ve got to get her some clothes.’ After a moment, he added. There’s only one thing for it. We must take her to Don Caesar’s.’
‘The boss will be pleased,’ Philo observed sarcastically. ‘I’d not like to haul him an’ his lady oot o’ bed at gettin’ on fer one in the morning. Aye, and them off to Europe first thing tomorrow.’
‘It can’t be helped. That is, unless you’ve got a wife or mother who would lend the young woman some clothes.’
Philo shook his head. ‘Nay, Señor. Taking Don Caesar’s orders is ma bread an’ butter. But I don’t like the smell of this party at all, at all. The less I ha’ to do with it, the better I’ll be pleased.’
Ten minutes later, he pulled the car up before the front door of the house in the Avenida Amerigo Vespucci. It was in darkness. Richard said to Simon, ‘We don’t want any of the servants to see her. You’d better get out and take her into the shrubbery until I’ve had a talk with Don Caesar.’
‘Ummm,’ Simon agreed. ‘Tell you what. If you remember, there’s a summer house behind the shrubbery. We’ll wait in it till you join us.’
The girl, evidently exhausted after her ordeal, had not spoken since they had got her into the car, but had Iain back with closed eyes. Now she took the hand Simon extended to help her out, and obediently accompanied him along a path leading to the back garden.
Philo had also got out, and was ruefully regarding the line of holes made by the bullets from the Sten gun in the boot of his car.
‘Don’t worry,’ Richard told him. ‘I’ll pay for the damage, and the hire of a car for you while yours is being repaired.’
Then, Simon and the girl now being out of sight along the path through the shrubbery, he walked up to the front door of the house and rang the bell. He had to ring a second time, and some minutes elapsed before a sleepy manservant in a dressing gown answered the door. Recognising Richard from having seen him the night before at the dinner party, he went up to get Don Caesar.
Meanwhile, Simon had escorted his charge to the summer house and settled her on the verandah, in a wicker chair with comfortable cushions. Some while back the moon had come out again from behind the big, black cloud and for the first time he had a chance to take a really good look at her. Patting her on the arm, he said kindly:
‘Now listen. You’ve nothing to be afraid of. We want to help you. To do that, we must know a bit about you. What’s your name?’
‘Nella Nathan,’ she replied in a low voice.
‘D’you live here in Santiago?’
‘No. I’m here… here on a holiday.’
‘Umm. Where do you live, then? You’re an American, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. I come from Beaufort, South Carolina. But it’s four months since I left there. I’ve been living up on the Sala de Uyuni.’
‘Where in the world’s that?’
‘It’s a vast plateau high up in the Andes, just over the border from Chile, in Bolivia.’
‘And what were you doing there?’
‘Working… working for … for the Cause.’
Simon stared at her, then said angrily, ‘For the Devil’s cause. Then you weren’t drawn into this hellish business through some stupidity of your own. You willingly became a Satanist.’
‘No!’ she protested quickly. ‘No. I mean the cause of Equal Rights.’
‘Equal rights for whom?’
‘Why, the Negro people, of course.’ To explain herself, she suddenly burst into a torrent of words. ‘I’m a school-teacher. At least I was. I became a Freedom Marcher. The suffering that white people have inflicted on their brothers is terrible—just terrible. You are Jewish, aren’t you? The sufferings of our people were simply nothing to theirs. When they were brought over to America as slaves, they were treated worse than cattle. They died in agony by the tens of thousands, from thirst, disease and the most brutal flogging. It should be on the conscience of every white person to do what he can to make it up to them. Although technically they’ve been free for a long time now, they’re still despised and rejected. Not one per cent of them are given the chance of a good education. Not one in ten thousand succeeds in fighting the prejudice which bars them from getting top jobs. The vast majority still live in squalor and misery, deprived of everything that makes life worth living. They’re just made use of to do all the dirtiest, meanest jobs for a bare subsistence. Even justice is denied them if their case is opposed in the courts by a white man.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Simon soothingly. ‘But all this is beside the point.’
‘It’s not,’ she retorted furiously. ‘It is the reason why I’m here. As I’ve told you, I became a Freedom Marcher campaigning for Equal Rights. I wrote articles, but the paper in my rotten little home town refused to publish them. I went on protest marches and spoke on street corners. I got the pay-off I might have expected. The School Board decided that I was a bad influence on children, so I lost my job. My parents are dead, and I lived alone. After I’d been sacked, I was hard put to earn a living. In the South No one wanted to employ a girl who was pro-Negro. I suppose I could have become a whore, but I was a virgin and wanted to remain that way until I met a man whom I liked enough to marry. To get enough to eat I had to take dimes they could ill afford from my Negro friends, for giving private tuition to their children.’
Nella paused a moment to get her breath, then hurried on. ‘A month or two after I’d been jeered out of my school by rotten little white children, I was approached by one of the leaders in the campaign for Equal Rights. He told me that they were determined to win through, but could hope to do so only if their efforts were properly co-ordinated. To have established a headquarters in the States was out of the question. The F.B.I. would have got wind of it and, on some filthy excuse, had the police raid the place, beat up everybody there and throw them into prison. So they had established a bureau in South America, at a place where there wasn’t a Federal agent within five hundred miles and there they were planning a world-wide campaign aimed at achieving Black Power.’
‘Black Power,’ Simon repeated. ‘That’s a new one on me.’
‘It was on me, too. But for them to secure a real say in how the countries they lived in are run seemed to me a very worthwhile project. This man told me that, at their secret headquarters, they were terribly short of people who were competent to draft manifestos, or knew anything about India, Pakistan and North Africa, as well as the problems we were faced with in the States. He offered me a job there. I took it and was flown out to La Paz. then down to Sala de Uyuni.’
‘What did you find there?’ Simon interjected.
‘A town of hutments, where two or three hundred people were all working for the same end. They were of many races, but there were comparatively few whites. To begin with, I enjoyed it enormously. It was wonderful to meet people from so many countries and discuss with them how the white tyranny could be overthrown, so that everyone in the world had the same chances, rights and share in God’s blessings. Of course, we all knew that it was a long-term project. We could not hope for big results until the sixties, or perhaps even the seventies. But in every continent we were building up cells and chains of command; so that, when the time was ripe, Black Power would be really formidable.’
‘You say that, to begin with, you enjoyed it enormously. What went wrong later?’
‘It was the man I was working under. His name is El Aziz and he is a Moroccan. He persistently endeavoured to seduce me, and I wouldn’t play.’
‘So you do draw the line about colour when it comes to going to bed with a man?’
‘No. Oh no; it wasn’t that. For a husband I’d prefer a Black man. They’re nearly always kinder to their wives. It was … well, although I’m twenty-seven, as I told you I was still a virgin. The fact is I … I suppose I’m just naturally frigid. I’ve always found the thought of sex repulsive.’
Simon nodded understandingly. ‘I see. Ummm. What happened then?’
‘It is far from healthy up on the Sala. There are many marshes and swamps that breed fevers. That is why even the Andean Indians shun the place, and it was such a good choice to carry on secret activities. Most of the Negro folk seem to be immune. But whites and Eurasians need regular medication and, every few months, they are sent away for a change of air.
‘My turn came soon after Christmas, and a party of us were flown down to Viña del Mar. We spent ten days there, having a lovely time, then we were brought up to Santiago so that we could see something of the capital before returning to our jobs. A Jamaican mulatto named Harry Benito was in charge of us. He made all the arrangements and paid the bills. Yesterday afternoon he told me he was going to give me a special treat and take me to a party. The other women were quite jealous, because he had singled me out. He had told me it was to be a late party; so I wasn’t surprised that we didn’t leave the little hotel where we were staying until after ten o’clock.
‘He drove me out to that big house. When we got there I was told it was to be a fancy-dress affair, and taken to a room where there were a lot of animal costumes, and other women changing into them. I’ve always loved cats, so I chose this one. Then we joined the men and had a few drinks. I’m sure Benito put something into mine, because for some while afterwards I didn’t properly take in what was going on. It wasn’t until I was out in the garden that my mind began to clear. Everyone was gathered round a long table, and to my amazement a lovely woman who hadn’t got a stitch of clothing on came out of the house, accompanied by a man dressed as a goat. The two of them mounted the table and sat down on sort of thrones. But, if you were watching from among those trees, you must have seen them, and what went on.’
‘Ummm,’ murmured Simon. ‘My friend and I were there from the beginning.’
‘Well, the next thing I realised was that I had Benito on one side of me and El Aziz on the other. It wasn’t until much later that it struck me that the two of them must have hatched a plot to get me there. I was still terribly muzzy when they all formed a long line. Automatically I moved forward between the two men; then I found myself staring at the naked bottom of the man who was dressed as a goat. Before I could stop him, El Aziz suddenly put a hand behind my head and pushed it down, so that my face was pressed for a moment against the warm flesh. I was utterly revolted and almost sick. As I gave a gasp and jerked my face away, El Aziz whispered in my ear, “If you make a scene, we’ll cut your throat.”
‘From that moment I was petrified with fear. I would have given anything, anything, to get away; but I simply didn’t dare attempt to. The drumming began to make my heart beat faster, and my head began to ache. When the feast started, they tried to make me eat, stuffing food into my mouth. But I couldn’t swallow anything solid, and spat it out. I did gulp down some wine, though. I thought it might give the courage to try to escape. There must have been something in the wine, because I felt a strange sensation and became … well, you know what happened, so I may as well say it … all moist and itching between the thighs. I’ve no doubt that El Aziz had given me an aphrodisiac. If it hadn’t been for that, I’m sure that when the orgy started I should have resisted, whatever they had threatened to do to me. I did resist to some extent. Yet, in a way, I felt an urge to let it happen and be for good free of my inhibition. Then, when I did, I suffered absolute hell. The pain was simply terrible.’
At that point, Nella burst into a flood of tears. Patting her shoulder, Simon endeavoured to comfort her. There, there, my dear. Must have been ghastly for you. Don’t wonder you went berserk when this chap El Aziz pushed you into the arms of a second man. But don’t worry. You’ve nothing more to fear. We’ll look after you. I promise we will.’
For all the good his words did, they might have fallen on deaf ears. Ignoring them, Nella continued to sob as though she would never stop. She was still crying bitterly when Richard appeared. He was carrying a small suitcase and over his other arm had a blue cloak. To Simon he said:
‘At first, Don Caesar practically refused to believe my account of tonight’s doings, and he was anything but pleased about our having brought the woman here. But I offered to take him out and show him the bullet holes in the boot of Philo’s car. After that he agreed that, in the circumstances, as we are strangers in Santiago, the only course open to us was to come here and ask his help. He went upstairs then, and came down with this old suitcase. It’s got some of his wife’s things in, including a nightie, a toothbrush, comb and so on. Anyway, all that’s needed to make our renegade witch respectable enough for us to get a room for her at an hotel.’
The three of them were on the verandah outside the summer house. Taking a pace forward, Richard thrust the suitcase at the still weeping Nella with one hand and, grasping her shoulder with the other, gave her a quick shake.
‘Now then, young woman: You brought this on yourself, and no good will come of snivelling over it. Take this inside and get yourself dressed. We can’t hang about here all night.’
Coming unsteadily to her feet, Nella took the case and obediently walked through the door into the semi-darkness, while the two men turned their backs.
During the few minutes she took to change, Simon gave Richard a condensed account of what she had told him, and ended by saying, ‘So you see, the poor girl isn’t really to blame for getting mixed up with this unholy crew; and we must be gentle with her.’
‘I’ve not suggested that we should actually apply the thumbscrews,’ Richard replied testily. ‘But you’re a sight too softhearted, Simon. The silly bitch has brought this on herself. From what you tell me, she is a typical do-gooder, and it’s those people who run round carrying torches for this and that who stir up half the trouble in the world. It’s interesting about this Black Power thing, though. Such a movement might cause endless trouble. We must get out of her everything she knows about it.’
Nella rejoined them, wearing the blue cloak over a dark dress and carrying the suitcase and the cat costume. Richard took the latter from her, and said, ‘We’ll jettison this on the way to the city. Then we’ll get our driver to drop you at a small hotel where you can spend the rest of the night.’
‘Ner,’ countered Simon. ‘We’ll take her to the Hilton. Promised to look after her. Mean to see she’s all right.’
‘As you wish,’ Richard shrugged, then turned to Nella. ‘Our driver knows nothing about what went on in the grounds of that place, and I don’t want him to; so please refrain from talking until we get to the hotel.’
Walking round to the front of the house, they got into the car. When it had covered half a mile, Richard threw the cat robe out of the window. Ten minutes later, Philo set them down outside the Hilton and, with evident relief, drove away.
With the calm assurance natural to him, Richard asked the night clerk for a room for the lady. While she filled in the usual form, he took a few paces back from the desk and said in a low voice to Simon, ‘We’ll take her up to our suite first, and get what we can out of her.’
‘Why not wait till the morning?’ Simon demurred. ‘It’s after two o’clock. Poor child needs some sleep.’
‘Poor child, my foot,’ retorted Richard. ‘I’m not wasting a moment until I find out if she can tell us anything about Rex.’
‘O.K. then.’ Simon was already carrying Nella’s case. Walking up to the desk, he collected the key to the room she had been given, and the three of them went up in the lift.
As soon as they were in their sitting room, Richard went over to the drinks table and mixed for them all badly-needed brandies and soda. Handing one to Nella, he said:
‘Now, young lady. Mr Aron has passed on to me what you told him about yourself. You’ve been through a very bad time tonight and, naturally, we are sorry for you. But we were not lurking among those trees out of idle curiosity or for the good of our health. We have reason to believe that through your—er—friends, we may be able to trace a friend of ours who has been missing for some weeks. While you were up at this place Sala-something, did you happen to meet, or hear anything of, a compatriot of yours named Rex Van Ryn?’
Nella hesitated for a moment, then she replied, ‘The name rings a bell. Yes, I remember now. Isn’t he a very big man with a sort of ugly yet attractive face?’
Simon gave a jerky nod. That’s Rex. What d’you know about him?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing really. I saw him only once; he was with a man they call “The Prince”, who is the head of the movement. I asked the person I was standing beside your friend’s name, only out of curiosity, because he was such a splendid specimen of manhood.’
‘So Rex is up there!’ Richard’s brown eyes lit up. ‘And hobnobbing with the top brass. How extraordinary. It’s almost unbelievable. What could possibly have led him to get himself mixed up in this?’
‘Maybe he’s not there of his own free will,’ Simon suggested. ‘This place sounds so isolated that escape from it may be next to impossible. If so, he could be a prisoner, but allowed to walk about.’
‘That must be it.’ Richard turned again to Nella. Tell us now what you know about this movement.’
Her face took on a sullen look. ‘Why should I? What has it got to do with you? I can see you’re not in sympathy with it.’
‘By God, I’m not! It sounds about as dangerous as anything could be.’
‘I don’t agree,’ Nella protested angrily. ‘Its aim is to bring equality to all the people of colour in the world, to secure for them a fair share of all the good things of which they have been deprived all too long.’
With difficulty Richard retained his temper. After a moment he said, ‘Now listen, my girl. You’re talking through your hat. You can’t possibly have grasped the significance of this thing you’ve got yourself involved in. I’ve nothing against the Negro people, any more than I have against poor whites. Well all like to see the slums abolished, every child given a decent education and a fair chance to lead a prosperous, happy life. But this Black Power idea, which woolly-minded Liberals like you have fallen for, and are abetting, is something utterly different. Surely you can see that, after what happened to you tonight?’
‘No, I can’t. The two things have nothing to do with one another. El Aziz and Harry Benito happened to belong to this awful sect—Devil-worshippers, I suppose you’d call them. And they tricked me into going to that house. But none of the others in the party I was with was present. They could have had no idea what would take place, otherwise they wouldn’t have said how lucky I was to be chosen by Benito as his guest. They are all decent, respectable people. So are those up at Sala de Uyuni. Nothing of that kind takes place up there.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t; that is, as far as you know.’
‘If it did, El Aziz would have fixed it for me to be taken to a meeting of that kind, weeks ago. I tell you, the people I have been working with are some of the finest I’ve ever met. Many of them have given up good positions to travel to the Sala and serve the cause for nothing but their keep. We’re dedicated to securing equal rights for Negro people, and I’m not going to give you any information about the movement that might enable you to sabotage it.’
Richard shook his head wearily. ‘I don’t doubt that you’re right about most of these people, but I’m convinced that you’re not about the leaders. They are obviously trading on the sympathies of idealists and making use of them. The fact is that you have fallen into the hands of the enemy. By that I do not mean Negro people. They have the same sort of bodies and urges to kindness or cruelty as whites. In both cases, the majority are good and only the minority bad. And surely you can see that the men who started this Black Power idea must be evil?
‘Just think what will happen if they succeed in their plans. In a few years’ time this organisation you are helping to build will be given the word to begin operating. There will be increased agitation everywhere. That will lead to riots and clashes with the police. No city with a Negro population will be immune. By the sixties, there will develop a sort of sporadic civil war in the United States, and by the seventies it will have spread to Europe. There will be bloody street battles, rape, arson, murder, the lot. Nothing could be better calculated to destroy civilisation. Law and order will go by the board, and your Negro people are going to suffer even worse than the whites; because you can be sure that the whites will fight back. They won’t pull any punches, either. When their shops are looted, their houses burned and their women raped, they’ll take the law into their own hands and go out to kill. And, believe you me, white men are tougher than blacks. Thousands of innocent people whose lot you are trying to better will be massacred. That is the situation that you and your friends are working to bring about.’
Neila’s eyes distended with horror at the picture Richard had painted. She stared at him and murmured, ‘Do … do you really believe that?’
‘I do,’ he replied firmly. ‘I’m certain of it. Without realising it, you have been fighting on the Devil’s side. His one object ever since the Creation has been to bring about disruption. One of his names is “The Lord of Misrule”. And what could possibly be better calculated to bring about disruption than this Black Power movement? It is Satan’s most powerful weapon in his remorseless fight to dominate mankind. Now, you really must tell us all you have learned about it.’
‘Ner,’ Simon intervened. ‘Neila’s been through a terrible time, and she’s about all in. Tomorrow, or rather in a few hours’ time, when we’ve all had a bit of shut-eye.’
‘Tomorrow,’ she repeated miserably. ‘Oh, what am I going to do? I can’t go back to the Sala now, even if I wanted to. I’ve no money, not even clothes, and nowhere to go.’
‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ said Simon. ‘We’ll look after you. Have you no family at all?’
‘I’ve an aunt and uncle who live up in Connecticut.’
‘Couldn’t you go to them?’
‘Yes, I suppose I could. Up there in New England, there is not the prejudice against sympathisers with the Equal Rights movement that there is in the South. I’ve got quite good qualifications, so up there I could probably get another job as a teacher.’
Simon nodded vigorously. ‘That’s the idea then. When we’ve had some shut-eye, we’ll go shopping and get you an outfit, then buy you a seat on an aircraft to take you north. You needn’t worry about mun, either. I’ve plenty in New York. I’ll give you a draft on my bank there for five hundred dollars. That should keep you going until you get a job.’
Tears came into her eyes. ‘You’re very, very kind.’
‘Not really.’ He looked a little embarrassed. ‘Enjoy helping people out, that’s all.’
‘May I take it that you’ll tell us all you can?’ Richard asked.
As she stood up, she nodded. ‘Yes. I’m only just beginning to realise how stupid I’ve been. And thank you both. Thank you for everything.’
Picking up the suitcase, Simon said, ‘You’re on the fourth floor, aren’t you? I’ll see you down to your room.’
Ten minutes later, when he returned, Richard had already gone into his bedroom. Calling out ‘Good night’, Simon put out the light and went into his. He now felt terribly tired and, contrary to his custom, simply got out of his clothes and flung them higgledy-piggledy on the armchair. Crawling into bed, he stretched out luxuriously, gave a great yawn, switched off the light and, within five minutes, was sound asleep.
But he was not destined to sleep as long as he would have wished. A little over three hours later he was twisting, turning and moaning, in the grip of a nightmare. He was standing naked on the edge of a smoking pit. Nella was with him, and with his right hand he was grasping her wrist. Beyond her, rearing up from the depths of the pit, there was a great serpent. Its head lay pressed against Nella’s terrified face, its upper part was twisted round her neck and body. It was striving to drag her from him, down into the unseen depths of the pit.
Simon awoke, his body drenched in sweat. For a moment he lay weak and spellbound. With an effort he sat up and switched on the light. He saw from his bedside clock that it was just on six o’clock. Picking up the telephone he dialled the number of Nella’s room 421. He could hear the ‘phone ringing, but there was no reply. Thinking it possible that he might have fumbled the dial and rung the wrong number, he put the receiver down, then dialled again. There was still no answer.
Slipping out of bed, he pulled on his dressing gown and shuffled into his slippers, then hurried through the sitting room to Richard’s bedroom. Richard was lying on his side, snoring gently. Simon put a hand on his shoulder and shook him awake. Richard raised himself on one elbow, stared with sleepy eyes at his friend, and muttered:
‘What the hell? Not time to get up yet, is it? I haven’t overslept, have I?’
‘Ner, but you’ve got to get up and come with me,’ Simon said in an urgent voice. ‘Nella’s in danger.’
‘Nella? Oh, the little schoolmarm do-gooder who got herself taken for a ride.’
‘Yes. The girl we rescued last night. Just had a dream about her. In colour. It was a true dream, I’m sure. I must have been up on the Astral. She’s threatened in some way. I rang her room, but could get no reply. Only pray to God she was in too deep a sleep for it to rouse her. But we’ve got to find out.’
Still half asleep, Richard slid from his bed and wriggled into the dressing gown that Simon held out for him. Together they left the suite and hurried along the corridor to the lift. When they reached the fourth floor, Simon led the way to the room at the door of which he had left Nella some three hours earlier. He knocked, but there was no reply. He knocked much louder: still no response. Grasping the handle of the door, he tried it. The door was not locked, and opened easily. He switched on the light, and Richard followed him into the room.
Nella lay on the bed. She had on the nightdress she had been lent, but the bedclothes had been pulled halfway down. Her head was twisted back grotesquely. There was blood all over her, and one glance showed that she was dead. Black marks on her throat showed that she had been strangled. Her mouth gaped open and her tongue had been cut out. It had been carefully placed in the valley between her naked breasts.