Say what you will of Benenden, it trains its daughters well—or perhaps it was just Godiva’s noblesse which obleeged her, once she had exclaimed “Cripes!” and regained her composure, to turn to Gilderoy and say, wi’ grace right courtly:

“I’m sorry. My goof. ’Twas my imperfect Catford patois which betrayed us, and landed us in deep doo-doo. Well,” she added on a rising scream, “don’t just sit there—do something!”

Gilderoy was quick to respond in kind. “Nay, blame not thyself, fair Godaiva—hed Ai but worn thet tinsel crown, oll maight ha’ been well. As ’tis,” he shrugged at the top of his voice, “what the hell ken Ai do, pinioned es Ai em?”

“Nothing!” gloated La Infamosa, flinging up elbow-length arms in passionate triumph. “Y’are in my power, poor deluded fools! Two down, and only that English oaf and his pack of bums to go—aye, and the blonde butterball to boot … which is not a bad idea,” she added, giving one of the warlocks a swift kick wi’ her dainty stiletto. “But first, a few well-chosen taunts and jeers at your expense, to satisfy the conventions and give me my kicks, eh?” She burlesqued her way across to Gilderoy. “So this is the Heathery Heart-throb, is it?” Cruelly she tore the false beard from his chin with scrrch! of spirit gum, and considered the clean-cut face architecture beneath. “Mm-m, not bad, if you like insipid juvenile beefcake … Big boy, aren’t you …? Well, I may toy with thee awhile, if I’ve got the time and energy, ere I doom thee to fiery torment below. Let’s try you on for size.” She did a languorous stoop, pressing her purple lips to his (which weren’t purple, actually, but pinkish) and munching amain, and Godiva, repressing a cry of “Lay off, he’s mine!” watched with jealously bated breath, looking to see her stagger, bemused and cross-eyed, under the uncanny power of Gilderovian osculation. But to her amaze, when La Infamosa surfaced after one final passionate gnaw, her evil beauty remained unboggled, and her red pupils betrayed no hint of squint. Was she immune, this sorceress, wondered Godiva, and then she noted that Gilderoy was gaping like a landed hake, and stunned reverence was in his pleading glance.

“More, more!” he panted. “Gi’ me the gurlick, tho’ Ai die of it! Oh, come on, Infamosa, be a sport, one more time …”

Godiva’s senses swam, but with feeble strokes, and she could no longer restrain a wail of “Lost, lost! He is ensorcelled quite!” as, to compound her anguish, came La Infamosa’s contemptuous sneer.

“Pah! ’Twas like kissing cold liver. Thou’rt welcome, duchess. But take heart—ye shall share his fiery grave, when the time comes. That’ll teach you to impersonate me! And in those Carnaby Street dishclouts, too! Where did you get ’em—Oxfam?”

Distraught though she was, Godiva’s haughty spirit rallied at the taunt. “At least I don’t have to go around disguised as a carnival magician!” she retorted. “Not that I blame you—nothing like a wizard’s robe for concealing the fact that you have to wear a girdle and uplift bra, is there, thou false—or should I say falsies?—seductress!”

“Girdle? Falsies?” Sparks flew from La Infamosa’s crimson eyes and gnashing teeth. “ ’Tis a lie! I can give you two inches round the top any day, thou puny punk, thou! Aye, and scant twenty inches is my waist that hath never known confining clasp o’ corset yet … Hot Hecate, I’ll show you …”

And in her rage she made as though to rend away her clinging finery, while the warlocks jumped up and down crying: “Take it off!” “Down in front!” and “Jelly on a plate!” and even Frey Bentos glanced about him to see if there was an anachronistic Polaroid in the place. But Godiva, figuring that she might as well die game, trilled with scorn.

“Save it for thy Dago public, droopy! Why, thy whole act is phoney as a two-groat sundial! Cheap villainy at its worst, wi’ thy chintzy conjuring tricks and imitation toadskin upholstery and photo-copies of Don Quixote in vain attempt to impress the Joneses—and talk about Oxfam, that plastic sack you’re trying to wear would look bad on a scarecrow, even if it did have a better figure, which wouldn’t be difficult …”

Vulgar abuse and railery, born of jealousy at seeing her adored swain beglamoured by this necromancing sex-pot, and rage at being bound helpless in clothes which she wouldn’t have put out for Guy Fawkes—is that what you’re thinking? Or perhaps just true-blue defiance in the face of defeat by beastly foreigners? No, neither. Don’t under-rate Godiva—she’s needling with intent, to throw the enemy off-balance, although what good that can do when she’s ‘prisoned by hooping steel and Gilderoy is muttering: “What happened? Whay do Ai taste of gurlick?” remains to be seen. But she’s game, our heroine …

“And another thing!” she cried. “Do with us what ye will, the bitter cup of failure is thine, and I hope you slop it down that ghastly dress and can’t get the stain out! Aye, tear thy hair, Infamosa (assuming it isn’t a wig), for Operations Jimsnatch and Heretic are down the tube! Thy impostor is where you’ll never find him—and if you have some loony idea that you can drug that gorgeous beast over there with thy poisoned kisses, and get him to do the job, forget it! He’s too tall by half a head, and his slobbers wouldn’t fool a two-year-old, so there!”

Spirited stuff, which moved La Infamosa no whit. If anything, it bucked her up, judging by the way she laughed in fiendish triumph, stripped off one of her gloves with a flourish, swung it round her head à la Gypsy Rose, and flung it to the clamouring warlocks.

“Thy wit matches thy dress sense, poor Godiva!” she mocked. “So I know not where th’impostor lies, eh? And I couldn’t squeeze it out of you, could I?” Her dress creaked, but split not (to Godiva’s annoyance) as she sank down beside the recliner and hissed in our heroine’s shapely ear. “We Spaniards are experts wi’ rack and thumbscrew, remember—how if I have the boys work thee over downstairs? They’d love it, and so would I—thy screams would be music such as I love to hear—”

“What perfume do you use—creosote?” inquired Godiva, tho’ her flawless flesh crawled at the villainess’s threat.

“Creosote—there’s a thought!” mused La Infamosa, cruel yellow flecks appearing in her crimson pupils. “Hot and bubbling, and so refreshing to madam’s tender skin! But that’s for later—we ha’ no need of it at present … as you shall see.” She lissomed to her feet and swayed across to the cauldron, licking purple lips in anticipation as she gazed on its blank surface. “What is the word of power?” she asked the warlock foreman.

“ ’Dig a hole for ’im!” cried the eager mechanic, and at once the liquid began to bubble and give off static ere it settled to a smooth sheen. Godiva watched, a nameless fear revving up her heart, and though Gilderoy’s expression was still that of one who has got in the way of the Pontypool front row, a close observer might have noticed that his cinnamon eyes were clear and watchful.

“This is a recording,” hissed La Infamosa. “The events you are about to see took place some hours ago, and we apologise for the sound quality, due to conditions beyond our control. One of these scum,” she added venomously, her basilisk eyes playing over the warlocks, who fidgeted uneasily, “dropped a spanner in it—and his shrieks as burning marl consumed him were both tuneful and gratifying. Watch, heretic dogs, and learn the power of La Infamosa!”

The screen cleared on an image of Kylie preparing for bed in her chamber at Thrashbatter, and the sight caused the warlocks to elbow each other in lewd glee, and Godiva to emit a stricken cry of distress.

“My black see-through negligee! And my open-toed mules! Nay, this passeth all—disrobe at once, thou purloining slut—in the bathroom!” she added, as the warlocks crowded forward.

“She can’t hear you,” chuckled La Infamosa, as Kylie was seen preening before the mirror. “My, what a plump little pigeon it is … you could have danced all night, eh, Bentos? Now, hist, and see …”

They watched as Kylie dabbed Arpège, and there were cries of “Ssh!” as Godiva ground furious teeth. Then, humming merrily, the little blonde tripped to the chamber door, opened it a crack, and called right melodiously: “Coo-ee, Charlton … there’s a tap dripping next door—can you come up and fix it?” Silence followed, Kylie frowned, called again, and pouted angrily when no activity ensued.

’Twill be the spider in the basin next, the randy little trot, thought Godiva grimly, and sure enough, Kylie was seen to brighten, take a deep breath, and squeal in most realistic terror: “Charlton, Charlton, haste to me—there’s a dirty big moth i’ the warming pan—nay, ’tis a frog, wi’ eyes like golf balls! Speed to my aid, good Charlton! Charlton …? Oh, come on, do as you’re dam’ well told!”

This time it worked. Clumphing footsteps were heard on the stairs, and Kylie shot giggling across to the four-poster and disposed herself Dietrich-wise, dimpling decoratively—and screamed in real horror as the door crashed open to reveal Don Collapso Baluna at his most repulsive, paunch quivering, rapier a-flourish, and licentious leer at full voltage.

“A moth, senorita?” he chortled playfully. “Nay, a booter-fly, all a-flooter een black gauze, wheech I shall add too my collection! Ay-ay, luscious lepidoptery!” And he waddled at speed towards the bed, while Thrashbatter echoed to off-screen discharge o’ musketry, crashing o’ crockery, and Spanish war-cries.

“Switch it off!” begged Godiva. “I can’t watch! ’Tis too horrid! My best negligee, to be ripped and torn by swarthy ravisher—”

But it wasn’t, for even as Don Collapso loomed lustfully o’er his cringing victim, morioned men burst in at the window crying: “Ah-ah, naughtee excellencee!” “Fair shares among mates!” and “We’ll tell Senora Baluna!” Foiled, Collapso had no choice but to place the swooning Kylie under guard, after which the cauldron cut to a montage of action shots, in which the brutal invaders were seen firing shots, trampling floors, pursuing kitchen wenches, carousing on elderflower wine, overpowering Oor Kid and the spare Robson, and releasing the impostor and a disgruntled Clnzh from the cellar, along with Busty Basset, who appeared to have emerged from her Gilderoy-induced trance, for when the licentious soldiery would have mishandled her, she kicked them in the slats right Catfordly, announced her retirement from Spanish service, and vanished at speed into the night.

Finally, having commandeered wagons and loaded them with looted doormats (highly prized by Spanish infantry for siestas in the trenches) the brutal invaders set off north at the double, leaving all the lights on—a typically wanton act of Castilian vandalism. To Godiva’s dismay, her negligee (containing Kylie) was also carried away in a cart guarded by the watchful Clnzh; he’ll probably eat it, thought Godiva dismally.

(So now we know why Don Collapso was sent to recruit heavies from the shrimp-shooting Armada: to o’erwhelm Thrashbatter and release the impostor—and that wasn’t the only o’erwhelming he did in the course of that night, as we shall see presently, alas.)

“Seen enough?” jeered La Infamosa, as the cauldron-screen went blank. “So Operation Jimsnatch is down the tube, is it? The impostor was where I’d never find him, was he? I’d offer you copies o’ the tape, but you won’t need them where you’re going—the heat would spoil them, anyway.” And she laughed spitefully on a shrill rising note, which eventually only the warlocks could hear, and Godiva’s brain quivered and her bosom reeled at the import of what she had seen. But either the laugh or the movie had evidently restored Gilderoy’s Infamosa-disturbed senses, for now he gave vent to a defiant “Tchah!” and derisive chuckle rich in carefree Giffnock bravado.

“Ai don’t believe it!” he jeered. “Thet was no genuine image, but a studio simulation bai professional mummers—mere Dago propagenda to create alurrm end despondency end sep our moral faibre! Courage, fair Godaiva,” he clarioned, and her heart did chin-ups at his ringing confidence, “she’s getting desperate! But her phoney visions shall nought avail her an we keep our cool—”

His words were cut off as La Infamosa, with a scream of rage, peeled off her second glove and lashed him cruelly back and forth with it, her skin quite emerald with fury, and as the flimsy material played havoc with his moustache and swept the brave utterance from his lips, Godiva came on as substitute.

“Hit someone your own size, coward!” she shrilled. “Lay off, I say! Ah, sweet Gildy, provoke her not … you skunk, it serves thee right! Oh, what am I saying! No, no, I didn’t mean it … ah, beloved, it wrings my heart to see thee clobbered by any but me, vile, adored robber that thou art! Alack, I am confused!”

She can say that again; even in the perilous pass to which they are come, her emotions are still rent Gilderoy-wise. But at last La Infamosa, having vented her spite, tossed aside the glove which was now tattered and full of bristles and, having got her breath back, regarded them with heaving eyes and bosom, the former glowing evilly red.

“Studio simulation, eh?” she panted. “Mistrustful swine, I was going to show you the sequel, Infamosa’s Vengeance II, featuring the nocturnal surprise and capture of that poor balloon Noble and his ragged gang—aye, while you were blundering lost i’ the dark, they were already sitting in a peat-cutting nigh the cave mouth, supposing thee within and awaiting thy Mayday call, and Don Collapso’s party, forced-marching from Thrashbatter, caught them flat-footed and facing the wrong way! Well, I shan’t show it you now, so there!”

“Ai’m not surpraised,” quo’ cynical Gilderoy. “Hed difficulty faking it, did you? Couldn’t get stunt doubles for the Churltons, Ai suppose? Hed to abendon the production, did you? Too bed.”

For a moment it looked as though La Infamosa’s wrath would burst her brassiere, and the warlocks held on to each other in gleeful anticipation, but though it creaked and something went ping! round the back, her heaving fit passed, and it was in a smouldering hiss, charged wi’ hate, that she addressed her captives.

“Aye, y’are all the same, you recliner-chair critics—doubt my cauldron’s images, will you? Then shalt see for thyselves whether it showed true or no!” She hip-swivelled imperiously to the warlocks. “Have them out, my faithful hell-spawn! Bind them wi’ convenient thongs, and make ’em good and tight—especially hers! No, his too—he’s just as bad! Then hale them below, that they may see the truth, and take it wi’ them to the fiery crackling doom that awaits them!”

She added an exultant “Hah-ha!,” tossed her raven mane, and swayed pneumatically from the room, followed by Frey Bentos, while the warlocks sprang on our peerless pair, unlocked the recliners, and pinioned their wrists behind their backs with cries of “See’s a convenient thong, Wullie!” and “Pit yer finger on the knot, ye midden!” For a moment Godiva and Gilderoy were face-to-face as the warlocks argued about reefs and grannies, and as their eyes met, passionate violet and manly amber, silent messages passed between them:

“Why aren’t you making a break for it, for God’s sake?”

“The odds urr too great, dear Godaiva. We must baide our taime.”

“Until she sticks us in the fiery crackling doom thingy! Great!”

“Trust me, mai love—”

“Trust thee, thou pearl-pinching caitiff? That’s a laugh!”

“Nay, adored object, oll is not yet lost. La Infamosa—”

“Aha! So that’s it! She hath thee in thrall, the ensorcel-ling bat! Ditch me for her, will you, betrayer? Oh, how I do loathe thee! Ah, crafty worm … kiss me, tho’ it be for the last time …”

Their lips met, briefly, as the warlocks stood with their shaggy heads on one side, going “Aw-w-w …,” and then they were dragged from the chamber, Godiva swaying slightly and murmuring something about atomic lips, down slimy steps lit by guttering torches, and so out on to a great stone gallery whence they could look down into a huge echoing vault cut from the living rock, its smooth floor broken by narrow fissures from which smoke wreathed up, bespeaking volcanic fires beneath. The only light came from the greenish phosphorescence of the damp-trickling walls, and one bright rosy glow which Godiva, with a gasp of despair, identified as the blush of shame mantling the intrepid cheeks of Archie Noble, Double-Nought and now hapless prisoner, chained to the wall in his underfugs and deep mortification.

Still, he was better off than the captured Charltons, hung by their heels from a massy chain that spanned the chamber like a gigantic washing-line, Wor Jackie at one end and Oor Kid at the other. Yet even in that dreadful strait, their arms bound and their mouths gagged, the indomitable reivers were defying their enemies by swinging to and fro, clashing their steel bonnets together in a metallic tune which Godiva, her heart swelling with national pride, recognised as “Colonel Bogey.”

La Infamosa, lounging on the stone balustrade, swinging an elegant leg and sipping a cockatricetail of smoking amber liquor, flicked languid manicure at the sorry scene below. “Satisfied now?” she purred, and her two captives, sick as mud though they were, yet responded with unruffled dignity, Godiva raising queenly profile in silent disdain, and Gilderoy muttering, “Ach, knickers!”

“ ’Twas featly done, Don Collapso,” commended La Infamosa, and the obese hidalgo, who was standing by chomping a victory tortilla, smirked greasily. “King Philip shall hear on’t, and will right well requite thy valour. Thy table manners are something else,” she added, ducking gracefully to avoid the tortilla fragments which flew from his oily lips. “But enough! Have your men bring that creature i’ the Y-fronts to the death chamber, along with these two, and do you, Frey Bentos, attend us also. Warlocks, to your cauldron maintenance—I expect perfect reception for Operation Jimsnatch tomorrow, or else! Away, about it!”

“Worrabout thee clanging Charltons?” inquired Don Collapso.

“Let ’em clang till they rot!” snarled La Infamosa. “Have dishes o’ tripe and black pudding, such as they relish most keenly, aye, and rhubarb plate-cakes and rum butter, wi’ flagons of Newcastle brown and State Management bitter, laid on the floor beneath them, inches from their salivating chops, so shall their slow starvation be exquisitely anguished!” Hellish glee flared in her crimson eyes, and she shimmied with feral delight. “And have one stand by crying ‘Who hung the monkey?,’ so that they may die remembering their greatest and most lasting shame!”*

So now was frenzied bustle in the echoing vault ‘neath lonely Eildon, with Don Collapso’s two-score morioned pikemen springing to disciplined command, numbering off and marching in all directions. Four of them herded Gilderoy and Godiva down a steep stone tunnel festooned with chained skeletons and Madrid Expo pennants, La Infamosa cha-cha-ing ahead of them, silken hips swaying and stilettos tapping a vaunting tattoo, accompanied by Frey Bentos on maracas and Don Collapso on tortillas. Two other morions descended to the chamber where the Charltons were having their swing session, and with brutal jest and rough usage unchained the self-conscious Noble and frog-marched him thence, ignoring his pleas for breeches and a size 16 shirt. Downwards they hurried him, by winding ways where bats squeaked and peculiar things squished and wriggled underfoot, into a gloom that grew ever hotter and more stifling, till he was aware of a female voice ahead of him, and his heart smote wi’ love and angst as he recognised its clarion quality:

“Any idiot can see ’tis for bedroom wear alone, being o’ gossamer fineness, but you have to go traipsing over half Scotland in it, rolling in carts and caves, thou butter-curled half-wit! ‘Sblood, if it’s rent or besmirched—”

“Nay, Goddy, leave it out, I beg! How was I to know I’d be kidnapped in’t? I’m sorry, honest, I was just trying it on—”

And then Archie found himself blinking in the pale and eerie light of a most loathsome dungeon containing racks, stra-paddos, iron chairs, smouldering braziers, whipping posts, iron maidens, and like equipment of the Spanish Ministry of Culture; portraits of Philip II, Torquemada, Sixtus the Fifth, Fiftus the Sixth, and the Inquisition pelota squad hung on the mouldering stone walls, and to one side yawned the mouth of a ghastly pit from which thin orange fumes wreathed up from unseen burning depths, but what Archie found particularly disquieting was the row of steel see-saws on the pit’s lip, their outer ends projecting over the fiery void, and the notice: Attention! Victims must be launched separately, to avoid pit congestion which can cause serious fiery-depth cloggage! Penalty for improper use—three guesses?

Trouserless though he was, our hero’s keen wits registered at once that this was not the staff canteen. The horrid significance of the see-saws was plain from the fact that their inner ends were tethered to the dungeon floor by slender cords which, when severed, would permit the weight of a victim seated on the outer end to take over, precipitation into the pit resulting. Typical, thought disgusted Archie, but now the human occupants of the chamber took his attention, starting (naturally) with his adored Godiva, pinioned but proud between her guards as she tore verbal strips off Kylie, cowering in a filmy black negligee and plainly wishing she’d chosen flannel, for Don Collapso’s eyes were coming out on stalks as he ogled her and tore a libidinous enchilada ’twixt pudgy fingers, and even Frey Bentos’s austere features bore an odd expression which suggested that cold cells and hair shirts were not uppermost in his mind (of course, he may have been thinking of the spot prize they hadn’t won). Clnzh regarded them both with baleful jealousy and took threatening practice puffs at his blowpipe, but ever and anon his gargoyle eyes would soften as they strayed to hapless Kylie, and his tiny feet would shuffle in an imaginary samba.

Reclining sinuously in an umpire’s chair above the instruments of torture, her slim red-taloned hands toying with a branding iron, was La Infamosa, and the sheer villainy of her strapless gown and the purple-lip and crimson-eye accessories told shrewd Archie that this must be the queen hornet in person. And since Godiva, Kylie, and Gilderoy were bound and under guard, and the place was stiff with extras in Spanish uniform, he quickly deduced that something, quite apart from his own discomfiture, had gone amiss. Well, play it by the book, thought our hero, so he waited courteously until Godiva had run out of names to call Kylie, coughed diffidently, and turned to Gilderoy, as the senior British officer in the mess. At the sound of his crisp throat-clearance, Godiva gave a glad cry, and her eyes shone with loving pride at his nonchalant bearing, so befitting a captured English agent in his underwear.

“Ah, there you are, Gilderoy, old man,” he baritoned.

“Good evening … My lady … Mistress Delishe. Well, Gilderoy, snafu about sums it up, eh? Bad show, I think. Still, better luck next time—”

“Next time!” La Infamosa’s voice cracked like an electrified knout, and her flawless coiffure writhed and hissed Medusalike. “English fool—here is thy ‘next time,’ and thy last! Aye, gaze on’t—down yonder, and die as many imaginary deaths as ye have time for before the real thing! Behold, I say!”

Not having been introduced, Archie confined himself to a curt bow before glancing into the pit, and wished he hadn’t. Far below white-hot lava churned in red and yellow streaks, and flames leaped up the shaft as though trying to get at him; don’t let the enemy see you’re rattled, he thought, and addressed Gilderoy again.

“Ye’re wondering, I doubt not,” he continued wi’ aplomb, “how we came to be nabbed. Blame myself, really—letting the men play five-card brag to beguile our weary vigil, while I myself kept ceaseless watch, heavy-lidded tho’ I was, and then this chap—Milburn, I think his name is, ugly big sod with bad teeth—well, he had three threes, and, would ye believe, two o’ t’others held three kings and three tens, most extraordinary thing … anyway, ’twas the biggest pot ye ever saw, eyeball to eyeball, bragging their backsides off, and I must needs turn from scanning the deep o’ night to adjudicate when Milburn wanted to cover the kitty—and before I well knew’t, some hairy swine had a blade to my throat yelling ‘Yield, perro Ingles’—you know the way they do—and, well, they were all over us, you see.” He shrugged string-vested shoulders and ran deprecatory fingers through rueful hair. “We fought like bulldogs, natch, but with three of our chaps clutching cards and shouting. ‘Up twenty!’ we were sorrily outnumbered …”

“And who won?” demanded Gilderoy.

“What? Why, the Dagoes, of course, or we wouldn’t be here in rotten durance—”

“Nay, man—the threes, the kings, or the tens?” cried the other, and even Don Collapso waited agog for the result while the morioned guards laid lightning bets.

“Oh, I see … nay, ’twas ne’er played out. Have to split the kitty, I expect. Tough on Milburn, of course—”

“Oh, heer, that’s hurdly fair—he hed the three threes!”

“And wanted to cover the kitty, remember! Which means he’s entitled to the pot up to that point only—”

“End the other twain ken split any further stakes? Well …”

“Eet calls for a re-deal!” stated Don Collapso emphatically. “Soopose een the toormoil of thee fight, someone saw hees opponents’ curds?”

“I hadn’t thought of that! D’you think someone did …? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name …?”

“Collapso, grandee of Espana—”

“How d’ye do, I’m Noble. ’Tis a moot point, of course—” “Awn the rivuh-boats,” put in Frey Bentos, “gennelmen would ha settled it with a single cut, or pistols awn the texas deck—”

“Ai don’t think trensetlentic rules ken applay in this case—”

A blood-freezing contralto hiss cut through their discussion, and Don Collapso and Frey Bentos started guiltily under the red glare of La Infamosa’s malevolent eyes as she slithered from the umpire’s chair and glided towards them, twirling the branding-iron like a baton. “Imbeciles! Nay, traitors, even, to parley wi’ the enemy in this vital hour when Operation Heretic is in count-down, and your every thought and deed should be bent on our great enterprise!” Viciously the iron smote a tacoburger from the trembling hand of Don Collapso, and was then dropped on Frey Bentos’s sandaled toes. “Anyway, the hands are void, since their holders e ‘en now hang by their heels en route to that great brag school in the sky—where you shall await them,” she continued, her fell smile traversing our quartet, “after a rather more painful voyage. To the see-saws wi’ them!”

Our gang were seized in violent hands, and dragged towards the dread machines, with cries of horror from Godiva and Kylie and sturdy protests from our heroes—and Don Collapso.

“Not the ladies!” cried Archie. “ ’Tis against all usage!”

“Stay thy hend, cruel Infamosa!” contributed Gilderoy. “How would you laike it, demmit?”

“Spare thee leetle one, lady boss!” pleaded the hidalgo. “Pliz, I beg of yoo!”

“Who—the blonde fatso?” Infamosa’s purple mouth was moist with evil anticipation. “Nay, Don Collapso—think how she will crackle and splutter when the flames lick her plump flesh, toasting her to a small crisp! And what’s she to thee?”

“I need a new secreetary!” cried the perspiring don. “And she ees so yong, and fair, and queevers so appeeling in her negligee—”

“And you would have her for thy amorous sport, thou lustful lard-bucket!” sneered La Infamosa. “Why, ’tis a worse fate than the fire—still, she can fry when you’ve finished with her … all right, help yourself.”

“Unhand her!” raged Godiva, as Don Collapso laid sweaty paws on the trembling groupie. “She would rather die!”

“Speak for yourself!” cried Kylie. “Nay, give us a break, Goddy, I don’t want to crackle and splutter—”

“Selfish strumpet! Have ye no shame?”

“Lots—and I want to keep it as long as possible—”

“Take her hence!” commanded La Infamosa. “Nay, Don Collapso, not so fast! Work now, play later, and while y’are about our business, the pygmy shall guard her! Clnzh, thou worm, see her borne to the vault o’ prisoners, and watch her well—and I mean watch, or the rack shall stretch thee up to size. Away!”

Weeping piteously for appearance’s sake, but quite relieved, Kylie was borne out by guards, with Clnzh hopping eagerly in their wake, and La Infamosa hugged her smooth shoulders and shivered with schadenfreude as grinning morions ensured that the three prisoners’ bonds were secure before seating them on the outer ends of see-saws, their backs to the burning void beneath them. Godiva, in the centre, was like to swoon with the acrid airs that drifted from the pit, but her two lovers, with heroic consideration, took turns in blowing vigorously in her direction. One result of this was that when Infamosa started taunting them, they were too goofed to respond, and the task of hurling defiance devolved on Godiva alone. Fortunately, she was up to it.

“Hadn’t you better keep your distance, dear?” she inquired sweetly. “They say silicone melts, you know … and if you start sweating in that grisly dress ’twill look even more like a used bin-liner than it does now—”

“Sucks to thee, vain English rose,” jeered La Infamosa. “We’ll see presently how that clown’s outfit o’ thine stands up to high temperatures. It isn’t minimum iron down there, you know.” She took a sword from one of the soldiers and played the gleaming point around the cord of Godiva’s see-saw. “Shall I …? Nay, sit a little longer, all three, and learn how, in the day that dawns in the world above which you shall never see again, my plans go forward to fruition.” She turned to Frey Bentos. “Is the impostor ready?”

“Sober, slobberin’, an’ talkin’ Scotcher than Harry Lauder,” replied the Dominican. “Why, if Mary Queen o’ Scots could see him now, she’d holler ‘That’s ma boy!’ ”

“Then be off wi’ him, and lurk at the appointed spot. Don Collapso—to Peebles straight, to attend on Jacobus Rex his hunt, and when the time is ripe, wander him sideways wi’ some fair excuse. Lord Anguish hath already gone to drum up his snatch-party, so all’s in train, and by this evening Scotland will have a new king—but they’ll never know it!” Her eldritch laugh echoed from the walls and rippled o’er the dungeon floor. “So, begone! And you, good morions,” she added to the soldiers, “to the kitchen for well-earned chilli con carne and garlic-burgers, whereafter ye may siesta early, in case we have need of you in the afternoon. Vamos, and success attend you all!”

In an instant the dungeon was devoid of soldiers, Collap-sos, and Bentoses, speeding eagerly to their various destinations, and La Infamosa, glowing greenly with excitement, turned to her victims three.

“So much for business,” she hissed, and bent the rapier in her hands like a whip. “Now for pleasure. Which one first, eh?” She swayed slowly along the line of see-saws, tapping the blade lightly on each cord in turn, and we’d be tampering with the truth if we said that our intrepid three weren’t watching with interest. They could feel the distant fire below them, and the icy breath of doom in the dungeon’s clammy air, but as they watched the voluptuous black shape pause in malicious consideration, and met the gloating red eyes with their own (fierce grey, disdainful violet, and calculating amber), each was busy with his (and her) thoughts—well, wouldn’t you be?

Godiva was thinking, what a beastly way to go, but at least it won’t last long; Archie was wondering if he could break his bonds with a mighty wrench, launch himself forward with a sudden spring, and blip this frightful female on the jaw; Gilderoy was speculating whether he could make a deal … and then the glittering blade flashed up, hung for a mind-freezing instant, and swept down … to bury its point in the wooden framework of the rack.

“No hurry,” chuckled La Infamosa. “It’s such maddening fun, deciding who’s to go first … I’ll have to think about it. Don’t worry, the fiery depths won’t go away … and neither will you.” She stretched luxuriously, gnashed shining teeth in an ecstasy of satisfaction, and Mae Wested her way to the door, where she fluttered a white hand in mock farewell. “Catch you later, amigos,” she whispered, and they were alone in the dungeon …

One flight up, in the green-glowing gloom of the rocky vault where the swinging Charltons, exhausted by the snappy rhythm of “Colonel Bogey,” were now clashing their helmets to the less taxing tempo of Tchaikovsky’s “Chanson Triste,” so appropriate to their condition, Kylie was discovering that see-through gauze was but poor insulation ‘gainst clammy stone. Bound and shivering in a corner, our blonde scatterbrain was prey to such conflicting miseries as imminent hypothermia, the prospect of a long weekend at the mercy of the revolting Don Collapso, and the plight of her bosom chum and associates in the dungeon below, for the significance of the see-saws had not escaped her, and she shuddered at the thought of her friends being given the Margery Daw heave-ho.

“Alack, poor Goddy!” she moaned. “And yummy Gilderoy, and that Noble’s a bit of all right, too, wi’ his dimpled chin and tousled locks—nay, forget it, unhappy Kylie, whose fate is the dimpled blubber and greasy embrace of El Ponderoso! Ah, how to aid them, and my poor self! There must be a way, surely …”

She gazed distraught round her rocky prison, seeking inspiration, but finding none in the melancholy clank of the penduluming Charltons overhead, or in the regular tramp of Clnzh on sentry-go, marching and about-turning with his little blowpipe at the slope. He alone stood guard, for the morioned troops were all in the distant kitchen, whence came their faint chanting of “Hand me down that can o’ beans” as they waited impatiently for their breakfast, while the cook-sergeant, labouring to prepare tripe and black-pudding for the prisoners’ torture, went spare. Never if not now, thought Kylie … if only she could get a hand free, and Clnzh would look the other way, she could surely release the chain from which the Charltons hung, undo the thongs of Oor Kid who at the moment was passing just overhead, his helmet doinging a melancholy B-flat against his neighbour’s … nay, ’twas hopeless! Her bonds were tight, and Clnzh wasn’t looking the other way.

In fact, Kylie realised, he was watching her sidelong, shooting her wistful, pouting glances as he strode up and down. Now he was ordering blowpipes and standing at ease, sniffing in a hurt, sulky way, what time his teensy feet stirred impatiently, and his girdle of human heads jiggled to a Latin beat … and Kylie’s heartstrings went zing! wi’ a sudden hope. Visions swam before her … of Clnzh’s yearning arms seeking to encircle her knees on the heaving parquet of the Dungeon Grill, his pleading Piltdown face upturned, his grieving dole when dance-happiness was denied him … could it be that, where pleas for release would have been vain, music and her negligee’d curves might charm the savage breast?

Breathing a silent prayer, she murmured softly “Ay-ay, conga!” and saw the pygmy shoulders stiffen; his eyes rolled at her, gleaming with a beady wild surmise, and as she whispered “One and two and three—boomf!,” wi’ provocative shimmy of torso and her sauciest wink (and they came no saucier than Kylie ‘s), he quivered like a galvanised frog, and his blowpipe began to rattle a heady bongo solo on the echoing stone.

“Oh, Charltons … yoo-hoo!” called Kylie softly. “Look, the classical stuff is great, but d’you think you could rustle up a rumba …?”

* Trust La Infamosa to know the embarrassing story of those sturdy North Countrymen who, during a war with France, found a Barbary ape washed ashore from a shipwrecked vessel, and, being unfamiliar with the species and naturally assuming it to be a Frenchman, hanged it.