I slept but little that night when, led back to a solitary cell--but one of broader space and containing a cot instead of coarse prickling straw for my repose--by my mistress Mary Jennison, I was left alone with my thoughts in the awful blackness that closed in on me after she had locked the massive door. I was not chained, I had relative freedom compared with what I had endured for two atrocious wee....
Freedom--oh, what folly it was to use that word --for now, as never before in my entire life, was I certain of losing it forever: by agreeing, on the threat of diabolical sufferings to become the mistress of the Laird of Colcarmorie, I was surrendering not only my freedom--but also my chastity--my pride and honor into the bargain. No, I was now not only a condemned criminal--though that I knew myself not to be at all--but also a slave, a slave to the lusts of this tall, strange, saturnine man who was the true power behind the throne of Colcarmor....
Such a realization was almost annihilating to my will; I dared not think of my good, righteous parents; I would sunder myself forever from them by the commission of this act. No, no, not that they would shun me, for God knows they are blessedly kind, but I myself would feel I had sullied their name by surrendering my virtue like--like a woman of the streets. And, from the viewpoint of morality, it was all the more vicious: to obtain favors and privileges, to escape my punishment as a condemned criminal by the law--right or wrong, it was still the law of our courts, of my native land--by giving my body to the embraces of the prison superintendent. Could anything have been more heino....
For a moment, when alone with these morbid thoughts, I considered refusing to carry out such an immoral act; to defend valiantly my innocence, to endure the unjust and barbarous punishments and, if need be, die a martyr under them, blameless of wrong. Yes, I who had always been upright found it not easy to turn from the path of gra....
But, even though this action recommended itself again and again during that horrible long night, what I was to witness on the morrow completely destroyed bravery in my flesh and spirit and made me resign myself helplessly, with a prayer for divine forgiveness on my lips, to my new, my abominable desti....
When Mary Jennison brought me my breakfast the next morning, she told me that the entire roster of prisoners had been commanded to attend, in the assembly hall after lunch, a summons of extraordinary significance. This, I knew with sinking heart, was what the Laird had referred to last night: the public punishment of the conspirators of the plot to revolt and escape Colcarmorie's fearful rigors. But I--I was not to sit on a bench there with my companions; no, I was to be lodged in the waiting chamber: that awful room where I had waited in trembling anxiety for the summons to the whip! There, with the condemned culprits, I should be incarcerated, to be summoned forth in my time and, as Mary Jennison told me, officially absolved by the directress before the Laird, who should preside as judge, in his true role of prison superintende....
"Tell me only one thing, good mistress," I begged her, "is it not known that His Lordship, who appeared that day of--of--my public martyrdom as the prison doctor, was in reality the superintendent of this prison?" Her lips pursed. "It is known," she said dryly, with a swift glance at me, "but it is not discussed; those who know it fear too much their own skins to prattle and I advise ye to ask no more. Ye're safe, Lorna, so long as ye obey--count yerself luck....
"But those girls--oh, my God, and to have to be shut up with them before their punishments--will they not think me guilty of having informe....
She shook her head. "No--that I may tell ye, girl. They well know who betrayed them--t'was Janice Selmer....
"But--I do not understand, mistress--Janice--how did they come to suspect her? How did she dare to betray her friend....
"Will ye swear by all ye hold holy never to repeat to anyone, if I tell y....
"Oh, yes, yes, I am so unhappy--for those girls. I was about to betray them myself, for fear of being so terribly beaten....
"I know myself ye had naught to do wi' the affair, Lorna. Matron's spies had, before ye came here, ferreted out those troublemakers; some e'en pretended to aid in the plan o' escape themselves. But, d'ye see, Janice being timid and already a-feared o' the whip fer what she'd had o' it that day ye know--the Matron, a few days later, had her brought to her office, stripped, and interrogated under the birch by Trellis--ye know well how she can whip!" I shuddered--ah, God, indeed I did! "And so t'was no time at all ere Janice told Matron all she wanted to kno....
"At--at least--I am glad they do not think me their Judas," I said sorrowfully--but then a new and atrocious thought struck me. If that were true, Matron Harnesty and the Laird also must have known me guiltless. Why, then, that false accusation, that condemnation of me as a liar and deceitful rebel, the unjust flogging? Oh, God, was it-was it--because the Laird desired me--and thus, by fear bred from that false charge, coerced me--to yield? Oh horror, vile horror! But--what use now to refute their specious argumen....
Yet, if what I began vaguely to suspect were really true--What vileness, to force a young girl to shame out of her unreasoning fear of the barbaric lash! What immorality to serve the pandered lust of a brute concealed under the outward cloak of a benevolent lord, a giver of great charity, a man of kindness to orphans and the needy! Oh, atrocious, satanic wretchedness of soul to play upon my emotions, to terrify me by step on step of new fears of sufferings--till, crushed by them, I agreed to yield the priceless pearl of my chastity! I would somehow get word to my parents, accuse the Laird, the authorities. She was gazing at me pityingly, and shook her head: "I know what ye're thinkin', girl--best put it from yer mind. Things are as they are--and I'm in danger o' losin' me post in half sayin' what I say to ye now: ye cannot escape him--his eye's upon ye, and yer life, should ye refuse his will, would be worse than the most awful hell ye could imagine. Think ye that ye suffered of late the cell, naked in chains, the thrashin' I had to give ye, though in my heart I was shamed for it...." I wept and held her hand; oh, this good woman, the only one I had met in my martyrdom, may God reward her for these words to a poor shamed unhappy gi....
"Aye, even yer whippin' on the stage--ye were sore afeard--but if ye had not resigned yerself. Well, ye'll see this afternoon. And that's but a slight portion of those girls'll taste ere his wrath wanes wi' them! Now I must leave ye. Swear never to tell a sou....
"Oh, God, I swear, I swear... Oh, mistress, pray for my lost soul," I sobb....
She stroked my hair with rough tenderness. "Sure, lassie, that much I kin do fer ye, and if I've had to hurt ye, I'm sorry. Come, now, dry yer tears. Ye must not seem to suspect anything I've told ye. Till this noon, the....
And she was go....
I knelt, stupefied by the horrible revelation; I knew it to be unswervingly the truth! her compassion--for she was not evil, even in carrying out these savage orders from that damnable directress--had come to the fore in the sight of my misery and shame. Yes, I had been delivered into the sensual hands of the Laird--because his eyes had fallen upon me and found me fair. So my physical grace had condemned me, not my righteousness, or my honor or my conduct here. Dared I protest the villainy? Oh, God, no, no, I did not have the strength, the courage to da....
And bowing my head, clasping my hands, I prayed God to avenge my dishonor, to protect me in the hours of even more tragic dishonor, when, in keeping with the wretched bargain I had made, I should have to--surrender my shuddering young flesh--to be the love-slave of the Lai....
At noon, I was brought my repast, an excellent one; even a glass of wine was vouchsafed me, together with fruit and cheese, fine white bread, a trout. I ate with diffidence at first, then with real eagerness, for I was famished, but every mouthful made me shudder to think that all this was but the bounty put before the condemned....
Then I had to dress swiftly, at her bidding, in my original prison costume, and then follow her to the fearful chamber where the sentenced culprits waited that atrocious be....
But a new touch to the farce I was to play now took place; before leading me with her, Mary Jennison manacled my wrists with gyves connected by a short chain. This, she told me, was the fettering worn by each of the condemned; and, as I was to be included in their number, I must wear it also. I trembled as she locked the cold irons on my bare wrists--truly, was this symbolism of the most fearsome kind. Though I was freed of the stigma of the lash, yet was I shackled with the lustful desires of him who had coveted me--and henceforth, in my shame and resignation and submission, must I wear the invisible lettering of my female's martyrdom--as violated virgin! As--slave of love to the Lai....
I accompanied her then to that lobby where the wardresses waited, and to my surprise, all of them were in attendance. Oh, God, there must be many culprits, then, awaiting punishment in that room beyond the door they faced on their benches of vigilan....
It was unlocked for me by Mary Jennison, and then I was thrust in across the threshold, the door locked behind ....
I stood, trembling, moved by shame and compassion--for there, some seated, some standing, some kneeling in prayer, were no fewer than eighteen young women and girls, all wearing the gyves and chain at their wris....
Some were weeping; others prayed. With pale, tense faces, some stared blankly at the wall before them, while still others, heads high, determined to be courageous before this the valley of their blighted shad....
These sat quietly talking to one anoth....
Yet one tragic figure I saw and pitied with all my heart--young Janice, who, under torture, had betrayed all these her companions. Abhorred by them--who nonetheless understood what her suffering must have been to make her speak--she knelt on the floor in a corner, face buried in her arms, weeping piteous....
I saw Elsie Longdon there, and Wilina Danlin--beautiful, with sullen, defiant face and magnificent auburn hair, her body superbly shaped like a young Valkyrie--and the lovely Irish girl Henrietta Kelly, brown-haired, with saucy face and lithe body; and Clara Henrichsen, whose simpering charm was now replaced by a stark-eyed fearful countenance and heaving bos....
And I saw Kitty! Kitty, my true friend, who had shared with me in loyalty these first horrible hours of imprisonment, who had passed ahead of me in enduring the infamous lash; Kitty, sitting erect, with pale but brave face, holding the hand of a young, fair-haired girl, not more than fifteen. Beside her sat Amy Quinn, sentenced to this prison for twenty years for theft--theft because of hunger, and she an orphan. Oh my God, is there no justice for such unfortunates? Verily do they deserve it far less than I, a sinner, brought to sin by my own cowardice--by my fear of the wh....
"Oh, Kitty, Kitty," I cried in anguish for her and ran to the beautiful young woman, clasping her in my arms. "Kitty, not yo....
She shrugged her handsome shoulders. "Aye, Lorna! I didna' care fer their kindness here, ye see. Tush, now, don't cry--ye've yer own skin to think of, fer I see ye've the fetters of the mutineer....
"But how...." I gasped. She told me quickly that, soon after her flogging, Wilma Danlin had approached her one day in the yard and revealed the plot. Kitty, always too intrepid and seething under the injustice of her torment, accepted a part in the fanciful plan of revolt and escape. It was, I gathered, to have begun with a riot, during which, taking the gaolers by surprise, several of the older and sturdiest girls would overpower them, take their keys, obtain some weapon, and flee the pris....
So, at least this plot was not a fabrication--but surely had it been the tool whereby my own fate was reckoned! Oh diabolical ingenuity of the directress and that saturnine Lai....
How well their trap had sprung! It had crushed the mutiny and won me as a slave of the lust of the prison superintendent and soon, oh God, all too soon now it would serve to give Roman holiday to the barbarous instincts of the wardresses seated on their waiting benches outside this chamber! And I--I must wat....
Then, suddenly, the creaking of the door, and on the threshold, faces grim, eyes narrowed, hands warily at the savage bull pizzles that dangled from their belts--Wardress Trellis, Wardress Tarnsey, and Wardress Sempliss....
The cruel Trellis stepped forward and called hoarsely: "The following prisoners will prepare themselves to come forth for punishment: Irma Willstrawn...." The girl so named, whose honey-blonde hair hung in fluffy bangs at her forehead and at nuque, was of medium height and slender but elegant build, having fair, pink skin and the face of a wistful child--and she was almost that, being just sixteen. Her white blouse and black skirt bespoke a sentence of eight years for vagrancy. The poor child uttered a cry of fear and shrank against the wall, huddling her arms to her bos....
"Kate Strallis...." A splendidly buxom girl, her chestnut hair pulled back from her lovely candid face in a thick chignon, clenched her fists and bowed her he....
"And Lorna Blackwell! Follow us, at once! Try no tricks, my fine jades, or ye'll have more'n yer hard lot already! Come!" And with a sweep of her arm the brutal wardress summoned us to reckoni....
I stepped forward, eyes averted, docile, and behind me, at Trellis's signal that we should take single file in terrible processional, came Kate Strallis. But the unhappy young Irma Willstrawn, weeping in terror, refused to leave her place of refuge at the wa....
"Willstrawn, ye slut, hither, I say," snarled Leona Trellis, her hand going to the terrible whip at her be....
She advanced into the room, followed by her two associat....
"Oh, mistress, pardon, pardon. I didn't mean to do wrong, oh 'fore God's my witness, I meant to tell....
"Hold yer cowardly tongue, ye trash," sneered Wilma Danlin, magnificent in auburn-haired beauty and sullen defiance. "I was a fool fer enlistin' such young scaredy brats as ye....
"Hold yer tongue, upstart slut," hissed Trellis vituperatively, "yer turn'll be here soon enough. Save that fine talk fer the whip! Ye'll have long conversation wi' it, I assure ye! Now then, Irma, to yer feet and come, or we'll drag ye, hea....
"Oh, no, no, mercy, mercy! Don't beat me, please! Oh, they'll kill me fair, I know they will," cried the girl, clutching the rough cornices of the wall with her fingers, huddling to diminish herself. Infuriated, the wardress made a sign, and her two colleagues rushed forward, lore the shrieking victim from her place, and, gripping her by the shoulders, marched her out, dragging back, screaming for mercy, writhing, pleading. I was heartsick--and my farcical role in this otherwise wretched and barbarous tableau sickened me the more when I pondered on the wily, heinous villainy perpetrated by the directress, consort of the Laird in duplicity. Kate and I, ordered by Trellis, now stepped out, she behind us, whip in hand, to quell any possible revolt. And in a moment we had set foot on that atrocious stage, the scene of so many martyrdoms. There, sealed in armchairs, were the five assistant matrons, the directress--and the Laird himself, in black frock coat, sober, the righteous judge, the prison head who would confirm the sentences of his infamous assistant, Matron Harnes....
But a terrible sight greeted my eyes--the apparatuses had been altered. The triangle was still there, and the trestle. But the whipping post, the horse, and the bench were absent, and their places were filled by still more ominous devices of torture....
A short, wide, low wooden bench was placed near the ladder; at its middle was fixed a strap and buckle. If was a whipping stool. And beside this a sort of stocks, with openings for head and arms, with a low rectangular platform making a right angle with it. On this, the victim would kneel, her arms and neck snared in the yokes of the stocks, and thus would proffer up her condemned posterior in the most atrociously indecent and defenceless pose for the wh....
Then, in the center of the stage, toward the foreground, rose four steel poles, from the head of each of which dangled a short chain with a heavy iron gy....
All around these horrid devices were laid, in ominous and sinister readiness, bouquets of nettles, bundles of freshly cut green birch switches, leather straps, paddles, and whips of every description--so that the victim consigned to each hellish altar of barbarous torture should instantly see the fatal instruments readied for her naked fle....
The entire population of this frightful prison was seated on the benches in the aisles; the doors of the assembly hall had been locked, and, as Mary Jennison later told me, male gaolers from the neighboring gray stone building where criminals of the opposite sex were quartered guarded them, armed with heavy clubs and pistols lest rioting break out. For instantly the directress had risen to announce to the pale, tense faces in a sea below her that they had been called from their regular duties to witness the punishments to be given to the chief mutineers, but that still others were suspect and might expect to be confronted with the evidence of their guilt. She wished no sympathy shown these condemned culprits, who by their despicable plot had forfeited all right to pardon. Yet, she added with a cold smile, there were those, who, seeing in time their profound error, had avowed their guilt and aided the authorities in apprehending the true leaders of the infamous conspiracy, and hence would receive compassion according to the seriousness of the charges against th....
With this she seated herself, and the Laird took from the table before him a scroll on which was written the names of all condemned prisoners, the charges and evidence against them, and the recommendations of the directress herse....
"Bring Irma Willstrawn before me," he ordered, and Trellis and Semplisson dragged the hysterical young girl Inward his armchair and forced her to kneel before h....
lima Willstrawn, confined to this reform institution for eight years on the sentence of vagrancy and malicious mischief, you have been found guilty of treasonable participation in the dastardly plot to revolt against legitimate authority that you might escape and evade thus the proper penalty for your crime against the society who adjudged you here for ameliorati....
"Oh, no, no, sir. Oh, sir, don't have me beaten, please, yer worship, I didna' know what 'twas they....
"Silence, Prisoner! You knew full well the extent of the conspiracy, for your companion Janice Selmers has named you in her confession. You were not, it is true, a chief leader in this revolt; hence, in my leniency, I spare you that full severe punishment. Hear, however, my sentence: for the crime of treasonable complot against your gaolers, you shall spend a month in solitary confinement, to receive the birch thrice weekly, after the evening meal, said birching to be administered by the mistress directly responsible for you, she to apply not more than thirty and not fewer than twenty strokes....
"Ohh, pity, pity! No, no, oh' I'll die, yer worship, pardon, forgive me, I meant to confess to Madame Directress, truly......
"Be silent girl!" his voice was biting, cold, and cruel; I shuddered violently. Ah, was tins a preview of what I might expect as his resigned and submissive sla....
"Not fewer than twenty strokes on each such occasion; in addition, your sentence has been lengthened to ten years in prison....
"Ohh, dear Lord, no, ohh, pardon, pardon....
"And finally, that your prison companions may see what stern and just chastisements lie in store for them should they be tempted into seditious mutiny, you shall, here and now, receive such correction as your directress, Matron Harnesty, with my authorization as Superintendent of Colcarmorie, shall deem fitting to have inflicted on your person. Let this be carried out!" Irma shrieked and tried to regain her feet, but her two powerful gaolers held her as in a vise, while now the terrible directress exclaimed, "Take this wretched girl, strip her to chemise alone, place her in the stocks, and let her have, on the naked buttocks, twenty strokes of the paddle, then thirty lashes of the five-thonged martine....
"Aiiiii! Ohh, no, no, be merciful, Madame Directress! I was goin' to tell ye, I swear with all my heart, oh, spare me, spare me, yer worships! Have mercy on me, I'll die--ahh, aiiii, oh, pleeeease, no, no, don't--merrrc....
They had dragged the shrieking young girl to her feet and while Leona Trellis held her shackled wrists in tether, Wardress Semplisson ripped off the blouse and skirt; then, swiftly kneeling, she doffed the girl's shoes and stockings, and, while now the brutal Trellis circled the girl's slim waist with one powerful arm, her assistant, still kneeling, reached up under the coarse white chemise to seize the drawers and descend than to the victim's chiseled ankl....
Then, unshackling the young martyr's wrists, the two women dragged her, shrieking and twisting and dragging back piteously, to the grim stoc....
They forced her to her knees, and then I saw that this low rectangular right-angled platform fixed to the middle of the apparatus was further embellished with two iron clamps set in the wood. Opening these, the wardresses swiftly locked them round the kneehollows of the weeping victim; then, while Trellis held the girl's slender arms, Semplisson opened up the stocks and came to force down the martyr's neck into the groove opened to receive it, while Trellis and she each took one of the victim's wrists, drew it over the opened grooves, then locked down the upraised upper portion of the apparatus. And poor Irma Willstrawn found herself kneeling, her arms and neck yoked torturingly, her back a horizontal plane, and her buttocks lasciviously outjutting and upreared toward the silent audien....
Trellis, with a gloating smile, bent and trussed up the chemise to the girl's upper back, rolling it competently in place, and poor Irma uttered a doleful cry of anguish and began again to plead heartbrokenly for mercy, her body shuddering with pitiful apprehensi....
Her body had an exquisite slender grace; the legs were long and gracefully proportioned, with fine sleekly curving calves, slim thighs rounding adorably into a posterior comprising two compact almost boyish oval hemispheres, which, in this indecent pose, were slightly distended, displaying lasciviously the rather wide cleft that divided them. Then, standing on either side of the end of this projecting rectangular platform, waiting the signal, the two wardresses, folding their brawny arms, eyed their superio....
The Laird raised his saturnine face to me now, as I stood, guarded by Wardress Tarnsey, the dour Scottish woman whose cruel skill with the whip I had noted on my first day in Colcarmorie. Behind me stood the buxom blonde Kate Strallis, silent and stoic, head bowed in resignati....
Nursing his waxed black goatee, his eyes noncommittal, the Laird called with that displeasant twang which made me shiver, "Lorna Blackwell, forward, on your knees before me!" A shudder rippled my body, but meekly, flushing under the impassive scrutiny of his piercing dark eyes, I stepped forward, the wardress following me warily, and I went to my knees before him, my eyes resting on his sardonic visa....
No recognition, no reminder of the frightful pledge I had made last night, dawned on that countenan....
Glancing at the scroll, he read, "Lorna Blackwell, under sentence of twenty years for sedition against the Crown and so consigned to Colcarmorie, found guilty of conspiracy to mutiny against her superiors. Attesting evidence thereunto set forth in the prisoner Janice Selmers' full confessional. The prisoner before me has herself confessed and thrown herself on the mercy of the authorities of this prison. In view of this, also of the fact that she has been here less than two months since the date of her remandment, it is the recommendation of Matron Harnesty, your directress, that this prisoner be placed in personal custody of myself, the superintendent accountable to him and under suspended sentence by him of correction, which, however, shall be put into effect on his order. To be confined under the charge of Assistant Matron Kent. The aforesaid prisoner now to be compelled to witness the corrections of those more active than herself, as warning of her own fate should her conduct so warrant it. Tarnsey, lead the prisoner to the end of this judgment table of her peers, she there to kneel and witness in reflective mood the punishments!" Tarnsey touched my shoulder. I rose and accompanied her to the far end of the table facing the wing through which sentenced victims must come, and I knelt, shackled, trembling with indignation and shame at this hypocritical scene I had to play--and heard behind me a vague murmur from the watching audience of prisone....
"Silence, all!" cried the enraged Matron Harnesty. "You are watched from up here; take care lest you be summoned to the stage for reckoning in your own turn! Proceed, Your Lordship, if you will!" And she inclined her head to him. Again reading from the scroll, he summoned the Junoesque Kate Strallis, who knelt submissively before him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes downcast, while he read the charge of conspiracy against h....
Then, to my amazement, looking down at her with pursing lips and intent gaze, he paused and said, "Kate Strallis, under sentence of fifteen years in prison for theft and wantonry, as you have thrown yourself on the mercy of your superiors and confessed all and shown yourself willing to aid us in curbing this revolt, I accept the directress' recommendation for leniency. You shall be paroled to my custody under the charge of Assistant Matron Kent, under suspended sentence of chastisement for your sinfulness in entering this vile conspira....
However, as during the course of your interrogation before your directress, you were guilty of impertinence, I concur with her that now and here you receive a moderate chastisement, which she will now pronounce." My eyes widened--this girl--pardoned, like myself, with the same specious lecture? Could it mean --but no, in my emotional state I was too suspicious--The Matron was now speaking, cold, authoritatively: "Tarnsey, you will see that Kate strips to chemise and drawers; then conduct her to the trestle, fix her thereupon, and give her first fifteen strokes on the naked back with the birch, then fifteen over her drawers; finally, removing her drawers, fifteen with a leather strap. You may commenc....
I saw Kate bend her head in submissive acceptance to her sentence. Then she turned, still on her knees, to the wardress, who deftly unshackled the wrist gyves. Kate then rose and, with averted eyes and downcast face, unbuttoned her dark blouse, unfastened the skirt, let them fall, then bent, retrieved them, and handed them to the dour wardress, who folded them and placed them on a tabouret nearby. Then, setting one knee to the floor, the handsome chestnut-haired culprit removed her shoes and hose, and rose again, arms at her sides, face crimson with sha....
Taking her by the wrist, Tarnsey led her to the trestle, and at a brief command, Kate Strallis obediently straddled the infamous apparatus, letting her arms and legs hang on either side. These were quickly attached by the buckling straps, a cord drawn tightly round her waist after her chemise had been trussed high to furl against her softly downed armpits; and now, naked but for the blue coarse cotton drawers which sheathed her posterior, she awaited, with bent head and passive body, the fulfillment of the sentence pronounced on her by the directre....
Her rosy bare back was beautifully sculptured; full, richly contoured, mature--she was twenty-one, and the charge of wantonry, I had heard, had been brought against her out of pique by her employer who, when she had spurned his advances, decided to take cruel vengeance. He had hidden his watch and fine linen handkerchief in the chiffonier of her room--she worked as a domestic for him and his invalid wife--and these were discovered by police whom he summon....
She had been in this prison a year and a half already and had appeared only once for a public chastisement--also for impertinence to her mistress --but the rankling injustice of her prison sentence had caused her to agree to take part in the plot. This, too, I learned from Mary Jennison, and I at least kept my pact with her and did not betray her information--a small salvation of my blighted soul, al....
As I have said, she was Junoesque and stately, intensely desirable; the blue cotton drawers sheathed effulgent rotundities and sturdy, beautifully mature though somewhat short thighs; her calves were strong, finely plump, well proportioned, her arms lushly and excitingly curv....
The trestle's atrocious ridge must have chafed her cruelly between the thighs in this wretched pose, which presented her condemned back and posterior to the spectators. But she made no outcry, waiting with a dull placidity which I envied morbid....
Now all was in readiness. Poor Irma, compelled all this while to wait on the decree to Kate before her punishment could begin, suffered tortures of shame, for her young nubile nakedness was shamefully proffered to all the eyes of her companions, and behind her quaking, shrinking, naked buttocks the two cruel wardresses wait....
"Let the chastisements begin!" came the fateful command in harsh, sibilant tones from Matron Harnes....
"Ahhhh! Noo, no, spare me, yer worship. Oh, be kind, have mercy, I'll earn it, ah, not so awful a whippin', please!" cried the terrified Irma, turning her tearstained face to the implacable matr....
Wardress Semplisson stooped and seized a short-handled, flat oaken paddle, whose applicator, oval-shaped, was slim, thin, and very flexible. She brandished this in the air to test its balance, then took her place beside the rectangular runway along which poor Irma knelt to uprear her naked posteri....
Wardress Tarnsey had, meanwhile, selected a thick, bushy birch rod from a brine-filled bucket beside the trestle. A second birch, very slim and long, rested there in readiness after she had withdrawn the first. She shook out the excess moisture and made the instrument swish fiercely in the air, creating a music at which the chestnut-haired Juno instinctively shivered and tightened the magnificent muscles of her spaciously rounded but superbly firm and upswelling nether rotundities. Then she poised herself at the girl's left, the birch uprais....
Wardress Semplisson, her paddle drawn back in her right hand, raised her eyes, too, to the directre....
The slim, aristocratic white hand slowly rose--the signal for the commencement of this long series of atrocities against weak feminine defenseless fle....
Clackk--the flexible oaken paddle resonated as it crashed vibrantly against the right summit of Irma's naked buttocks, drawing a shriek; huishhhh, sang the bushy rod as it cut down over the naked waist of beautiful buxom Kate, bruising and streaking the rosy bare back vividly, drawing a convulsive start of the spraddled, half-nude body and a startled low gasp from the lovely Ju....
The fustigation proceeded. Fascinated with horror by this simultaneous yet divergent flogging, I watched, kneeling, trembling as I thought of what I had escaped, perhaps this very day--and last night--the horrible tawse--but I dared not, could not look at that chair where, calm, seemingly indolently at case, the Laird sat, his dark eyes following the infernal scene. The man destined to be my ravish....
For was this not in a sense coercion, violation by moral and mental force, if not actually physical? For I did not believe he would woo me with tenderness! And I felt, miserably wretched, that I must not dare to resist when at last the frightful hour came for my maiden sacrifice; a man who was capable of ordering such terrible punishments for these unhappy prisoners would not show benevolence to anyone who opposed his wish for lustful self-gratificati....
My eyes tear-stung at this woeful recollection, I watched, because I needs must. And again--I avow candidly--because the insidious act of flagellation had inculcated in me a morbid fear that was not without a vague, distilled blend of impressionable curiosity--and perhaps even, without my knowing it, something strong....
By now, Irma had received eight strokes of the paddle on her naked hindquarters, which were scarlet at the summits, where the fustigation had been concentrated. Her strident shrieks, the galvanic struggles of her young supple body to escape the vise-like imprisonment of the stocks and the iron clamps over her delicate kneehollows, which compelled her inescapably to present her quaking flesh to the fustigation, cast the graceful beauty of her tender charms into a highly suggestive and immodest choreography. Shrinking her reddening buttocks under each successive resounding blow of the oaken paddle, trying desperately to lower them to her heels, to swerve, to evade, she avowed her suffering with dainty, naked little feet that twisted and kicked and turned pitifully, restlessly, as her fists opened, clenched frantically, opened, and her head rose and fell in the rigorous clench of the neck-yoke, her face congested and atrociously distorted with suffering. For a girl so young and delicate, such a punishment was indeed tortu....
By the time Irma's twenty paddle strokes had been administered and her body was twisting and writhing as under the empire of maddening suffering--the flesh was swollen and bruised, inflamed with a fiery tinting especially at the summits and lust below where the hardest and most frequent strokes had been launched--the beautiful Kate Stallis was groaning and shuddering under the final slashing, bruising, hissing, and thudding blows of the birch which, in her executioner's skilled hand, had wealed and streaked the wonderful rosy flesh of her perfect back from shoulderblades to the waistband of her blue cotton drawers. However, she had suppressed her cries, and, though her face was pale and drawn and her eyes dilated and glassy with tears, she had shown superb stoici....
The two executioners stopped, allowing their victims momentary respite while the change of instruments was effected; poor little Irma pleaded fervently, almost hysterical with pain, to be pardoned more, but already the brawny Trellis had taken up her stance at the girl's left, armed with the thin-banded martinet, whose five biting leather lashes danced in the air with horrid avidity as she brandished the weapon impatient....
Meanwhile Tarnsey had gone to the bucket beside the trestle and taken out the other birch, a long slim bundle of thin, supple, green birch switches. Armed with this, she planted herself at the left of Kate's voluptuously ripe posterior and wait....
The hand rose--the sign....
Huishhhhhhhftttt! The slim rod whistled through the air and swept the diabolically pliant withes cruelly to wed across and around, tightly adherent to the exuberant curves of the summits of Kate's tautly jutting posteri....
"Aiiiii!" a low vibrant cry escaped the stoic chestnut-haired culprit, whose pose on this trestle was extremely salacious, if only by virtue of her ripe proportions. Her head rose, turned toward me, and I saw that her face was furrowed as in perplexity--the brows high-arched, the nostrils flaring, the eyes wide. Under the slashing blow, her tautly encased buttocks had jerked violently to one side, then flatten....
Thwackkkkkkk! rang out the martinet, whose five thongs swept viciously down the right hip of the naked, genuflecting Irma; the young victim swerved her burning, swollen buttocks madly from side to side, huddling, yawning the globes, while the poignant scream of "Mitherrr! Aiii, mither, save mee, I suffer so!" rang out atrociously in my ea....
Ah, the Laird had damnably calculated; well he knew that, in witnessing the punishment of all these prisoners, I could not fail--I, who feared so the lash--to be impressed with the need for complete docility and submission to his male, conquering wi....
What fiendish moral cunning did this ignoble seducer show, who could mask his secret lusts and perverse passions behind the robe of officialdom he wore, behind the mask of philanthro....
How many young, innocent girls like myself had fallen into his despicable clutches--what was their fa....
Oh, God, what would be min....
The executioners, impassioned at their brutal tasks, whipped with full sweeps of their arms now, alter the first few tentative strokes with the new instruments. Already the change was observable: the stoic, half-nude Kate, her head flung back, eyes glazed with great tears of anguish and fixed on the wall high above the table where sat her judges facing her, was dragging at her tethered wrists, her back hollowing, up arching against the cord that compressed her so torturingly against the malevolent ridge of the trestle. Under the furious cuts of the slim birch rod which attained the most resilient, fullest, amplest portions of her nether hemispheres, her cries, strident and wordless, rose instantly. While poor Irma, overwhelmed by ferocious suffering, shrieked like one possessed and made frantic, lewd contorsions against her fetters each time the clacking martinet tore its five satanic bands against her young, compact, oval buttocks, now flaming and stupid livid....
So expert were these two flagellatresses that, although Kate had to receive only fifteen strokes of the birch on her posterior while poor Irma must take thirty with the martinet, both whippers finished at approximately the same time, leaving both their victims crying out and dissolved in tears; the stoicism of the superb, chestnut-haired Kate had vanished midway through the formidable birchi....
Irma was left to writhe and weep poignantly, hall swooning--her youth and tender, delicate flesh and fair skin found this a cruel ordeal indeed--while, shuddering and groaning. Kate now awaited the third and concluding portion of her senten....
Taking a scissors from the pocket of her uniform, wardress Tarnsey, having cast away the frayed birch, stepped forward to the quivering body on the cruel trestle, inserted her left hand under the waistband of the blue cotton drawers, and made three vertical cuts down toward the young woman's shuddering, contracting buttocks. Then, placing her hand at the hem of each leg, she made several more upward cuts, with great care, while the panting beauty held herself immobile out of fear of being tortured by the scissors' sharp blades; then, pocketing the implement, the wardress reached up with both hands and vigorously tore downward. Then, tearing upward from each leg of the tattered garment, she soon laid the entire posterior naked before the silent, fearful audien....
Though only fifteen strokes of the slim rod had been applied, the rosy buttocks of the magnificent Kate were in piteous condition: great long bluish and dark red stripes, crisscrossing and running parallel, infinite reddened splotches and scratches from the twigs, patterned the marvelous canvas of quaking, palpitating feminine flesh, and now these superbly voluminous hindquarters contracted with anguished dread at this preparation for the leather str....
Irma's doleful sobbing broke the silence now. Kate, whose neck was bruised by the decline of the trestle end against it, turned her flushed, tear-stained face nervously to the side on which Wardress Tarnsey had now placed herself. In the latter's right hand, a broad black leather strap, with thick redoubled handle narrowed for ease of wielding, dangled; the strap was of a formidable thickness, nearly half an inch, polished and soaked in oil, glistening and ferociously menaci....
Uttering a groan, the condemned beauty turned and bowed her head just as the Scottish woman raised the strap on high, poised it, then swept down her right arm, which she had bared before commencing the whipping. A frightful impact resounded as the brutal leather band clung viciously over the full area of the right buttock of the naked prisoner, falling vertically, adhering a moment to the writhing, shrinking flesh, then sweeping away toward the Ho....
For an instant, there was silence; then, with a wild, erratic upheaval of her naked hips and loins from the trestle, Kate, throwing back her head, exhaled a clamorous scream: "Ahhhrrrroooowwww!!! Ohh, Lorrrrrd, ohhh, my Lorrrd, ohhhh, 'tis frightful! Aiiii, my poor bottom, oh, ye'll blister it raw! Oh, the cruel strap, ta cause me sich sufferin....
Shuddering with anguished compassion at that outcry, which I knew must have come, stoic as she had been, out of the depth of true, insatiable agony, l raised my eyes. They fell upon the Laird, as if by some telepathic will he had ordained it, and I beheld him, leaning forward slightly, one hand--eternally!--stroking his elegantly waxed goatee, the other resting on the arm of his chair, his eyes fixed on the contorted, upturned, tear-swollen face of beautiful Kate Strallis. Oh, as he had feasted on my own public shame, so now he delighted in that of others as if this would whet his infamous carnal appetites for--for--the moral contamination and physical seduction of his helpless, surrendering victim--myse....
Slowly, with fiendish skill, the dour wardress flogged Kate's glorious posterior with that awful strap; each blow, spaced out in such agonizing slowness that its acute torment might be fully experienced by the naked sufferer, rang out with terrible resonance on the now incredibly swollen buttocks, covered with a dark red tinting that bespoke the most atrocious, burning agony. And, under the crushing, pinching, stinging, bruising compulsion of the strap, the naked culprit fervently shrieked her suffering, madly arching, lunging, and twisting violently in her bon....
The two martyrs were finally released; Kate, having been covered by her downfallen chemise when helped off the horse, walked slowly, head bowed, face twisted and tear-stained, led by the cruel Tarnsey; but the two other women had to hold the still weeping Irma up between them to lead her off the sta....
Two had paid their tragic penalty. Sixteen more remained to satisfy the savage lusts of the Laird. Aye, for in my secret soul I sensed that these atrocious floggings, these satanic, demoralizing humiliations to young feminine bodies and hearts, were calculated for his pleasure, as certainly as for that of the directress and those who participated as executione....
Oh, fearful destiny in store for me, to be delivered up unto that saturnine-visaged man, wiry and tall, whose aristocratically slim, elegant, groomed fingers seemed chiseled, verily, for the manipulation of these barbarous instrumen....
The bell rang to call the next victims: two more this time, in the custody of Wardresses Donald, Henlein, Tranter, and Wilderly--two young, attractive girls, under twenty, one whose long, straw-colored tresses floated down her supple shoulders and around her demure, sweet, heart-shaped face, the other whose hair was the hue of brown heather in the spri....
The blonde, petite but of excitingly rounded form and very fair white skin, was named Polly Winslow, aged seventeen, sentenced to ten years for petty theft; her companion, taller by five inches, was magnificently and voluptuously formed, with breasts that thrust like two bold pears against her while blouse, while her svelte, mature hips, for all their eighteen years, fairly strained at the taut moulding of the coarse black skirt which sheathed them. Her name was Bettina Wilkinson, sentenced to five years for insolence in court before a judge of a local county magistracy to which she had been brought on the charge of falsifying references to obtain employment as a domestic to a wealthy household. Ah, God, what cruel laws we have in the nineteenth century--to punish the poor and unfortunate, while the wealthy thrive in their wickedne....
Polly, kneeling first to hear her sentence, was adjudged guilty of participation in the revolt, without recommendation for mercy, as she had refused to betray any of her accomplices, and, further, they had found hidden in the mattress of her cell a spoon, which, it was said, she intended to use as a weapon when the mutiny broke o....
The young girl, crushed by the weight of the damning evidence, was terribly pale and could hardly raise her head to the Laird, who calmly pronounced the sentence upon her: to her term in prison was to be added three years, and she would spend a month in solitary confinement, the birch to be applied to her naked buttocks no less than thirty times, no more than forty, four nights of each week of that month. Then, warning her to be resigned and penitent lest her fate be sterner still, he turned her over to the temporal graces of the fearful directre....
Polly, who had at last burst into hysterical tears on hearing this awful penalty, now shrank back with clasped hands as Matron Harnesty, her eyes narrowed, lips pursed, leaned forward and exclaimed harshly, "Donald, Henlein, this mutinous wretch to the triangle, naked but for chemise; with those hands which she would have dared to use in lifting a weapon against you in authority rightfully over her, let her truss up her chemise and cord it about her shoulders high, that her wicked bottom may be yielded to the punishment it deserves....
"Oh, yer worship, oh, no, yer worship, not afore him, oh, kill me fer shame, yer worship, 'tis too awful!" cried the girl whose body shook with frantic sobs as she knelt in terr....
"Yes, before him, the superintendent, against whose bountiful and kind leniency you did dare to upri....
Then, Donald, Henlein, you will bind her solidly to the triangle and apply first to her naked thighs, at front and at back, twenty lashes of the leather strap to each region; next, the birch twenty times on her bared back; and finally, a dozen strokes of the paddle to her naked bottom; and following this, twenty lashes of the pizzl....
"Noooooo, ohhh, merrcy, yer worship, mercy, not so much, 'twill kill me," shrilled the unhappy young beauty, crawling on her quaking knees to the table before which the matron s....
"And small loss indeed for such a vicious-minded rebel as you," was the heartless rejoinder. "Prepare her as I've ordered, and if she resists, I will augment the whipping!" The two wardresses seized the sobbing girl under her arms and hoisted her roughly to her feet, unshackled her swiftly, then removed her blouse and skirt, while she wept, her face buried in her hands as the skirt fell about her ankles. But when Wardress Henlein, gloating with anticipation, reached her hands under the girl's chemise to descend her drawers, Polly uttered a cry of shame: "Ohh, yer worship, not before him, not all naked? Oh, I'll stand it if ye'll only let me keep my clothes--whip me over them, I beg ye, but not before him, pleeeas....
The plaint availed her naught; the sturdy Wardress Donald seized her pretty wrists and twisted them cruelly, drawing cries of pain, while the other wardress swiftly tugged down the girl's drawers, then set about removing shoes and hose. Now, naked in the coarse white chemise, lovely little Polly had--oh, wretched cruelty--to "prepare" herself for the brutal flogging; she was handed a length of cord and told by Wardress Donald roughly, "To the triangle, girl; stand there and truss yerself up to yer armpits, or 'twill go worse wi' ....
Hurry now!" And the wardress pushed her to the grim apparatus. Hesitating, Polly turned a tear-stained face to the stern-countenanced matron, who exclaimed, "Obey, you wicked girl, unless you wish added whipping!" Polly did not, but the atrocious immodesty of having to stand beside the menacing triangle and bare her lovely young ripe body was agonizing indeed. The two women flanked her as, sobbing pitifully, she made two attempts to lift the hems of the last veil, then let it fall from trembling finge....
"Very well," said the cruel directress, "still another insubordination added to your intolerable account! You wish to be attended by maids, eh, my fine young lady? So be it--accommodate her delicacy, Henlein--but, when she is bound to the triangle, let her have, in addition to what I have already recommended, ten lashes of a good slim birch well between her naked thigh....
The sensual face of the German wardress reflected a terrible savouring lust; I shuddered violently--for my eyes had seen, on the face of the saturnine Laird, the curving of an appreciative, faint smile on his aristocratic li....
"Ohh, noooo, nooooo, yer worship, I'll obey," cried the terrified Polly, but it was too late; ruthlessly the German woman had seized the chemise by the top at the back and, with a single violent motion of her sturdy arms, rent it in twain--the petite body, so voluptuously curved and ripe, cowered, pitifully, shamefully nak....
Then the other wardress aided her colleague in dragging the unfortunate, young, naked victim to the grim apparatus, and swiftly Polly found herself with tautly updrawn, fettered wrists, her legs distended in a villainously straddled position, her back turned to the audience--but--oh, vile immorality--her young loins and her virginal breasts bared and proffered to the appraisal of the Laird's contemplating gaze. Her face was crimson; the poor girl closed her eyes to blot out the affront of that gaze, and her naked body writhed and shuddered in the most cruel enervati....
They left her there, standing on either side of her, waiting to execute the frightful sentence until her companion in misfortune, Bettina Wilkinson, should be condemned and readied for executi....
Wardresses Tranter and Wilderly, frowning sternly, pushed this exquisite young girl to her knees before the judgment table and the directress' chair behind ....
Diffidently, the Laird had handed the scroll to his sadistic female assistant, who, perusing it with narrowed eyes, read the charge against the lovely Bettina: guilty of participation as charged, refusal to "cooperate" by naming her ill-advised companions to whom she had been accessory, insolence during the questioning, including fantastic threats to get word to the authorities at Edinburgh of the cruelty and injustice meted out at Colcarmorie. Oh, poor girl, so young, so foolish to seek to defy these powerful persecutors--ah, my cowardice, at least, had spared me today what she was about to endu....
While the two women gripped her fine, svelte shoulders, the directress, a cruel smile on her thin lips, spoke: "Almost, Bettina, you warrant the sentence to be passed on the chief mutineers, though you were not o....
But you shall expiate your crimes, never fear! To your sentence of five years, of which you have served one and one month, shall be added an additional three years......
"Ohhh! You've no right! Only the courts...." The hand of Tranter viciously gagged that cry of righteous indignation. The cold voice went on: "Three years, you spend two months, beginning with tomorrow, in solitary confinement, in chains, wearing for penitence the horsehair drawers, and your directress mistress, Martha Wilderly, to be authorized by me now and here to apply the following chastisement. Each night, after your supper, a sound manual correction on your buttocks over the drawers, save on Saturday and Sunday nights, when, on your naked bottom, she will apply twenty lashes of the birch, prefaced first by the manual correction, whose length and harshness will depend on your humility in her regar....
The condemned young girl struggled on her knees, seeking to speak; the wiry hand of Jennie Tranter restrained this, while the wardress' other hand sank cruel fingers into the svelte shoulder, Martha Wilderly martyrizing the other similarly. Groans and stifled little cries were produced from this abominable treatme....
The directress paused, satisfied with the effect achieved on this rebellious young beauty. Then she went on in a harsh cutting tone: "To expiate your sin, a public chastisement is in order at this time. Tranter, Wilderly, you will place this girl, stark naked, in the stocks, then apply to her bared back twenty lashes of the cat o' nine tails, to her naked thighs the same number of strokes from the pizzle, and then, on her wicked posterior, twenty strokes of the paddle, to conclude with thirty lashes of the three-thronged martinet, prepare her for sentenc....
Poor naked Polly, hearing this barbarous decree, thought of her own imminent martyrdom and cried out hysterically, "Ohh, parrdon, Mum, parrdon, fer the love o' heaven! I swear afore God I nivir meant that spoon as a weapun, truly, oh, forgive me, spare me, Mum! Be kind!" But no one answered her. The two wardresses guarding lovely young Bettina had first unshackled her wrist gyves, then, hoisting her viciously to her feet, had begun to strip her. Courageously, with an audacity that made me gasp, this eighteen-year-old prisoner, whose pert face, dainty aquiline nose, wide firm mouth, slanting oval cheekbones and ardently determined little chin, wide intelligent hazel eyes, and light brown hair in thick chignon at the neck gave her a piquant loveliness in the throes of indignation and fear before the oncoming ordeal, fought her gaolers; twisting like an eel in their grasp gasping, panting, upbraiding them for their wicked and unjust treatment of her, Bettina, though her blouse was ripped from her, prevented the dowdy, plump Martha Wilderly from removing her skirt by frantic kic....
Angered at this resistance, they felled her to the floor there. With fuming triumph, Martha Wilderly sat on the girl's fine calves and ankles and tore the skirt away, while Tranter, keeping fierce hold of both struggling wrists in her strong, wiry left hand, knelt and tore the straps of the girl's chemise asunder with the other ha....
Crying out angrily against the outrage, the barbarity of this illegal sentence, Bettina continued to twist and compress herself as now the other wardress, seizing the waistband of the drawers, sought to descend th....
The Laird, I saw, had leaned forward, an amused smile on his lips, to watch this unlooked-for resistance; the directress, arms folded, sat with a cold smile on her arrogant face. But, as the two angered wardresses combined their efforts, at last the drawers were torn away. Then, as Tranter pinned the girl's naked waist, her companion, digging her left hand's brawny fingers into the flesh of the girl's left thigh, managed to control that leg and doff shoe and stocking; a few moments later, the other leg was similarly conquered, and then, with a cry of triumph, the two women had pulled the struggling blonde to her feet and presented her, stark naked, before the august tribunal of her pee....
"Villains, scoundrels, wretches, to brutalize a young girl so! You've no legal right, d'ye he....
None--and....
"To the stocks," hissed Matron Harnesty, her face white with fury, her nostrils flaring sadistical....
Crying out, struggling fiercely, the magnificent young rebel was dragged to that atrocious apparatus, into which, after a few hectic moments of sturdy resistance on her part, she was finally pinned, knees locked by the metal clamps along the rectangular runway leading to the grooved, yoking apparatus, and thus immobilized and readied for the la....
I could not take my eyes from her glorious young body; her breasts, as I have said, fairly strained against her blouse. Now, unconfined, pendant in the shameful pose she was forced to take, they heaved with her fierce rage and frantic shame--for to realize herself fettered like an animal, all naked, and before a man, tore at her defiant spirit, I think, more terribly than the most savage whip in that formidable arsenal of punishment. Her skin was milky-fair, of a fine delicacy and pallor; her body was svelte, of a delightful tallness without, however, in the least suggesting meagerness. The provocative flair of her ripening hips, the lithe indentation of the supple waist, so agile in resistance, now twisting vainly in the brutal yoke of the stocks, the long, magnificently proportioned thighs, which gradually swelled in harmonious rounding toward tin buttocks these, two wonderfully mobile, nervously muscled ovals, elongated and superlatively resilient in contouring, well spaced to reveal that mysterious shadowy fissure which is the threshold to a woman's most intimate femininity, long, high-set calves and wonderfully patrician, chiseled ankles; long, stunningly rounded arms, a straight, sculptured back with subtle cleavage along which the muscles and nerves quivered voluptuously--I had seldom seen such bodily perfection. Perfection, alas, to be frightfully marred by the defaming, destroying la....
"Tranter!" the harsh voice exclaimed, and the wardress so interpellated bent her head in deferen....
"M'u....
"When you have executed my sentence, you will take a good thick bouquet of nettles and administer a good whipping to Bettina's bare posterior--and between the hemispheres!" Oh, honor! To inflict such abominable torture on a young girl, whose only crime was audacity and bold defiance of wrongdoing! Oh, horror, that I must witness it--as fearful symbol to me from the Laird that I must not dare other course than that of--submissi....
Bettina heard that vile addition to her terrible ordeal; frantically, trying to tear her neck and wrists from the relentless yokes of the stocks, she uttered an angry, shamed, vibrating cry: "Noooo! Noooo!" To which the demonic directress, with a smiling glance at the saturnine Laird, who nodded to her questioning look, added: "And you shall have not two months in solitary incarceration with the chastisements nightly as prescribed, but three! Now perhaps you will be less wont to indulge in insults and threats and insolent fancies! Proceed with her chastisement--and do not spare this wretch! She deserves the utmost!" Oh, God, oh, God, where is Thy righteous mer....
Already the terrible executioners were preparing to flog their beautiful naked young victims; Wardress Donald, having taken a narrow, thick leather strap, stepped behind Polly to apply the twenty lashes to the backs of her short but wonderfully voluptuous, rounded, naked thighs, while Wardress Wilderly, with a sneer of cruel delight, had seized the fearful cat o' nine tails, standing at the girl's left, to commandeer that lovely, harmoniously sculptured, milky back, which writhed and twisted still in frantic defian....
All was ready. The directress raised her slim hand, and with a sickening crackkkkkkk, the ferocious nine-thonged instrument rushed down, its enormous bands spreading out vengefully across the middle of beautiful Bettina's naked ba....
"Ahhhhhhhhh!" groaned the magnificent young martyr, her back lowering convulsively, her fists clenching, her face twisted in a grimace of suffering. And now another, though less terrible, impact resounded: the strap, curling round the satiny middle light thigh of poor Polly, who uttered at-once a shrill scream of pain and lunged her loins forward under the atta....
Horrified, my eyes dilated, panting, I saw the terrible eat sweep down, with agonizing intervals between the blows, twenty times upon Bettina's starting, shuddering, naked back, leaving horrid, livid weals, criss-crossing, Interweaving, paralleling in a pattern on the milky satin of her sweet young flesh. Enormously stoic at the outset, as if determined to satisfy her executioners in no way, Bettina was able to suppress all but raucous groans and violent twists and jerks under the first ten slashing impacts of the hellish whip; but as the weals and the fires of agony spread through her cruelly pilloried young body, her suffering wrested from her strident, terse cries, "God--ahh! God, ohh, my God!" which followed the horribly clamorous clacking of the leather bands on the naked flesh. Polly was constantly crying out as the wicked thick strap assailed the backs of both adorably curved young thighs, infesting them with fiery bands of crimson. Then, as moral augmentation of Bettina's ordeal, that beautiful martyr had to wait, writhing, her back shuddering convulsively from the whip-ping, while Polly received the remaining twenty lashes or the sensitive fronts of her thighs, an operation which drew piercing cries for mercy and the most desperate and involuntarily lascivious twists, lungings, and weavings of her naked bo....
Then Jennie Tranter drew from the hook of her belt the ferocious bull pizzle and stepped behind the writhing, softly groaning Bettina, while Ward-dress Henlein, selecting a slim, flexible birch rod, prepared to apply the twenty lashes prescribed to the lovely, quivering, bare back of poor Pol....
The correction resumed; Polly's shriek under the first whistling blow of the birch, which diagonally welted her lovely back from shoulderblade to waist, was instantly accompanied by a hoarse cry from Bettina as the slashing pizzle coiled violently across her right naked thigh, just below the base of her provocative buttoc....
And now, with grim efficiency, the two executioners plied their horrid weapons to produce a maximum of suffering; yet their abominable skill was thus that they showed no excess of rage or emotion that would mar their aim or dissipate the cruel attack of the lashes they applied. Flaming, angry striations leaped onto the beautiful long thighs of the naked Bettina, whose cries were strangled, agonized, but still defiant: "Ahh--ahrrr, oh, devils, to beat me so--ohhohhhhh, unjust, unjust, ohh, Lord!" A new pause, while Polly, weeping hysterically, writhed and twisted constantly on the triangle. Bettina, weakened by the long agony of the stocks' enforcing constraint and by the savage flogging thus far received, trembled frequently with long, spasmodic shudders, trying to shift her chafed, aching knees on the hard planing of the platform, for the rings about the kneehollows clamped fiercely, bruisingly. Tears streaked her flushed face; her nostrils flared, shrank; her eyes, wide and fixed before her, seemed to glow with indignati....
Now Wardress Donald seized a broad oaken paddle, thin, with short thick handle, and planted herself behind petite blonde Polly, at the girl's left. Terrorized and suffering, the unhappy beauty turned her head back over her shoulder, beheld the ominous weapon, and implored the directress in the weeping plaintive voice of a little child to spare her mo....
Wardress Wilderly had also selected a paddle for the continuation of Bettina's martyrdom, one with an oval applicator, more in keeping with the contours condemned to receive the fustigation than the plumper, more fully rounded hemispheres of the unhappy Polly. I saw Bettina grind her teeth and clench her hands, aware that this pause was only to vary the instruments of the whipping; she closed her eyes and a long tremor rippled her kneeling bo....
Crack--thwackk--almost simultaneously the two paddles swept against their shuddering targets, violating both satiny, naked posteriors with the first blow of this double execution; the executioners seemed to take special delight in this part of the execution, as they had to work on hitherto untouched naked flesh. A scream issued from Polly, a forward lunge which lasciviously dashed her loins out to the sadistic gazes of her judges; from Bettina, only a muffled gasp, prolonged, emanat....
Each blow had burningly caressed the right buttock of each prisoner, flattening the ripe summit, most tempting to the executioner because of its provocative outyield to fustigation. And slowly, very slowly, the whipping continued. Polly, with only a dozen strokes to suffer, had her ordeal ended long before Bettina, with twenty blows reckoned to her account. When Polly's shrieks announced the final crashing blow of the paddle on her violently reddened, plump, sweet buttocks, I saw the Laird slowly turn his eyes to the magnificent Bettina's contorted face, bowed, the lips clenched in terrible stoicism, her back arching and lowering, her thighs wavering, spasmodically trying to close, her hips shivering. Thus far, she too had received twelve strokes of the thin oval applicator, alternating on each summit; the pain must have been atrocious, for the hemispheres convulsively yawned and contracted, rippled and quaked; but she had managed to control her cries heroical....
Eight more remained; the executioner readjusted her hold of the handle, took a deep breath, and, descending her instrument, swept it up in a vicious short terse arc to crash crisply, resoundingly, against the upswelling base of the girl's right buttock. Bettina's naked lower body started violently, her hips swerved, her feet kicked up and down, bruising her dainty toes against the harsh wood of the runway. Her head rose, turned toward the directress, her hands opened, clutched feverishly the air, and a feverish "Ohhhohhhhhhl!" loud and quavering, was torn from her. The assistant counted thirteen, as, indeed, Donald's companion in infamous brutality had done for unfortunate Pol....
A new pause, then the paddle swept from downward up again, to thwack vibrantly the other buttock at the same place; Bettina uttered a shrill cry, tugged at her wrists, shook her head, swerved and flattened her hips and loins, then remained, panting, trembling spasmodically. Her cumulative agony was beginning to weaken her marvelous coura....
Now, determining that her victim had evinced an especial anguish from these last two blows, the cruel Martha Wilderly applied the final six blows of her paddle only to the reddening, shuddering base of both those provocative, naked buttocks, alternating from hemisphere to hemisphere, delivering the strokes with full updriving strength, and the naked Bettina could no longer suppress her cries of anguish: raucous, straining cries, which called on God for endurance under the mounting threnody of pa....
The paddle had left a violent and grotesque pattern on her beautiful posterior; only the summits and the base had been attacked, and these regions fearfully; they were bitterly swollen and dark red, but the rest of her hindquarters remained satiny pale, to accent the sadistic contra....
Again, hearing her brave companion's anguish, little Polly, whose soft fair skin was well stigmatized by her correction, pleaded tearfully for mercy, that the rest of her punishment might be remitted--it was n....
Wardress Henlein now stepped behind her, armed with the atrocious pizzle, while behind the groaning, trembling, naked Bettina, wiry Jennie Tranter stood, letting a three-thonged martinet whose black leather lashes were long, an inch wide and nearly half an inch thick, dangle to the floor of the sta....
At the signal of that raised, slim, imperious hand, two strong bared arms brandished their instruments, swept them up, then brought them down--thuckkk!--the evil pizzle resounded, streaking Polly's naked buttocks from right to left just above the summits--kracckkkkk! rang out the martinet as the three broad thongs wedded vertically down the elongated oval of Bettina's right posterior glo....
"Ahrrr, mither, mither dear, ohhh, merrrcy!" shrieked Polly, with a wild, disorderly plunging of her tortured nude body on the triangle, her contorted, tear-swollen face turned back to implore her sadistic execution....
And Bettina, whose beautiful buttocks burned maddeningly from the cruel, expert paddling, writhed in torture as the wide leather bands slid from her quaking posterior. Her head turned from side to side, as she uttered a hoarse cry: "Ahhhh--ohhhhhhhh, God help me!" Trembling, feverish from terror and anguished pity for these unhappy martyrs, my knees aching cruelly from my long-enforced position of penitence, I watched--I dared not avert my eyes--and I saw the infamous pizzle sear and weal the lovely plump buttocks of the shrieking Polly, whose maddened contorsions on the triangle now took on the most indecent aspect. Oh, poor virginal child, to furnish thus to this villainous man the spectacle of her secret femininity in the chaotic throes of torture! And I saw the brave young Bettina, now crying out at each of the ferocious, clacking, hurtling lashes of the martinet, writhe and strain with all her forces to break free of her abominable pinioning as ominously her buttocks turned a fiery red, then a livid dark hue, the flesh swollen, palpitating uncontrollably, the hemispheres yawning with exacerbation, clenching in the most indecent spasms under the wh....
Polly's fair skin was, alas, more delicate than Bettina's; terrible swellings and blisters rose under the fiery coursing of the pizzle, wielded with such calculated skill by the cruel German wardress, till, on the eleventh stroke, applied with furious energy vertically along the left buttock near the median division, a drop--then another--of red pearled from the quaking, inflamed, and agonizing flesh, to the accompaniment of a wailing shriek from the plunging, writhing, naked, little blon....
This did not reprieve her, alas; nine more lashes left vicious, angry, livid weals on the plump roundings of her martyrized buttocks, and twice more, to my half-swooning horror, I saw blood pearl where the whip had broken the skin, so terribly sensitized by the paddle. Wild shrieks and incoherent pleas rang out constantly, till at the final lash the naked blonde, her head lolling on one shuddering, round, pale, dimpled shoulder, sagged on her bonds on the triangle, heedless of the sensual spectacle she made. Her breasts, small but beautifully full and rounded, with dainty little coral buds in soft pink circlets, heaved convulsively; her belly and loins shuddered uncontrollably with exhausti....
Poor Bettina had thirty lashes to endure from the savage martinet; she did not fain, but she no longer remained stoic. The thongs, visiting every inch of her angrily inflamed, swollen, and dark red buttocks, drew frantic, piercing cries of agony from her. Thrice she begged, under the crashing attacks of the lashes, to die instead of enduring such awful pain; and her body leaped, lowered, twisted, arched, swerved under every blow to the end. But this frightful chastisement had not ended for either young martyr; now at the sign of the infernal directress, Wardress Henlein planted herself directly behind the sagging naked body of poor hysterical Polly, in her right hand a fiendishly slim and supple birch! While, donning a coarse glove on her right hand, Wardress Tranter, overjoyed at a second successive "engagement" with the beautiful Bettina, gripped a fresh bouquet of nettles with their hellish bloo....
I bit my lips; tears flowed from my dilated eyes. The infernal signal came--and the torture was resum....
Surreptitiously lowering her birch to the floor, the German wardress, with a warped smile of cruelty, swept it up well between the yawning, trembling, naked thighs of little Polly--and wakened her from the swooning exacerbation which her flogging had left her in, reviving her with the most damnable exacerbation that can be inflicted on the feminine bo....
The young body started, flung back, forward, twisted, and writhed in mad torment, while, her head flung back, eyes starting from her head, the young blonde shrieked stridently, "Ahhhhhhhhh! Not therrrre, oh, fer Lord's sake not therrre! Ye'll kill me, aiiiiii, pity, pity, not therrrrre!" Raising her infernal bouquet, Jennie Tranter, planting her left palm firmly on the small of Bettina's wealed and quivering bare back, began to tap her victim's furiously swollen, livid buttocks with the nettles. Gently at first, so that this seemed benign--but, my God, it was not th....
For almost instantly, with a wild, ascending cry, Bettina began to jerk and fling and arch and strain her panting naked body in the stocks. Her fingers curled, clawed, clenched, her head turned, rose, fell, the eyes mad with suffering, glazed, supremely dilated, the nostrils twitching, and the lovely young mouth exhaled these poignant, unspeakably feverish cries: "Aiiiiii! Ohh, no, no, not this too? Ahrrrrr--it burns, ohhh, like claws o' fire--ahrrrrr! Enough! Aiiii--ohh, pleeeease, enough now! Surely--ooohhh, God, God, end ii, ahahahaha, merrrrcy, ohh, I cannot endure't! Ahrrrroooowwwww! Parrrrdon, have I not suffered so much--not this--ohhhhhhh, merrrcy, merrcy, it blisters and burns my poor seat --aiiiiiiiii! Spare me more--ohh, forgive my sins--ahahahah, God, take pity on me, ohh, I cannot, I cannot endure it--rather death--yes, yes, kill meeeeeeeeeee!!! Ahrrrrowowowowowooohhhhhhh, my God, my God!" But now Jennie Tranter, with tight lips and stern features, had begun to increase the cadence; it was now no longer gentle taps that caressed the livid swollen posterior, but swift flicks, terse cutting lashes, as if with a birch. And the martyr, desperately agonized, finding the pain unbearable, as indeed it was, rubbed her knees, flung herself, arched, twisted, drove her nails to the blood in her soft palms, her face turning everywhere for respite, contorted with the most atrocious rictus of suffering. Tears streamed down her congested cheeks and her cries grew more and more incoherent, clamorous. And then, pausing, Jennie Tranter lowered her hand and began--oh, must I write this abomination?--began to flick the frayed yet still mercilessly stinging blooms--between the distended, livid globes of Bettina's martyrized posterior, on which these satanic flowers of evil had left white blisters wherever they had stru....
I cannot describe the wild pleas, interspersed with hysterical shrieks and straining, vibrant groans of extenuation, to which Bettina now delivered herself while calmly, slowly, Jennie Tranter, ever compressing down the naked back with her left palm, continued to flick the nettles up into the secret intimacy of the girl's femininity! The muscles of Bettina's thighs and back stood out, convulsive, straining, in her frantic essays at freed....
Yet to this cruel concert of tears, cries, groans, and shrieks, the birch, slowly spaced in the German's cunning hand, tore a frenzied, hysterical duet from the unhappy Polly, who, her body given more freedom on the triangle, achieved incredible contorsions, her breasts and loins flaunting all their maiden secrets before the Laird, who stroked his goatee, smiling faintly, following these two martyrs in their relentless torture with almost bland appraisal of the qualities of their bodies to resist ....
It was done. Polly had fainted under the final cut of the birch between her now rigid, now frantically lunging thighs. Bettina, gasping, weeping bitterly with long racking sobs of supreme enervation, sagged in the stocks, supported by her fetters on....
The judgment of the sadistic directress had been carried out. The four wardresses unfettered their victi....
Polly, head lolling, was carried out bodily to the infirmary, destined to commence the terrible penance after receiving immediate treatment for her hurts; but they made Bettina drag herself on her knees to the directress, who sneeringly commented, "Now you are not so rebellious, are you, wretched girl who would flout your directress? Away with he....
And again, the stage was emptied, readied for new martyrdo....
I asked God to give me endurance to watch the rest; I was weak with a sick fear, a nausea, a terror--and a shame that knew no bounds, whenever my eyes--fell on h....
But I must record what followed, yet, for the sake of my readers' interest--or am I, in my emotions, deceived in their objective judgments?--in my own fate, I shall briefly treat these abominable punishments given the conspirators--before my eyes, that I might, as the imminent victim of the Laird, be well warned of the imperious need to submit without revolt, without will, without ho....
There remained, with the conclusion of this last double expiation, fourteen more victims; and I rightly guessed that the chief leaders in the mutiny were reserved for last, that their more terrible ordeals might sufficiently impress the watching prisoners in the ha....
Leona Trellis, who had assisted in the preparation of Irma for punishment but had not taken part in the whipping, acted as emissary from the directress to select the order in which the culprits would appear. When the bell rang out again, she went to the wing to order forth Amy Quinn, the fair-haired girl of fifteen whom Kitty, my sweet, unfortunate friend, had been comforting in the waiting chamber on my entry. Amy, in the charge of Wardress Gudge, was a child of medium height, having light blonde bangs, a gentle, timid face, and a deliciously rounded body. She was weeping silently as the wardress grasped her wrist and led her out. Then came a tall, slim, auburn-haired young woman of twenty, Eloise Furlace, with exotic features tensed and pale, led in by her mistress, the cruel Hertha Schwartz. And finally, weeping, face buried in her hands, came Janice Selmers--weeping from shame at her betrayal that was sending all these girls to torture--yes, and me to abominable moral martyrdom!--Janice, led in by Fiona MacAllister, whose cruel, cameo-like face reflected great repro....
This time, the directress had all three kneel before her at once, to judge and sentence; Amy, trembling and very pale, averted her eyes; Eloise, though fearful, looked intently at her cruel judge; but Janice kept her face in her hands, muffled sobs shaking her lovely bo....
Amy Quinn, for participation, was given six months' addition to her sentence in prison, a week in solitary confinement, her mistress to administer a severe manual correction each morning and each evening; hearing this, the lovely demure young girl turned crimson with shame, and she clenched her fists tightly to hold back her exhalations of anguish. In view of the fact that her participation had been but passive and she had shown repentance, her chastisement now would be mild: she was to be tied over the whipping stool clad only in a chemise, which she must truss up with her own hands to continue to demonstrate her humility, and then, after applying a stern manual chastisement, her mistress was authorized to apply the birch twenty-five times to her naked posterior. Tears ran down Amy's fair cheeks at this humiliating condemnati....
The directress then considered the stunningly attractive Eloise, whose maturity, spirit, and beauty made the young woman, as I could sense, an appetizing victim for this cruel and perverse woman. Eloise was imprisoned for life for stabbing a love rival over the affections of a dashing swain; the rival had not died, and hence Eloise had not been sentenced to bang. She had, however, been put in the public pillory of her town, to the north of Glasgow, for four hours, then given twenty lashes on the naked back with a bull pizzle by the town executioner--and faint white scars from that brutal flogging might still be seen on the pale ivory of her naked fle....
Matron Harnesty castigated this unfortunate verbally before delivering her to physical punishment. This young scoundrel, she told the audience, who was committed here because of an ungovernable temper, had not benefited from the gentle benevolence of Colcarmorie; no, she had sought again to raise her mutinous hand to her peers. The harangue was long and, perhaps as the directress had cunningly calculated, the sulky beauty, visibly scornful despite her fear, finally burst out, "Ha' done! Ye damned hypocrite! Ha' done, do yer worst, but enough o' yer fine talk, ye, who're no better'n these evil sluts who do yer devil's work!" A gasp of horror rose from the audience; in a breath, Eloise had condemned herself to martyrdom. For the directress smiled slowly, a fiendish smile such as the devil's own archfiend might have smiled in contemplation of some terrible plan of action, and then from her thin lips came this edict: "I am done, Eloise, done with words, for words mean little to you. Would be murderess, wanton, rebel, unregenerate spirit, you and all your kind are governed only by rigorous discipline, which breeds the fear you alone can respect. Have done, you ask me? I answer you thus--Trellis, you will lend your skill to Hertha Schwartz"--O fearful combine, that!--"that this miserable wretch may appreciate the weight--of authori....
To be confined in the stocks, naked as the day she was born....
"Aye, so that he can fill his dirty eyes!" burst out Eloise, gesturing with her chained hands to the Lai....
At the directress' sign, Trellis thrust a handkerchief gag into Eloise's mouth, Hertha Schwartz aiding her in binding another one around the girl's face; then both gripped her shoulders and held her till the sentence was pass....
"In the stocks, naked," went on the directress impassively, where she will receive thirty lashes of the birch on her thighs, thirty on her naked back with the pizzle, then to be lashed to the blood on her insolent posterior with the five-thonged martinet! And that is not all--to her sentence, we can add nothing save penance. These she shall have in abundance: six months in solitary confinement, to be birched thrice weekly at morn and eventide, and, on the second Sunday of each month, to receive fifty blows of the paddle and then twenty-five stripes of the three-thonged martinet on the naked buttocks! Thus let all such as she beware the justice of Colcarmorie's disciplinary regim....
Eloise had cried out under her gag and writhed furiously, hearing this horrible decree; but her two brawny gaolers capably restrained her, their savage faces glowing with joy at the formidable sentence, which accorded them such arduous practice in their perversely pleasurable tas....
The directress came then to the weeping Janice, whose mistress forced her to drop her hands and regard her judge; Janice obeyed, trembling, haggard, her face swollen with tears. In view of the girl's confession to the authorities, Matron Harnesty announced, Janice would be mercifully dealt with; there would be no addition to her term in prison, but, for moral redemption, a month in solitary confinement, her mistress to administer each night a manual correction, and, each Saturday afternoon, a birching to the number of thirty stripes on the naked posterior. Poor Janice wept when she heard this though she was fortunate by comparison, God kno....
but she shrank back in anguish when she heard the directress condemn her now to be stripped to chemise and drawers, tied to the whipping ladder, given first twenty-two blows of the paddle over the drawers, then chemise and drawers removed and thirty lashes of the birch applied to her posterior. But the timid, unhappy Amy, beside whom Janice knelt, unexpectedly turned her tear-stained face and rebuked the young informer: 'Hush yer weepin', ye wretched creature! A small price 'tis to pay fer savin' yer own skin, that all o' us might ha' to suffer so cruelly!' To my surprise, the directress did not chasten Amy for this righteous and certainly justified outburst; a cynical smile flitted on the corners of her sensual mou....
Now the sentence was to be carried out; Amy's mistress unfettered the young girl, then deftly undressed her down to chemise alone; barefooted, in the coarse white garment, the lovely child--she was hardly more--looked like a true penitent as she was led to the whipping stool where she knelt down hesitantly and, with a low sob, draped her upper body over it. Then the strap was buckled over her waist. Now, closing her eyes and turning scarlet, she reached her little hands behind her to truss up her chemise over her lovely rounded hips to expose her buttocks for chastisement. Her mistress swiftly rolled the chemise higher up, dug its fold under the broad strap, then, coining to the front of the stool armed with a cord, bound the young martyr's wrist tightly and passed the free end of this fettering cord tightly around a metal ring set in the floor, thus preventing poor Amy, under the burning anguish soon to be visited on her charmingly rounded, fair, satiny posterior, from protecting it in any way. Crushed and shamed, apprehensive of punishment, the curly-haired young blonde, whose nubile body revealed promise of delectable ripening in its fine plump thighs and excitingly rounded posterior globes well spaced and temptingly firm, wept softly while the perverse, attractive Wardress Gudge drew up a footstool to the left of her victim's proffered nudity, seated herself, rolled up her sleeves to display strong, well-molded arms, and waited for the signal. Already, in fearful anticipation of this shameful first portion of her chastisement, Amy was contracting her milky-skinned buttoc....
Eloise, raised to her feet, unfettered, was then set upon by her two gaolers, perhaps the most powerful and cruel of the entire prison personnel. She struggled, but her clothes were ripped from her, her wrists violently twisted behind her back. Overpowered, panting and groaning through her gag, she was at last stark naked, her auburn chignon undone and her hair streaming down her shoulders. She was then forced to the stocks and fettered in the manner I have already described. Her slim body was excitingly developed: her breasts pendant, but surprisingly ripe, with dark virile nipples; her hips lithe and svelte, her buttocks long full ovals, narrowly set, Superbly long, harmoniously rounded thighs, slim calves; a pale ivory skin of exceptional fineness and velvetine....
Lastly, poor Janice was, at the directress' sudden interposition, made to undress herself to chemise and drawers, and, barefooted, accompanied her mistress to the whipping ladder against which she had to stand, raising her arms. Mounting a footstool beside it, Fiona MacAllister corded the girl's slender wrists to a high-placed rung, compelling her weeping victim to stand on tiptoe; then, dismounting, she approached and trussed the chemise over the girl's quaking shoulders to bare her smooth, lovely back. And I trembled--on it, the marks of recent lashes manifested themselves angrily; yes, the "interrogation" by the cruel Trellis must indeed have been agonizing; the birch had been applied, then, not only to her posterior....
A cord was tied round the girl's upper back to keep the chemise upfurled. Then the wardress selected a rectangular paddle with broad applicator, a quarter-inch thick, and took her place at the left of her weeping victim, who turned her head in pitiful apprehension to regard the sinister implement with which she was menaced. Observing it, she uttered a vibrant cry of anguish, shuddered violently, and bowed her head, closing her eyes tight....
All was now in readiness and, shortly, at the wave of that imperious slim hand, the triple fustigations beg....
Amy perhaps of all three had the most suggestive, shameful pose, for at least the stocks permitted its victim to kneel with back horizontal, the thighs at almost a perfect right angle. But this low, padded stool compelled Amy to bend downward, at a declining angle, so that, on the contrary, her naked seat upreared boldly and out to the wrapper's attack; also the condemned posterior had much more mobility than in the stocks, hence would provide both executioner and witnesses a more "impressive" spectac....
Instantly Anna Gudge, with a cruel little smile, seated close to the virtually naked young girl, applied her left palm to the small of Amy's straight, young, naked back. Raising her right hand, she applied a formidable blow with the open palm on the most temptingly salient curve of the girl's right buttock; at once Amy burst into tears, but these, I knew, were of shame, not pa....
Leona Trellis, armed with a slim, long birch, began Eloise's punishment. The young woman's gag had now been removed, for, as the directress callously observed, she was to be free to use her wicked tongue all she desired. And, under the fury of Trellis's sweeping, launching blows which wrapped the pliant, fresh-cut withes around this thigh or the other, visiting both from kneehollows to the base of the condemned voluptuous posterior, Eloise soon did; she uttered angry cries, at first of denunciation, while her body arched and twisted under the whistling, hissing, thudding blo....
Janice cried out in anguish at the very first stroke of the paddle which Fiona MacAllister delivered against her firm, tempting buttocks, attaining each in a horizontal blow over the tight-fitting drawers; small wonder, since those nether globes, so charmingly contoured, doubtless still burned from the "interrogating" bir....
The fustigations proceeded slowly--oh, God, how slowly--it would not be till evening that this hellish scene would termina....
There being no set number of blows to Amy's manual correction other than the directress' term "A stern manual chastisement," Wardress Gudge took full opportunity of this equivocation to demonstrate her sensuality and cruelty; untiringly, her hand flailed the finely molded, naked rotundities, which soon began to twist, bound, and contract under the crisply sonorous impacts of that envigored hand. Then, too, Amy's cries of shame soon changed to those of genuine pain, as slowly her white posterior acquired an exciting rosy flush throughout the fustigated area--although perforce the executioner chose the enticingly salient sum-mils of both globes as her favorite targets--then to a blight crimson, which passed in turn to an angry dark red inflammation. This last transformation wrenched strident cries and tearful pleas from the fair-haired martyr, who, tugging at her bound wrists, constantly turned her congested face back toward her executioner to plead mercy, while her bare legs huddled, swung wide, kicked, scuffed, and shifted restlessly, disclosing--often, alas--the most secret charms of her young virgini....
This stool, closest to the Laird of all the flagellatory apparatuses, drew his earnest attention, for I saw his dark eyes narrow and fix on Amy's flaming, weaving buttocks as with relentless harshness Wardress Gudge spanked, spanked, spanked. I adjudge about sixty stinging blows of her cruel hand were inflicted before at last she stopped, with a blow on the right summit that fairly made poor Amy bound and utter a wild shriek of pa....
After this first phase had terminated, Janice's up-trussed and corded chemise was cut off with scissors; then her drawers were descended to her ankles and she had to step out of them, still treading agonizedly on tipt....
At last she was naked, the traction of the ladder-rung fettering accentuating her young beauty dramatically, her back well curved and shuddering, her shoulderblades playing nervously in muscular enervation. Her buttocks, when denuded, were piteously swollen and a brilliant red, but even amid this inflammation I detected the ridges and weals left by the birch she had suffered during the terrible inquisition, which had led to her betrayal of her comrad....
Wardress MacAllister now selected a thick birch rod and placed herself again at the left of the sobbing girl, while Anna Gudge, also wielding a formidably thick rod, shoved the stool away with her foot and, standing at the left of the crouching, naked Amy, prepared to inflict the latter's final portion of public expiation: twenty-five good strip....
Hertha Schwartz, burly and evil of visage, armed with the bull pizzle, continued Eloise's martyrdom. At the sign, all three fustigations recommenced: the two huishhhhes of the birch rods were punctuated by a formidable crack as the pizzle swept down to weal with livid stripe the slim, pale ivory back of beautiful, rebellious Eloise, who uttered a raucous cry and lunged furiously in the stoc....
I watched--oh, God, my eyes were drowned in tears, I was feverish--for there is a sensual effect to such scenes though their true sensuality I had not yet learn....
And the terrible orchestration of the whip soon evidenced itself; Amy's cries were penetrating, plaintive, appealing, under the slashing birch which Anna Gudge raised on high and cut down so skillfully against the upreared, naked, inflamed but-tocks of her victim, Or, varying her attack to cause more pain, the cruel Gudge lashed with low sweeps of her arm that sent the rod thudding violently across the huddling, angry-red posterior. The "dance of the whip," a term used so often by these cruel women, was pointedly illustrated as Amy's nether globes twisted, yawned, huddled, weaved, flung up and crouched. The Laird did not take his eyes off that regalia of tortured feminine flesh, a sign that made me shudder with atrocious premonitions --for myse....
Janice's cries were even more hysterical, for the preliminary punishment of the paddle, coming as it did on flesh so recently martyrized, had intensified the stinging, biting malevolence of the birch, and her contorsions on the ladder were frantic; plunging, kicking, hurling herself to flatten against the apparatus, twisting from side to side, jerking at her wrists, tossing her disheveled mane, she too must have--satisfied--the sensual appreciation of that saturnine-faced man who watched, one hand at his goatee, the other now resting on his kn....
The bull pizzle gashed and wealed Eloise's ivory slim back fearfully; by the thirtieth blow, blood oozed below the shoulders and above the right hip. Her cries were raucous, still defiant, but her twists and starts under the cracking pizzle proved her real sufferi....
Both Amy and Janice were left to writhe and weep as the executioners ended those culprits' expiation, and now Leona Trellis, seizing the five-thonged martinet, placed herself at Eloise's left, and, raising the instrument, whirled it thrice around her head, then flashed it down to fantail the five broad leather bands over both impeccably ivory nether glob....
"Ahhhhh!" a long, exhaled cry of rage and pain announced this the first blow. As with Amy, there was to be no set number of lashes given: the directress had called for her to be whipped to the blood!" And with terror and morbid fascination I beheld how ably these wardresses could cause pain without shedding blood! For Leona Trellis applied forty-five lashes with the instrument, assailing every area of the violently writhing, weaving, lowering, plunging posterior, covering it with furiously inflamed colors--dark red, bright red, and both livid and violet tintings--but nowhere was the skin cut. Poor Eloise, under this savage thrashing, shrieked lustily now in agony, all her bravado dispersing under the whip; but, after delivering these forty-five blows, Leona Trellis, panting, her face beaded with sweat, handed the implement to the impatient Hertha Schwartz, who, without even pausing to move to the left of the victim, delivered from downward up a mighty lash that wedded the five thongs with atrocious adherence to the base of both nether hemispheres. A clamorous scream of agony burst forth; a second blow, a third, a fourth, thus similarly dealt, followed and Eloise frenziedly struggled in the stocks, her cries achieving a frantic, piercing stridency--for the savage tips of the leather lashes, with diabolical cruelty, had swept up between her thighs to bite the most intimate portion of her young womanho....
Schwartz varied the lashing now with swift flicks that caused the whip's extremities to pluck the swollen flesh, to bite and sting it atrociously. The lashes which seemed to have but little force yet drew from the naked martyr agonizing screams and frantically convulsive perorations. Hertha Schwartz, her eyes blazing with lustful sadism, then again changed her fustigatory method, to administer the martinet in all its broadness of thong-length in vertical blows from hip to hip; and once again she varied her blows, starting to whip from downward up. Suddenly, at about the thirty-third blow of her delivery, a maddened, hoarse shriek burst from the victim, her body twisted and shuddered furiously--and, at the base of the swollen, livid right buttock, I perceived a ruby drop--blood! As if this excited the executioner, she began to flog now with full, sweeping horizontal blows that huddled the thongs with sonorous impact over the buttocks, pinched them, bruised and burned them horribly, and Eloise's cries reached a new pitch in stridency, her contorsions a new and incredible frenzy. Then again, on both summits now, the skin broke under the slashing blows--and suddenly, after a furiously violent diagonal blow that spread all five thongs savagely across the entire posterior, Eloise's head sagged, her body drooped, the sides heaving--she had mercifully swooned. The fustigation had end....
When these three unfortunates were removed from the stage, three more were brought forth: Marjorie Prentor, sixteen, brown-haired and rounded of form, under the charges of Wardress Ursula Young; Helena Corcoran, nineteen, a stunningly attractive black-haired, green-eyed buxom beauty with petulant features and dazzling, creamy skin, led in by Wardress Priscilla Clarnahan, that handsome grey-haired woman, silent and grave of manner, but feared by her charges for her strength and energy in applying the lash; and May Haskins, twenty-four, a plain-featured young woman endowed, however, with a very lovely figure of ripe proportions, chestnut-hair, and a strawberry and cream complexion; her mistress was Nora Logan, the sensual beauty who loved to apply the whip, as my readers kn....
Marjorie, who was in prison for eight years for petty theft, was sentenced to an additional year for her part in the mutiny, a week in solitary, with a birching each night, and, at once, to endure on the whipping stool, naked but for drawers, a paddling of twenty-five blows and then the leather strap on the naked posterior "till your mistress is convinced you have learned your lesson!" The pretty young girl burst into tears of apprehension at that formidable decree, but already the directress had passed on to Helena.--and I saw the Laird's eyes turn slowly to contemplate the voluptuous brunette as she knelt beyond h....
Perhaps, then, I should not have been surprised to learn that Helena had been paroled to the Laird himself, a year added to her ten-year sentence for vandalism. The unfortunate beauty, employed as a domestic by a stern Scottish Presbyterian family, had actually been birched by the mistress of the household for impertinence, and, rankling at that shameful punishment which she had had to endure on her naked buttocks with the husband--a minister, oh irony of righteousness!--and his two young sons and three daughters looking on in hilarious amusement, Helena had seized the opportunity when the family was absent in church the very next day (she had been confined to her room as further atonement for her "sinfulness") to destroy many of the mistress's prized dresses and adornments. In spite of her parole, however, Helena was now to endure, astride the trestle, naked but for drawers of horsehair, a paddling of twenty strokes, Then she was to rise and remove the drawers with her own hands, only to be refettered on the fiendish apparatus to endure twenty-five lashes with the birch rod. She sobbed softly, bowing her head at this. All the while the Laird, with narrowed eyes, contemplated her. Her black hair was swept up at the front, with a fringe of dainty, tumbled little curls at the nuque; and, alas, I, in my young vanity, felt spiteful toward her for having hair as lovely as mine! A vanity which, alas, I was to find embarassing--anon! But I go to fast again, I fe....
May Haskins, under sentence of thirty years for attempted homicide--her lover had wished to desert her and she had fired a pistol at him, wounding him in the shoulder only--was condemned to five more years with two months in solitary, as one of the lieutenants of the plot and also as an example because of her maturity. Four times weekly she was to be birched on the naked buttocks during that confinement, and, each second Sunday, to receive, before the birching, twenty-five blows of the paddle. For her immediate penance and atonement, she would be stripped naked but for drawers, fettered to the triangle, given the paddle thirty times on her posterior over the drawers, and then the drawers would be removed and she would first receive twenty lashes with the strap on the backs of her naked thighs, then twenty lashes on the naked back with a pizzle, and finally thirty lashes of the birch on her buttoc....
Immediately the three victims were divested of their garments as prescribed. To the executioner's delight, May's plain features were compensated for mightily, by the effulgent rotundities of her snowy buttocks, her firm, staunch, long thighs, while her large round breasts, narrowly spaced and erect on her chest, displayed coral buds of virile development; also, she had very beautifully full, rounded arms and dimpled shoulde....
Marjorie, pert-faced, was charming, with rounded, narrowly set nether hemispheres, short but voluptuously ripe young thighs, and small, delicately tipped, pendant breasts of milky-skinned loveliness. But Helena's body was that of a houri: full, majestic bosom, high-set canteloupe-like globes with dark, ruby-like, hard nipples amid wide dark coral circlings; her hips were lush, her buttocks opulent, spaciously rounded but nowhere excessively fleshed; of medium height, she had plump ivory calves and short but magnificently sculptured thighs. And when, clad only in the horsehair drawers which accentuated every enticing curve of her opulent posterior, she was led to the trestle and made to straddle it and extend herself along its sharp ridge, the Laird's eyes flamed with a singular glow. A glow that made me shudder to the depths of my very bei....
Indeed, his eyes were all for Helena's punishment, in spite of the superb body of May Haskins, naked but for drawers, spread-eagled in stark relief against the triangle's grim frame and the convulsive starts of her entire body under the paddle wielded by beautiful titian-haired Nora Logan, whose voluptuous tongue covertly flicked the corners of her sensual mouth as she wielded her instrument. He seemed oblivious, too, of the pert and provocative young body of Marjorie, draped in salacious pose over the low whipping stool, as she arched and writhed interminably under the "nun's" harsh administration of the paddle to her resilient posterior sheathed in drawers. The Laird had no eves for either of these victims, even in the carnally suggestive throes that fustigation infallibly produces, but instead, no longer fondling his goatee, he sat with folded arms, thin-set lips, and narrowed eyes and contemplated the squirming, arching, weaving buttocks of beautiful Helena as sonorously the paddle dashed upon their effulgenci....
And then, when, unbound from her apparatus, naked but for the drawers, she had to draw these down with her own trembling hands, her face tear-stained, her thighs shuddering with the burning pangs of her fustigation--and at last the final veil to her houri-like nudity was dropped--his nostrils flared spasmodically, and again the singular glow lighted his dark, intent ey....
Nor did that glow fade when now, Helena's ivory-body vividly accented by the lascivious contrast of her flaming, swollen, naked buttocks, the executioner applied a broad, bushy birch rod with slowly spaced, vigorous lashes. For the lewd twistings, flattenings, uparchings, and writhings which that marvelously opulent vista of womanly flesh achieved had--even for me, who abhor the atrocity and the infamy of the lash--a strange, an inexplicable, a morbid fascination....
Helena, remarkably passive under the paddle, which had drawn from her, only groans and stifled sobs and anguished tears, now, under the slashing birch which streaked her buttocks vividly and covered them with upraised welts and scratches, uttered exquisitely vibrant, even melodious, cries and fervent, ingenuous pleas to be spared, promising full repentance in exchange for remission. And, from the tenth blow on to the last of her count, she seemed to turn back her head toward--the Laird in his armchair, as if to speak to him alone! And when at last Helena was released and stood, her executioner's arm supporting her shaking waist, the young beauty buried her face in her trembling hands and wept like a child, making no effort to hide her shameful nudity before him. Oh, curious phenomenon! But, God knows, not the least curious of what I was destined to discern in my new life--my blighted desti....
The list of victims still to receive punishment before all eyes had been reduced to eig....
And now an anguishing moment came for me, for among the three new prisoners led in, I recognized Kitty, pale and sell contained, head high, led in by the powerful Bertha McGowan--it seemed that every wardress was to be given opportunity to practice her atrocious skill this eventful afterno....
And with Kitty came beautiful Henrietta Kelly, lithe, brown-haired, eighteen, with sweet, studious features now tensed with apprehension, in the charge of Dot Kennedy, who, like Mary Jennison, my own mistress, was reputed to be less cruel than her associates. Then, finally, Clara Henrichsen, the simpering blonde of twenty, whom I had always disliked for her coy ways and affected speech, appeared. Under sentence of ten years for theft, she sought to convince us all that she was really of noble blood, though the bar sinister had marked ....
Her face was a cameolike oval, but the nose was too broad, with sensuous wings, the lips too selfishly petulant, the eyes too vaguely, weakly blue to achieve esthetic perfection. Yet her form was attractive; of medium height, she had a strongly jutting round young bosom, fulsome thighs and lithe hips, with rather small though perfectly rounded buttocks; her calves were a trifle too large for elegance, but her fair skin, a lovely carnation-tinted velvet, was indeed bewitchi....
Again, doubtless to converse the time spent on formalities in order to give the whippets greater scope, the three knelt together before the directress. Henrietta, committed here for theft, was an orphan who had been brutalized as a child. She had fine spirit and character, though not much education; yet her beauty and candor more than made up for this lack. Large, clear, dark brown eyes, a high, broad forehead, a Grecian nose, rounded cheeks, a firm chin, a sweet, generous, smiling mouth and a rich peaches-and-cream complexion made her really striking, and the Laird's eyes, now bland again and expressionless, fixed on her as she knelt, the last in line and to his rig....
The directress charged Clara and Kitty with being lieutenants in the damnable uprising. Henrietta, alas, was adjudged one of the principal mutineers, and she had bravely avowed her guilt, defended herself only on the grounds that her punishment was excessive for her crime, which she had committed of necessity--she had stolen to buy food after her escape from a wretched home to which the orphanage had sent her when she became sixteen and where she was whipped with a strap by an elderly termagant for the slightest misdemeanor. This righteous, noble plea was mocked, to be sure, and Henrietta was placed under stern sentence. Her original sentence was fifteen years; to it, ten more would be added. She would spend six months in solitary confinement; each Saturday of that period she would receive a severe birching on the naked posterior, while, during the first month, her mistress would give her twenty-five blows with a leather strap each night--nor would the Saturday birching relieve her of the obligation to taste the strap as well! Silent heed erect, courageous, lips clenched, fingers driving into her palms, the lovely Irish girl heard this atrocious sentence without a murm....
But then the directress exclaimed: "But now, prepare to atone before all for your unpardonable rebelli....
Kennedy, this girl is to be stripped naked, her wrists fixed to the pulley overhead, and you will flog her with the horsewhip from neck to heels till the blood flows!" And Henrietta, aghast, shrank back with hands at her throat, then uttered an indignant cry: "No, no, it is too brutal, too unjust! To beat me so fer wishin' to escape this hell--is that a crime? Aye, maybe 'tis, but surely not one to draw such horrible cruel punishmen....
As if she had not heard, the directress cynically added: "Kennedy, I think, after the flogging, Henrietta will require restoration; you will therefore revive her with a good whipping between her nuked thighs with a fresh bouquet of nettle....
"Oh, no, no, ye've no right to do that! With him seein' me so shamefully bare--no, I'll not submit--ahhh....
For Wardress Kennedy had drawn the girl's chained wrists behind her back and twisted them cruelly at the directress' sign. Head flung back, face twisted in pain, the brave girl panted, "No, no, never, kill mi' fir....
"Trellis, aid Kennedy in preparing this wretch," snapped Matron Harnesty, and it was thus done; the two women overpowered her and held her on her knees, awaiting the decrees to her companions in ago....
Clara was next adjudged. To her ten years were added six more; she would spend three months in solitary, thirty lashes of the birch each night for three weeks, then forty lashes with the leather strap each night for three weeks thereafter. For immediate expiation, she was to be stripped naked, put astride the trestle, and whipped with thirty blows of the paddle on her buttocks, thirty strokes of the pizzle on her naked thighs, and thirty with the cat on her naked back, arms, and shoulders. Then, finally, thirty lashes of the birch were to be administered to her posterior! Oh, for all that I detested her, yet did I pity her now with all my hea....
And then followed a strange scene as Kitty, sternly rebuked for her folly in entering this infamous plot when she had been under the wise and guiding regime of Colcarmorie little more than two months, waited to hear her senten....
During the directress' usual sermon which prefaced--to her great savoring, I knew--the pronouncement of actual chastisement, I saw Kitty's head turn toward the Laird, then to me, her eyes meeting mine, then back to the Laird. And as my eyes followed this seeming distraction, I saw him nod slightly to h....
"And now, your sentence: first......
"Madame Directress!" Kitty's voice was low and nervously troubl....
"You dare interrupt now, wretched girl? On what pretext do you seek to mitigate your sentenc....
"Only, Mum, that--that I--fling meself on the mercy of His Lordship that I repent me sins--and ask--ask--fergiveness for them....
The directress seemed to smile strangely, then glanced to the Laird, who again nodded. Pursing her lips, Matron Harnesty, after a pause, resumed: "So be it. His Lordship has seen fit, because you are only recently imprisoned, to grant you a chance to repent your sins. You are paroled to his custody. However, you must not think to escape atonement now, for in humiliation alone is there redemption, Kitty. Therefore, you will undress yourself to drawers and chemise, first kneel before His Lord-ship and, bowing your head, kiss his hand and thank him for his generosity in pardoning you your crime. Then McGowan will divest you of the chemise and drawers and attach you over the whipping stool, to receive twenty strokes of the paddle on your naked buttocks, then twenty-five lashes of the three-thonged martinet on your thighs, then thirty lashes of the birch on your posterior. Now, then, Wardresses, carry out my orders!" The women at once drew their victims up and unchained their wrists--for all these martyrs, as I have said, more the gyves with short linking chain at their wrists as symbols of their terrible crime--and the preparations began. Kitty, trembling, her face flushed and eyes averted, passively let Wardress McGowan doff her shoes and stockings, skirt and blouse; then, approaching the Laird, she fell to her knees and, crawling under the high table set before this tribunal, took his extended hand, kissed it, and filtered, in a choking voice, "Thank ye, yer Lordship, fer--fer pardonin' me my sins. I'll show repentance, that I will--and--and--humbly...." Then, retreating on her knees, she rose, head bowed, arms at her sides, and the wardress swiftly drew off her chemise, baring the girl's magnificent body to the waistband of her drawers. Then she led her to the whipping stool, over which Kitty submissively knelt and was strapped down, her wrists corded and the end of that cord affixed to the metal ring beyond, that she might not protect her fustigated seat with solacing hands while under punishment. Then her drawers were remov....
Clara Henrichsen, weeping bitterly, was swiftly stripped, and her naked body revealed all its voluptuous richness as it was straddled down and fettered on the trestle; at once she cried out that it hurt her atrociously between the legs, but her executioner, the dowdy Elsie Larrison, wiry, thin, and a malicious gossip, chuckled dryly, "Ye'll not feel that soon, Miss, I warrant ye!" As for magnificent Henrietta, she fulfilled her promise to fight against her tormentresses. With feet and fists she sought to prevent being stripped, but Trellis and Kennedy, angered by the resistance, pinched, slapped, and twisted her wrists, overpowering her, disheveling her beautiful tresses, and ripping off her clothing, leaving her shoes and hose on till she had been affixed to the pull....
This pulley, set in the ceiling, let down a bar of iron from which manacles dangled from short chains soldered to the bar. Into these manacles Henrietta's slim wrists were locked, then a lever at the wall motivated the pulley action and the naked beauty stood on tiptoe, her body in cruel traction. Then each wardress, seizing an ankle deftly, proceeded to remove the paltry articles which still clothed that wonderful creamy body, and, crying out in wild shame and indignation--for she faced the tribunal and thus saw all those intent eyes savoring her naked charms she was ready for her punishme....
From the terrible panoply hanging on the wall which the victim faced, Dot Kennedy took the atrocious horsewhip, a weapon of closely woven, plaited brown leather, five feet long and the thickness of a finger, with a heavy short handle. Henrietta uttered a cry of indignant horror: "No, no, not that--oh, Lord, ye'll murder me! Ye've no right! A whip like that even to a poor animal's horrible--and ye'd use it on a helpless, tied-up girl? Oh, shame, wretched shame on ye al....
"Lay it on well, Kennedy," said the matron with a terrible smile. "See that blood is not drawn too soon; it would spare this wretch too muc....
"Never fear, M'um," said the placid Kennedy, who, not innately cruel, nonetheless had to obey strict orde....
Now the sign was given. Bertha McGowan raised her oval-shaped paddle and struck; a sonorous clack resounded, the sharpness of the blow muffled somewhat by the accompanying echo of the paddle wielded by Elsie Larrison against the naked posterior of poor Clara on the trest....
Standing well at the left and behind her victim, Wardress Kennedy swept out the horrible long horsewhip, drew it back, and, stepping forward, circled it round the beautiful young girl's naked back with a horrid cra....
I saw the lash coil just under Henrietta's heaving breasts; I saw the girl's body start convulsively, her head fling back, her eyes dilate, then a raucous cry, "Ahhhhh Goddd, 'tis horrible!" burst from h....
Oh, shame, terror, and abhorrence make me hasten over this last flogging; slowly, with expert artistry, the wardress plied the long plaited whip, sometimes wrapping it around that creamy body, sometimes slashing with the extremity, or wealing diagonally, starting at the back, going to the thighs, then returning to the back and shoulders, and finally curling it around the full, tempting, creamy buttocks with violently crisp, fearful impacts. Gradually, red weals flamed from neck to calves, and, where the whip coiled around on sweeping blows to attain the front of that beautiful young form, cruel flaming ridges and abrasions formed on the stomach, the sides, the chest, and even the armpits as well as on the fronts of the gracefully rounded thig....
Henrietta could not control her shrieks and cries; nor any less could she control the abandoned, sporadic lunging, twisting, kicking, and writhing to which the hellish whip drove her. Her face flushed, a mask of contorted agony, her head flinging her disheveled tresses from side to side, her eyes exorbitant, she endured forty such atrocious strokes before the wardress, fatigued and breathless, handed the weapon to the brutal Trell....
Maddened with pain, panting, her sides shuddering violently--full proof of her supreme torture --poor Henrietta saw, with consternation, the burly cruel-faced wardress plant herself before h....
"Ahhhhhhh, no more, no more, for the love of Jesus! Aii, I suffer--oh, my God, how I suffer! Pardon, ahh, enough, enough! Wh--whip me with something else--for the love of heaven please! Oh, my body is torn, oh, the pain! No more--ahhhhhh-stopstopstopahahahahahahahaliahhhhhhh!!!" For the atrocious whip, drawn back, had swept out and darted its final loot-length extremity, tapering and murderously flexible, over both the glorious young surging breasts, defaming their creamy turrets, with the savage red weal of burning agony. I uttered a stifled cry; I was fai....
In direst agony, the victim flung herself back, her stomach shrinking convulsively; then, with a groaning, tear filled voice, she gasped, "Ahh, not--not--on the breasts--'tis--too much. Ahh--ohhh--not there--in pity--oh... not there......
"Here, then, me pretty?" laughed the diabolical Trellis, and sweeping her long whip back along the floor, she sent it leaping up against the girl's bare, straining thighs. The frightfully narrowed end of the damnable whip flicked with a sinister, muffled impact--full into the downy triangle of pubic mane that thresholded the most sensitive region of a....
"AHAHAHHHHHMERRCYMERRCY!!" shrilled the agonized young martyr, throwing her body from side to side till the bar creaked its protest. Her face twisted in the most indescribable torment, her loins writhed, and her thighs rubbed and chaf....
"Why, then, ye see, dearie, t'other place was far more pleasin' to ye, after all," chuckled the barbarous wardress, as, with deft, sweeping, wrist-tensed stroke, she laid the brutal whip full across both heaving creamy breasts once mo....
"Oooeeeyahhhhhhh! God help me! God save meeeeeceee!!!" A continuous, prolonged, piercing shriek rang out under that satanic lash, which left a dark red chafing ridge over the panting naked breasts, destroying the creamy satin brutally, inflicting the most inhuman suffering--and this stroke had, as the tip of the horsewhip flicked with biting ardor, attained the girl's right nipple, stinging it savagely, causing it to swell with the suffusion of aggravated blood, till, in truth, it became a dark jewel of infernal suffering--such as only a woman or young girl can suffer, and yet not peri....
Henrietta tugged at her arms, the downy fleece in her armpits dank with the sweat of her frightful torme....
Face haggard and twisted unrecognizably, writhing interminably and weakened by the savage yet perversely skilled fustigation, she now was striped everywhere on the front of her adorably young body, just as she had been on her back. Her creamy belly was defaced by multiple crisscrossing striations, the waist was circled with fiery bands of agony, rapidly turning livid, linking with ever new gashes and stripes. Her chest and even her lovely upper arms received their full share. Her entire body aflame with the frightful exacerbation of nerves so barbarously, yet so scientifically, roused into torment by the terrible horsewhip, she continued to shriek, to twist, to drag on the bar, and its protesting creaking was not the least painful music to my ea....
Never had I seen such a fearful flogging, yet one which, owing to the skill of the whippers, was so maddeningly prolonged; I had believed this whip could tear the naked skin at a blow, yet poor Henrietta must have by now endured some eighty lashes without shedding a drop of blood. Even in their own throes of agony, the other two, whose punishments had continued apace, were compelled by the wild agony of Henrietta's cries and incoherent pleas--tragic, lamentable, despairing, feverish--to turn their heads to see a martyrdom that far surpassed their own. Kitty's punishment had ended first; weeping in shame and pain, she was left to her anguish in the shameful pose over the stool, strapped down at the waist, arms drawn down and along the floor, her crimsoned, striped, and twig-scratched, paddle-swollen buttocks twisting uncontrollably from the furious waves of heat that suffused them so violently. Poor Clara, almost fainting from her long and varied fustigation, was left on the trestle, moaning, sobbing piteously, her body shuddering with frequent convulsive starts, for the ridge had acutely added to her long ordeal with its fiendish chafing between her beautiful naked thig....
Their ebbing plaints furnished tragic background for the raucous, exhausted cries of the unfortunate young Henrietta. A few more lashes, dealt again by Wardress Kennedy to the girl's posterior, and at last blood sprang along a blistered gash on the lower left hemisphere. With a shuddering, convulsive writhing of her naked body, Henrietta let her fair head droop, her whip-wealed breasts swelled feverishly, groans and rattling gasps exuded from her lips--she was about to lose consciousne....
The wardress stopped, indicating to the directress that the first part of the sentence had been carried o....
The first part--oh, horror! For now, in gleeful anticipation, donning the coarse gloves to protect her own hands from the nettles, Leona Trellis seized a fresh, voluminous bouquet of nettles and, planting herself directly before the lolling body of the martyr, began to apply deft little flicks against the virginal loi....
My eyes were burning with tears, my bosom heaving with choking sobs as I saw the head of the unhappy girl slowly--oh, how slowly--rise. I saw the eyes, swollen and red with weeping, open with a haggard and vacuous expression, then fix on the woman standing before her. Suddenly the naked, beautiful arms twisted savagely, dragging with galvanized fury against the manacles; tragically seeking to fling herself back with her feeble energy, she uttered a hysterical, inhuman cry: "Ahhhheeee-ahahahahahahahahahahmerrrrrrrrcy! Not between the legs, nooo, it burns! Ohhhh, it burns, it burns, it burns soooooo!! Parrrdon, I repent, I repent--kill me--ohhh--God--ahhhhhhh....
To this heart-rending supplication, Leona Trellis appeared deaf as she continued to apply the wicked little flicks of the diabolical blooms against the poor victim's sex, her inner thighs, her lower abdomen, sweeping up into the shadowy groove that, beyond, rose into the median cleft between the excoriated buttoc....
Clamorous, gurgling shrieks, piteous babbled words, and phrases, interspersed with low, shuddering groans and uncontrollable muscular and nervous spasms, were produced by this hellish aftermath to the brutal flogging--until at last, with a final groaning cry, a savage tremor shook the naked whip-gashed body, and Henrietta's head dropped to one quaking should....
It was over. The unhappy Clara and Kitty were led off by their executioners and the inert body of Henrietta was carried off by her two barbarous tormentresses. Oh, God, God of love and kindness, would this abominable scene never end? No--five more victims remain....
The bell. The summons. Now three young girls were led out for fearful expiation. First came Elsie Longdon, in the custody of Jennie Tranter. Second was a sandy-haired girl of seventeen, Sally Brendon, slim and petite, with childlike, piquant face, dainty form, and small but round breasts that surged against her white blouse. Adding to her charms were gradually rounding calves, short graceful thighs, and well-rounded posterior evidenced against her tight-molding skirt. Holding her by the shoulder was Amy Simplisson--oh, doubtless these who have opportunity a second time to torture a feminine victim delectate in their cruel spo....
And finally the third victim, a mature young woman named Lucille Arlen, appeared. This twenty-three-year-old beauty wore her brown hair in a chingnon. She was of medium height, excitingly buxom, and particularly admired for her soft pink skin. Leading her was Wardress Fiona MacAllist....
The directress had all three kneel in penitence before her; swift was her judgment, for the hour was late, yet justice must and would be done. Justice! This! Elsie, as a chief lieutenant, could not receive more years in prison--life was the duration of her original sentence. But she was given a year--an entire year! My God, the frightful sentence rang--in solitary confinement, and each Saturday she was to endure thirty-five lashes of the birch rod on her buttocks, twice a week a severe manual correction, plus ten good lashes, of the leather strap. And now she was to share the fate of the other two girls before all. What this was, was still to be divulg....
Young Sally Brendon, in prison for five years for theft, had already served two. In view of her tender age, her judge had been relatively merciful! Now she was told she must serve an additional five for being a lieutenant in the rebellion. She would, in addition, spend six months in solitary confinement; each Saturday of this time she would be given thirty lashes of the five-thonged martinet on her posterior, and, twice weekly, she would be given first a stern manual correction, then whipped on the naked buttocks with nettles! The pretty little creature wept and begged for mercy when that awful decree was pronounced, but all in vain. Finally, the attractive, ripe-bodied Lucille, also a lieutenant in the revolt, was to have five more years added to her ten-year term for insolence to a magistrate and vagrancy. She would also spend six months in a narrow dungeon, from which, each Saturday, she would be taken to one of the special punishment cells on that same lower level of the prison, to receive forty lashes with the birch on her bared buttocks; twice a week she would ascend the horse to endure twenty lashes with the strap and a good manual chastisement thereaft....
But now the triple fustigation was at hand; the directress ordered that all three culprits be stripped stark naked, Lucille tied to the whipping ladder, Elsie to be posed over the lap of her executioner in the straight-backed chair, and lovely little Sally to kneel in atonement over the whipping sto....
Wardresses Trellis and Schwartz appeared on the stage again, but only as vigilant guards to supervise the stripping and to quell resistance. There was none. Poor little Sally wept heartrendingly as, with bowed head and clenched fists, she let her mistress swiftly draw off her garments, preserving the shoes and stockings to the last. She buried her face in her hands the moment her drawers fell and exposed that dainty, sweet, naked body, with fair milky skin, the lovely little round breasts capped with pink blossoms, the slim waist, the smooth belly with delicate indentation, lowering to the harmonious triangle made by virginal loins, fleeced with soft mossy tendrils of dark, honey-hued down. Lucille groaned as her garments fell away one by one, revealing a magnificent body endowed with out-jutting, pear-crested breasts peaked by cherry-hued buds, a supple waist merging into rounded, mature hips, and a posterior opulently firm and genero....
In addition, she possessed robust, full, womanly thighs, plumply contoured calves, and her skin was of a velvety soft pink tinting. Her executioner eyed her with satisfaction. Lucille, whose retrousse nose, gray-green eyes, and rounded cheeks and chin made her stunningly good-looking, was scarlet with shame; her fists clenched and her lips trembled as she found herself nude before all ey....
now the three women assigned to flog the culprits led them to their respective altars of martyrdom. Lucille was taken to the ladder, where Wardress MacAllister made her stand with arms uplifted. Mounting the stool drawn up beside the apparatus, MacAllister quickly corded the young woman's wrists to a high-set rung, making her stand on tipt....
Beautiful Elsie, pale and tense, lips tightly compressed to control any expression of her mortifying shame--for hers was indeed the most humiliating pose of the trio--was led by the wrist like an errant schoolgirl to the straight chair, in which prim, mousy Jennie Tranter seated herself and then made the naked beauty drape herself over her uniformed lap. And close by, weeping as if her heart would break, poor little Sally knelt down, bowed her head, and extended her body across the whipping stool, to which she was strapped at the waist, her hands made fast to the ring in the flo....
Elsie's superb young body shivered incessantly as she lay abandoned over her mistress' knees, a pose she had taken all too often before in the confines of her own cell. The directress seemed to divine that perhaps of all the torments she could have devised, this, with its element of juvenility and deepest mortification, agonized the mature rebel most, now that her punishment was to be seen by a....
Leaning back in her chair, she spoke in a cold voice: "Equally guilty, all three of these sinners shall have the same chastisements. MacAllister, you will give Lucille thirty lashes with the three-thonged martinet; Tranter, you will give the same number of blows with a pizzle to Elsie's wicked, naked behind; and you, Semplisson, will apply the same number of strokes with an oaken paddle to Sally's posterior! When this has been accomplished, these girls will pass to the next instrument and apparatus, till each has tasted thirty lashes of each different chastisement! Begin at onc....
Sally's sobs, muffled through the pronouncement of the sentence, now burst forth in woeful anguish as the matron stopped and waved her hand. Shamed by her nudity, the young girl huddle her thighs together pitifully so that this male onlooked should see nothing of her most intimate young charms, while Elsie shivered and crossed her lovely bare legs, and Lucille, stiffening, raised her eyes above her. However, to prevent Elsie from protecting herself, Jennie Tranter bad required the girl to put her wrists behind her back, where she corded them tightly; then, tucking Elsie's waist in with her left arm. She raised the pizzle in her hand and brought ii down with full force from the short range of attack--a vigorous blow nonetheless, cracking resoundingly and leaving a vivid red weal across both upper summits. Crackk, the paddle rang out as it dashed its oval resilience against the lovely rounding of little Sally's right buttock summit, and a cry of woe answered to ....
Clackkkk, the three-thonged martinet vibrated, wedding its leather bands from right to left over the ripest curve of both Lucille's shuddering, contracting, naked nether globes; her muffled groan was answer to ....
Elsie, who had been subjected to a rigorous manual correction following her not too distant public whipping, showed the sensitivity of her flesh--demonstrable, moreover, by the faint marks still lingering thereon--in fitful kicks, archings, and strangled cries as the pizzle whistled and cracked over her writhing posterior, striping it with horizontal, vertical and diagonal welts. But despite her real suffering, Elsie, who had been sufficiently cowed by her regime of penance in her cell, as I have previously described, did not leave her position, doubtless fearing sterner reprisal. When all the culprits had endured their thirty strokes, and lovely little Sally's provocatively rounded posterior was swollen and reddened ominously from the paddle's chastening caresses and Lucille's opulent rotundities were patterned with broad, long, red streaks from the martinet, a pause ensued, during which the three naked beauties exchanged positions, not to their advantage in the least. The pitifully weeping, pleading Sally, was tied to the ladder, Elsie had to drape herself apprehensively, weeping convulsively, over the whipping stool, while beautiful Lucille's maturity was humbled effectively as she was compelled to drape herself over the knees of her mistress, Fiona MacAllister, and Amy Semplisson brandished the martinet behind the terrified and sobbing Sally. The signal was again given by the directress, and once more the triumvirate of naked victims wept, cried out, writhed, and twisted as the three instruments descended on their already agonized, discolored posterio....
Elsie's cries were now the loudest, for the cruel pizzle had bitten, burned, and gashed her beautiful buttocks viciously, and her upreared nether hemispheres described the most lascivious contorsions as she turned her face constantly back toward her executioner to watch with agonized, dilated eyes the ascent and downsweep of the oaken paddle which made the striped flesh of her burning seat throb, swell, and shudder violent....
However, Sally was not far behind in expression of her own suffering; her lovely legs kicked wildly in the air as her mistress, with short, deft, energetic strokes that alternated with broad sweeps of her arm, crashed the martinet's sinuous thongs against her paddle-swollen posterior, making her fling and huddle against the ladder of twat wildly under the atrocious suffering, her head flung back, her eyes dilated woefully. And big, beautiful Lucille suffered as much in humiliation as in pain to lie with bound wrists behind her back over the knees of her expert correctress, who wielded the pizzle with violently wealing and stinging effect on her martinet-striped posteri....
After thirty lashes had been applied to each martyr with this second instrument, there followed another pause. Sally, released from the ladder, fell on her knees, hysterical with suffering, and pleaded with clasped hands to be let off any more, but her mistress dragged her to the whipping chair by the earlobe like a little child and, conquering her struggles easily, soon had her draped over with bound wrists. Her martyred, violently discolored buttocks writhed and contracted in piteous apprehension of the pizzle's savage caresses soon to be inflicted. Now it was Lucille's turn to kneel over the whipping stool to which she was strapped and to have her wrists corded to the ring; her sumptuous nether hemispheres were flaming and, in many places, livid from the combined effects of martinet and pizzle. She had yet to endure the paddle, a fearful torment when inflicted on flesh so terribly fustigated as hers. Elsie, overwhelmed with suffering, was led staggeringly to the ladder where she pressed her body against it in abandon; her beautiful seat, bruised and striped by pizzle and paddle, now had to endure the crashing, nipping martin....
The signal. The resumption. Tirelessly these wardresses, delighting in the rare opportunity to apply three different instruments each requiring a divergent technique in pain Infliction, showed their horrid skill. Sally, under the very first slashing kiss of the pizzle, kicked so violently and shrieked so piercingly that her mistress had angrily to bid her stay in place if she did not wish an extra, and, to hold the naked petite beauty still, she clamped the girl's ankles with her right leg, then began to whip in earnest. The shrieks, the frantic twists, arches, lunges, and swervings, demonstrated the young girl's agony. Moreover, delicate-skinned as the lovely little posterior was, the epidermis gave way under the rasping fury of the whip, and by the twentieth stroke blood appeared at the base and near the edges of the young blonde's hips; half fainting, her cries diminished but raucous, her phrases childlike, she had to endure the flagellation to the inexorable total of her allotted d....
Lucille, too, forsook her maturity under the crashing paddle, which drew wild cries, feverish pleas for mercy, and the most voluptuous twistings, shrinkings, and plungings of her fulsome rotundities. The unfortunate Elsie uttered strangled cries of agony each time the martinet's thongs clung to the fullness of her martyrized buttocks; she jerked at her wrists, kicked, clenched, and rubbed her legs, drove forward, her back bending in supremely, her hair streaming down over her face, which was contorted, tear-drowned, and flushed with ago....
Finally, the terrible sentence had been carried out; each girl had had ninety strokes from the total of three instruments. Blisters and swellings were superimposed over the pizzle gashes in Elsie's martyrized flesh, but poor Sally's seat was the most atrociously wounded and she crumpled on her side when released from the whipping chair. Lucille, moaning, mouth twisted in relentless torment, could hardly walk, and she was led off, tottering, in the arms of Trellis and Sempliss....
Oh, God, oh, God, now only two more martyrs to come before the tribunal. But these were the true leaders of the revolt, hence saved to the very la....
The bell rang. Hertha Schwartz and Martha Wilderly, gloating, led forth beautiful, auburn-haired Wilma Danlin, nineteen, a tall, sculptural beauty with sullenly defiant features. Although pale with apprehension, she bore a resolve to endure to death these tortures, penalty for her will to escape just such a regime. The next victim was brought in by Wardresses Nora Logan and Anna Gudge, who was physically the most attractive--and also the most sensually perverse, as I was later to learn--of this lower rank of prison officia....
The prisoner's ankles and wrists were manacled, as were Wilma's. She proved to be a beautiful young woman of twenty-five, golden-haired, of voluptuous build, perhaps five-feet-six-inches in height, with an exquisitely poignant face, wide, well-spaced blue eyes, a dainty, straight nose with flaring, thin, sensuous wings, a broad forehead, fine arching sandy brows, a sweet red Cupid's bow mouth, oval cheeks, and a pink and white complexion of delicious satiny beauty. Her name was Madeleine Arndt, and she had been committed to prison for fifteen years for the attempted drowning of her sickly, malformed baby, whose father had deserted her in tragic poverty. Some would say that the slaying would have to been a mercy, but the court recognized it not as such, and had she succeeded in destroying the warped and twisted tiny body, death would have been her l....
Beautiful young Wilma was imprisoned here for eighteen years for stealing from her own father--yes, from him who had virtually enslaved her and, because of her striking beauty, had sought vilely to ravish her. When she would not yield, he placed temptation in her path by leaving where she could find it a large sum of guineas, and Wilma, hoping to escape her cruel home, had taken it and fled, only to be apprehended. That was the "crime" for which eighteen years of her life were to be robbed from h....
The two prisoners were made to kneel down before the Laird, who resumed the reading of the fatal decree of punishment. Superb Madeleine was most guilty. She was the true captain of the revolt; a knife had been found in her mattress, and, when confronted with it, she had boldly declared she meant to use it against Wardress Gudge, who had persecuted her not only because the latter took joy in humiliating this mature beauty--often making her bend down to grip her ankles and ready her naked buttocks for the paddle of a morning inspection, out of sheer malice and cruelty--but also because the perverse blonde wardress had made her the most villainous of proposals, the nature of which my readers can most likely divine, for Wardress Gudge detested men, yet, singularly enough, derived sensual gratification from inflicting the whip on those of her own s....
The Laird, eyeing the superb blonde kneeling before him, considered her lingeringly before reading the sentence. She was to be given ten more years in prison! At this, Madeleine cried out indignantly: "Vile judge! To punish so unjust!" and her two gaolers angrily clapped hands over her mouth. Infuriated by this treatment, Madeline sank her teeth into Wardress Gudge's hand, drawing a cry of rage and pain from the perverse woman, who promptly gagged her victim with the aid of beautiful and equally perverse Nora Log....
After this violent interruption, the elegantly groomed Laird read on. Madeleine was to spend a year in solitary confinement, but divided into three-month periods for the next four years, the first such period coming at once. And during this incarceration, she would be given forty birch strokes on the naked posterior each Saturday, would receive thrice a week the same number of blows with a leather strap, and on the last Saturday of each three month period, her punishment would be made public before the entire prison. Furiously struggling against her gaolers, the gagged young woman cried out against her gag to denounce this barbarous unjust senten....
Then the Laird nodded to Matron Harnesty who, in a dry voice, announced the imminent, shameful, brutal martyrdom of this magnificent young blonde: "Your crimes are multifold, wretched Madeleine; there should be no pity for you. A woman of your years should be looked up to as righteous; instead, you are rebellious defiant, insolent, with murderous instincts. We shall seek to suppress these through the penance His Lordship has just inflicted on you. But now, we shall strike at your pride as at your flesh! You are to be set in the stocks, wearing horsehair drawers, to await the punishment which this other accomplice first shall submit to fully, so that you may see and hear her merited anguish under the lash! Gudge, Logan, prepare her--and Trellis, stand by to aid them if need b....
At once the two beautiful wardresses began to rend blonde Madeleine's clothing, without bothering to unchain her wrists and ankles. She fought as best she could, but, gagged and fettered, against their vindictive, skillful attack she was helpless. Trellis was needed only to help place her in the stocks once the bonds had been removed, and also to pin her with brawny arms while the infamous drawers were ascended over her magnificent upper thighs, hips, and buttocks. Then, still gagged, clamped in the stocks, naked but for the drawers which molded with agonizing rasp and prickling chafe her wonderful loins and posterior, she had to await execution till Wilma's Calvary was at an e....
Wilma Danlin, very pale, eyes closed, lips set, fingers clenched and trembling, knelt alone now before the tribunal. She was to be at Colcarmorie for eighteen years, as I have said; to this term, the Laird now announced, reading from the scroll--oh, what a document of infamous cruelty, this!--twelve years were to be added. Wilma groaned and shook her head, trembling spasmodically. Then, her eyes wide and anguished, she gazed at the saturnine face of her judge as he read further: "You, too, charged with the concealment of a dangerous weapon you intended to use in this damnable conspiracy"--it was a long darning needle she had stolen from the sewing room in her blouse--"are worthy of no pity; you shall meditate on your sins by enduring a term of solitary confinement for eight months, this to be divided into two four-month periods, to be served this year and next. Each Saturday your mistress shall inflict on your naked posterior fifty lashes of the three-thronged martinet, this punishment to be made public the final Saturday of each month. Moreover, thrice weekly you shall endure a stern manual correction on the naked flesh, followed by twenty lashes of the leather strap, and every Sunday you shall wear horsehair drawers and tunic to chasten your rebellious flesh, that your spirit may be humbled through it. Now, I turn you over to the temporal authority, who will pronounce the punishment which, at once, you may expect to receive!" Wilma had buried her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook with stifled sobs of torment at this atrocious senten....
The directress leaned forward, contemplating the beautiful young martyr, and spoke with sensual gratification in her authoritative voice: "Wilma Danlin, hear my judgment: that you be stripped of all save your chemise; then, trussing it high with your own hands, you kneel before your mistress and kiss her feet in humility......
"My God, my God, put me to death instead. It would be greater mercy!" cried the harassed beauty, face flaming with shame, while Martha Wilderly's homely face beamed with anticipation at this ignominious homage to be granted h....
"Silence, wretched girl--I have not finished. When you have accomplished this penance, you will remain groveling, grasping her ankles and continuing to kiss her feet while she applies thirty lashes of the five-thonged martinet upon your upturned naked buttocks...." Oh, vile spectacle! Oh, barbarous and lascivious tableau! And, realizing its infamy only too well before the discerning, sensual gaze of the Laird Wilma cried out once more: "Noo, noo, I will not, I will not, even though you kill me for i....
"Then, if you refuse, you shall instead be given thirty years in prison and spend the next two in solitary, with the floggings therein as prescribed already. Quickly, which do you choose?" Wilma recoiled, her eyes atrociously dilated, lips trembling convulsive....
What a frightful choice was offered here; with her decreed sentence, she might expect to leave prison at the age of forty-eight, whereas if she refused this shameful penance, she would be sixty-six before the gates of Colcarmorie would open for her! To see her there, so young, so very beautiful--oh, God, what crimes are done in Thy holy na....
Uttering a groan, the unfortunate auburn-haired prisoner bowed her head and muttered sullenly, "I--I--will accept--since I mus....
"So be it. See that with good grace you disrobe and humble yourself before the mistress, who bears my authority, which in turn is vouchsafed by His Lordship, our noble and just superintendent! Then, after you have had your thirty lashes, you shall be placed naked on the trestle, and your posterior as well as between it...." She paused with gloating, horrid sadism to let this frightfully significant phrase slash the prisoner's chastity, pride, and apprehension, then resumed. "... shall be whipped with nettles. Then your mistress will flog you on the naked back and shoulders with thirty-five vigorous stripes of the cat o' nine tails, after which you shall have twenty blows of the paddle on the naked posterior and, finally, twenty-five lashes with the birch upon it! Wilderly, undress her to chemise--the rest, you will see that she observes as I ordered!" Martha Wilderly, a twisted smile on her full-lipped mouth, stepped forward and put her hand on Wilma's shoulder; the young beauty started, groaned, then wanly rose, trembling fitfully. The gyves were stricken from her. Then the wardress, without Hertha Schwartz's aid--the German waited balefully for her turn at punishing this gloriously sculptured body--removed Wilma's blouse and skirt, knelt to remove shoes and hose, then, smiling cruelly, reached up under the coarse white chemise and descended the regulation drawers to the prisoner's ankles, ordering her roughly to step out of them. And Wilma mechanically obeyed, naked now but for chemi....
Her body was glorious, absolutely glorious. And, with her superbly exotic, alluring features, she became readily the loveliest martyr of today's frightful pageant. Her breasts were two high-set, proud, uptilted goblets, capped by firm darts that thrust like flints against the bodice of the chemise. Her waist, supple and lithe, swelled into sensually rounded hips, wonderfully upstanding, curved, full buttocks, long, womanly, rounded thighs, and finely turned calves. Her svelte shoulders were adorably dimpled, and she had long arms whose upper curves were ripe, resilient and firm, with the skin-hue of old ivory, embellished with tawny flecks. Her face was an oval, the nose aquiline and daintily sensuous, the mouth arrogant and sullen, even sensual, with a flaring upper lip, yet a firm, determined chin with a tiny kissable cleft to dimple it. Her eyes were dark and flashing, wide and deep, with very long, curving, dark lashes and thin supercilious brows. Her tresses hung loose and free in ringlets down her lovely back and shoulde....
Martha Wilderly stepped away to the center of the stage, hands on hips, a pizzle hanging from her belt. At her nod, the cruel German Schwartz brought her a five-thonged brown leather martinet, the thongs of which were very long, thin, and narrow, to sting and bite rather than to crush, bruise, and flail. Wilma perceived this and groaned dully; then, her cheeks flaming, her head held high an instant, shoulders straightening as if to show her courage to all her silently watching comrades, she slowly approached the dowdy, pompadoured, spinsterish, blonde wardress, who awaited her shameful humiliation eagerly, a crafty smile on her li....
In the stocks with her posterior turned to the audience, poor Madeleine Arndt could not see, as the yoke about her neck shut off her vision of this foreground action. But the waiting, the indirect participation in this atrocious martyrdom, must have been a fearful moral torment for her, for her drawers-sheathed posterior writhed and weaved, her fingers constantly opened and closed, and gasps of almost impatience exuded from her lips, which moved as if in prayer for streng....
Slowly, with another groan, Wilma Danlin sank to her knees; then, even more slowly, her finely shaped hands with long, slim, tapering fingers reached down and behind her to take up the hem of her last veil. And, nervously, with irregular tugs, the garment was lifted up over the swelling hips and jutting globes, the supple, straight, subtly indented, naked back, till it rested up against her armpi....
Unhappily, she had miscalculated; she had knelt too far away from the heavy-soled shoes of her executioner to reach them conveniently. Accordingly, her face almost purple with shame, her lashes blinking rapidly with sudden tears of mortification, she had to crawl a few inches till at last she saw the shocking, revolting ritual could be accomplish....
All this while, the poor girl held her own chemise trussed up at her back, exposing to the tribunal--to him--the marvelous symmetry of her sculptured nudity--back, loins, posterior, thig....
Then, choking back a sob, she bowed her head down to the woman's shod right foot, at the same time huddling her quivering, wonderful, long, rounded, tawny-ivory thighs in a pose that indecently, suggestively, and vulnerably reared up her hips and buttocks to sacrificial orde....
And she pressed her quaking, red, sweet mouth on the coarse leather toe of Martha Wilderly's sh....
"Let me hear clearly and distinctly the sounds of your kisses of deepest humility, Wilma Danlin!" came the cutting voice of Matron Harnesty. As if it had been a lash already wrapping around those shuddering, jutting, naked, nether hemispheres, they convulsively twisted and trembled; then came the unspeakable sound of the infamous osculation of humility--to thank her executioner for "regenerating" her soul by brutalizing her shuddering, naked, proffered fle....
"The other foot," directed Matron Harnesty, leaning forward with narrowing, gleaming eyes the Laird, hands tense on the arms of his chair, watched intent....
"My--God...." murmured Wilma Danlin brokenly, and again her all but naked body writhed convulsive....
Moving her head to the other shoe, she performed the debasing rite--sufficiently audible to satisfy her sadistic directre....
"Continue thus, and pray for humility and repentance," the latter advised, and made a si....
Martha Wilderly slowly raised her bared right arm and swept high the martinet's serpentining lash....
Divining somehow that the atrocious moment had come, poor Wilma relinquished sudden hold of her chemise and plunged her anguished, trembling hands to the woman's ankles. But in the movement, the chemise, only wadded up and not rolled, fell back to veil the condemned, upreared buttocks; the wardress lowered her a....
"How dare you defy us, you miserable girl?" cried Matron Harnesty. "Truss up her chemise, Schwartz, cord it about her armpits, and, Wilderly, you will add ten lashes to the coun....
"Oh, oh, but I did not do it a-purpose!" Wilma burst into sobs of bitter sha....
Her plaint fell on deaf ears; the German was already trussing up the coarse chemise and, with a thin strong cord, pinioned it tightly round the victim's armpits, drawing a groan and shudder from the young beauty, who continued to grasp her executioner's ankles, proffering her naked seat in the most suggestive, immodest, shameful mann....
Then the German stepped back, eyes glittering and narrowed, evilly savoring the marvelous ivory beauty of the condemned naked flu....
Her back angling downward sharply from the hips, her thighs bending and clenched to hide as much of her secret nudity as she could in so cruel a pose, her hands feverishly gripping Martha Wilderly's thick ankles, the unfortunate auburn-haired Wilma wailed in atrocious consciousness of the unspeakable indecency they forced her to endu....
Now again, unhampered, the right arm rose with the flagellatory weapon, hovered, then swept it down. The extremities of the thin leather lashes clacked crisply against the upturned upper summits of both wonderful ivory rotundities. Wilma uttered a dull groan of anguish and shame, her naked feet turned to and fro, her knees readjusted themselves, and her fingers spasmodically tightened against her executioner's ankl....
"Do not forget to go on kissing your mistress' feet, Wilma, unless you wish me to add to the total you are to receive from the martinet," interposed the infernal matron. Desperate with shame, Wilma obeyed; noisily she kissed then as the thongs bit viciously over the swelling naked left hip, drawing a muffled gasp, a lascivious twisting of the upreared posteri....
The fustigation went on. From this angle, the lashes swept down to cling bitingly to the upper slopes of the hips, the upper roundings of the naked nether globes, but sometimes the wardress, bringing her arm up toward her left, whipped downward, diagonally, with a ferocious effect, driving all five thongs sharply against the edge of the other hip, or alternatingly, sweeping the martinet well to the right and then downward at her left, to wed the thongs along the spectacularly swelling curve of the lower summit and base of the assaulted naked nether globe. And all this while, stifling her groans, and sobs, poor Wilma, ever reminded of her shameful due by the cutting voice of the directress, needs must continue to kiss that shoe, to evince true humility under the la....
After about eighteen strokes, the pain was agonizing; her buttocks, splotched violently with haphazard, atrociously burning patches, writhed and twisted nervous jerks, lowerings, and archings. Impatient to be at nearer contact with her beautiful victim, Martha Wilderly bent and seized the girl's thick, flowing tresses in her left hand. Then she readjusted her grip on the martinet, grasping near the top of the handle, and began to flail her victim's seat with short, terrible, raining lashes that clacked noisily, drowning out the infamously coerced kisses--but forcing newer, more frequent cries of strident suffering. By the thirtieth lash, when poor Wilma's matchless buttocks were fearfully streaked--but their entire area not yet marred, because of the limitations of the whipper's pose-Martha Wilderly dragged on the tresses of the martyr and, forcing her to advance her head, clamped her strong calves around the ivory neck of the victim. Then, with full, terrible, downward-falling sweeps of her arm, she applied the final ten lashes with fierce gusto against the summits and the hip slopes, drawing strangled cries and erratic, lewd plungers and shrinking, weaving starts of the tortured buttoc....
Then the fustigation stopped, but only so that Hertha Schwartz, bending and drugging the sobbing, groaning, naked beauty to her feet by the hair, might tear off the uptrussed chemise after untying the cord that pinioned it. And now, without the least veil, poor Wilma Danlin was exhibited to her tribunal and her executione....
Madeleine, hearing the cries, the clacks of the lashes that drew those doleful exhalations, began herself to groan softly, turning her head as much as the clamping yoke at her neck would allow; feverishly nervous, she gasped at last, "Oh, end it for the love of God in heaven, end it! This is too cruel, this waiting!" The directress' wary ears caught that anguished plea: "Ah, good, Madeleine! Your conscience compels you to beg for the punishment you so justly merit? But wait, yes, yes, wait patiently--I promise you, my dear, you shall lose nothing by waiting! Meditate and pray for forgiveness. It will give you strength!" Oh, terrible prophe....
Dragged to the horrid trestle and compelled to lay herself along it, with arms and legs hanging on either side, Wilma was strapped at wrist and ankle, a hempen cord wound around her waist, atrociously compressing her secret femininity against the savage narrow ridge of the apparatus. She lay there panting, gasping from the pain that permeated her splotched and streaked and quivering naked hindquarters, her thighs convulsively tensing as the pain caused nervous agitations, which in turn forced her, with chafing, torturing effect, to press her loins against the cruel rid....
Hertha Schwartz, her cruel ugly face twisted with a devouring, impatient anticipation, was drawing on coarse gloves. From the coffer where it and, earlier, others had been placed in preparation for this afternoon's castigations, she drew forth a bouquet of nettles, slim, like a birch, profuse-in--the deadly blooms that stung, blistered, and burned intolerably, making the victim long to scratch her flesh raw, such was the ungovernable torment they rous....
She approached the naked girl, who had bowed her head in abandon, though the edge of the trestle's end pressed irksomely against her collarbone. Her long auburn tresses had fallen down one cheek, toward the floor; how beautiful she was! Under the shameful chastisement and the indecent presentation of her young, superb body, Wilma Danlin seemed to have taken on a curiously alluring quality--I had this sensation, though I could not, had I been asked, have explained ....
Now, pressing her left hand harshly against the girl's naked left hip, Hertha Schwartz began the whipping with the bouquet of nettles. Since the trestle's ridge distended the upreared globes of the martinet-blotched and burning posterior, the natural, mysterious gape of the nether globes became further widened, and so gave atrocious access to the most diabolical tortu....
For very gently, deftly, the German, lowering her hellish bouquet, flicked its ends up between the quaking cheeks of Wilma Danlin's posterior, the blooms darting against the velvety, exquisitely chafing, torturing effect, to press her loins against the cruel rid....
Hertha Schwartz, her cruel ugly face twisted with a devouring, impatient anticipation, was drawing on coarse gloves. From the coffer where it and, earlier, others had been placed in preparation for this afternoon's castigations, she drew forth a bouquet of nettles, slim, like a birch, profuse in the deadly blooms that stung, blistered, and burned intolerably, making the victim long to scratch her flesh raw, such was the ungovernable torment they rous....
She approached the naked girl, who had bowed her head in abandon, though the edge of the trestle's end pressed irksomely against her collarbone. Her long auburn tresses had fallen down one cheek, toward the floor; how beautiful she was! Under the shameful chastisement and the indecent presentation of her young, superb body, Wilma Danlin seemed to have taken on a curiously alluring quality--I had this sensation, though I could not, had I been asked, have explained ....
Now, pressing her left hand harshly against the girl's naked left hip, Hertha Schwartz began the whipping with the bouquet of nettles. Since the trestle's ridge distended the upreared globes of the martinet-blotched and burning posterior, the natural, mysterious gape of the nether globes became further widened, and so gave atrocious access to the most diabolical tortu....
For very gently, deftly, the German, lowering her hellish bouquet, sicced its ends up between the shaking clucks of Wilma Dunlin's posterior, the blooms darting against the velvety, exquisitely sensitive flesh of the inner curves--against the anus! I was almost ready to faint with exhaustion, having remained so long on my knees. I was stupefied and trembling with my shame and terror, but this fearful fill martyrdom, alas, had the power to revive ....
For after the first delicate, almost benign, taps of the branches of nettles into that shadowy fissure, Wilma raised her head, drove her nails into the wooden legs of the trestle, and kicked her ankles madly at the straps, while, with a sudden frantic arching, she sought to raise her loins from the devilish ridge of her apparatus. A poignant, incredibly feverish torrent of sobs, cries, and phrases, burst from her, who had been so stoically controlled in withholding a plea for pardon, however much, under I he crashing martinet, she may have exuded groans and cries of pain: "Eaahhyahhhhh! Nooooooo--ohhh, noo, pleeease, not there--ahahahh, it's fearful there! Oh, ohhh, it's unheard of, to whip a girl there. Ohh--you burn--ahahahaaiaiaiaiaiai! My God, what--ooooooooh....
Eeeeeeaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiparrrrdon! Oh, no more, not there, ohhhh, the pain is horrible! Let me be whipped harder if you must, but not the nettles against I shall go mad with it-ohh, my God, the pain--ahhhhhh....
Stopppp--stop it for the love of heaven, stop it, stop it, stop, not therrrrrre!!! Pardon--spare me this--ohhh, my flesh is burning everywhere-ohh--my bottom-and--and--between it--ahahahahahahah--no--no! I shall die--yes--ahh--yes-yes-let me die instead of this! Yer Lordship, parrrdon, be kind--ahahahahah, nooo, noooo more, ohh, stop, stop! Is this not enough? My God--oh, what torture, what horrible pain--aiaiaiaiaiaia....
Frantic, maddened hounds and twistings demonstrated her frightful suffering; her head, turning back, bowing, flinging up, her nails clawing the trestle's legs, her thighs jerking, huddling, clenching violently against the body of the distending apparatus, her calves taut and shuddering, her back writhing and hollowing, poor Wilma endured the agony of the damned in the last region of Dante's terrible Inferno. But, under the paroxyms of gnawing, burning, radiating torture, which attacked the most sensitive structure of her feminine nervous organism, Wilma's naked buttocks wrenched spasmodically, yawning and then tightening with lascivious tremors, and this hampered the infernal "work." So, at a sign, Hertha Schwartz summoned Martha Wilderly, who, approaching at the girl's right, laid her hands on the upper summits of both hemispheres--and forced them op....
Then--it was horrible! With faster downward strokes, as well as upward-slanting, stinging little cuts, Hertha Schwartz sent the fraying bouquet darting in between the yawning cheeks of Wilma's posterior and, taking cruel and demoniac advantage of the young martyr's wild, frenzied uparchings, sent the nettles to disappear into the mossy cleft of her tenderest spot of a....
Pandemonic shrieks, babbled, repetitious phrases, hoarse shuddering cries tore from the maddened girl; with all her strength she fought against her fettering straps and the waistcord, till the latter sank cruelly into her tawny-ivory flesh, bruising it with imprinted dark blue ridges. As all the witnesses of the tribunal watched intently, I, not now the object of their savoring for agony, covertly hid my face in my hands that I might not have to see this fiendish torture, the most barbarous I could have conceived, and one that not even the most wretched murderer or traitor should be permitted to suff....
Wilma's screams reached a terrifying crescendo, then ebbed slowly as the wardress cast aside the frayed bouquet. I dared open my eyes, but oh, how violently her hips shook and jerked, how terribly prolonged and permeating the spasms of buttocks, thighs, calves, how the feet restlessly twisted, kicked, and scuffed against the wooden legs of the hellish trestle, and how her head rose, fell, rose, fell, interminably in the throes of the most conquering and overpowering tortu....
Martha Wilderly had released the quaking, naked globes she had so vilely distended to that satanic whipping; and, going to one side, she retrieved the horrid cat o' nine tails, and returned to place herself at the victim's left side, at the proper distance. Then, as Wilma still exhaled her raucous, panting groans and sobs, she began to fustigate the shoulders and creamy, tawny-flecked bare back with sweeping, terrible, and pitilessly brutal lash....
And Wilma found voice at once to express her agony at this variation of her martyrdom; her back flattened, tautened, twisted, jerked, and hollowed supremely under the deluge of slashing strokes that spread ill nine thongs out their full biting length upon the magnificent symmetry of her back, or welted brutally with their extremities the fine curved shoulders and the neck, even when the cat plunged downward to stripe exactly down the middle of the bared back on a horizontal pla....
Purplish weals, dark livid stripes, terrible to see, despoiled the wonderfully velvety skin. By the twenty-third blow, blisters had formed on the shoulderblades, which flexed and writhed uncontrollably; these broke under two more savage blows, and blood flowed, to the accompaniment of Wilma's wild, hoarse cri....
Then the lashes were directed from one side to the other, the tips biting atrociously into the tender right side of the shrieking naked victim, and some, with the dexterity of the skilled executioner's brawny arm, slashed mercilessly into the side-curve of the glorious bare breast, drawing strident, prolonged shrieks from the suffering martyr. When at last the thirty-five allotted strokes had been administered, Wilma's beautiful back and shoulders, all the way to the small of her back, were violently wealed, blood oozing thickly from at least five cuts, and she lay groaning hysterically, hair tumbling to the floor, her fingernails jagged and broken from their maddened scratching and clawing against the wooden legs of the trest....
Without pause, Hertha Schwartz approached now, an oval oaken paddle in her right hand. Placing herself directly behind the prisoner, she raised the paddle on high--and crashed it down, crushing, flattening the upper right summit of the naked posteri....
A frantic cry, shrill, breaking in its poignancy and exhaustion, rose at once, and Wilma's hips jerked and arched, lowered, and weaved again in spasmodic torme....
Then the sonorous clack, clack, clack--in regular, slow cadence began. With straining, hoarsened cries, incoherent pleas, babbling words of supplication, and wild, erratic jerkings of her tethered limbs, the naked girl learned that her brutally tortured flesh yet could taste still more excruciating torment. The twenty blows of the flat, resiliently flexible oaken paddle caused angry dark red swellings to be laid over the background of the martinet's livid blotches and irregular bands, an ominous tinting, and the checks of Wilma's posterior gave way to the most ungovernable quaking, clenching, yawning, and spasmi....
Oh, my God; oh, my God! Could they still brutalize that unhappy girl? Never had I seen such frenzied suffering as her cries and contortions astride the trestle caused and all this while, secretively, maddeningly, that sharp ridge of wood had pressed against her loins and met her violent agitations with relentless digs and chafin....
Yes she was not yet finished--nor they with her, for again Martha Wilderly approached, a slim, long, fresh birch rod gripped ruthlessly and skill-fully in her strong right hand. Taking her place behind the girl, well at the left, she resumed Wilma's martyrdom with a down-leaping, whistling cut that spread the writhes diagonally over both wildly convulsing naked hemispher....
The sting of the cruel slender rod devastated the maddened beauty; differing vastly in its pain infliction from the harsh, bruising paddle and the compressing, flailing martinet, the rod rekindled their torments and added a new o....
But her voice, diminished by all her plaints, could no longer express even a plea for mercy; only shuddering, dull groans and choking, strangled, tearing sobs that shook her entire body emanated now. Her convulsive movements were less and less dramatic --she had reached the end of her resistance, which only youth and sturdy health had allowed to continue so lo....
Yet the birch, hissing fearfully in the air, laid out its flexible withes inexorably over the twitching, blazing, and swollen nether globes, tearing the skin and scratching asunder the blisters left by the paddle and the martinet. By the twelfth lash, blood dotted the lower summits of the martyred buttocks. There ensued a pause while the wardress contemplated the despoiled flesh, to seek a region still inviolate and sensitive to pain; then the horrid whistling fury of the descending rod came again, bringing with it new groans, new spasms of pa....
More wounds appeared on that wonderful posterior and blood sprang now almost everywhere--till, at the final lash, the twenty-fifth, the posterior was bleeding from a dozen cruel wounds. The martyr was lolling, her teeth chattering and her throat rattling. She was at last overcome with ago....
It was over. The two whippers untied the fainting, naked girl, lifted her from the trestle, and carried her off the stage, her head lolling, her hair trailing to the floor, blood welling from her cruelly, brutally flogged back and buttoc....
And now but one victim remained in this seemingly unending session, the sadistic fury of which had terrified and impressed me as perhaps not even my own condemnation might have done--and this, I knew well was the Laird's ironic way of bidding me resign myself to my new destiny. The assembled company's attention turned to Madeleine, kept painfully waiting all this time, kneeling naked in the stocks, clad only in the tight horsehair drawe....
Wardresses Gudge and Logan approached, impatient to commence the long-delayed fustigation of their mature, beautiful, golden-haired victim; that lovely hair was coiffured in a prim chignon at the nuque, its silken gold color setting off the velvety allure of perfect pink and white flesh, quivering now in cruel exacerbation from the maddening suspense of her companion's long orde....
But the two wardresses were destined to be robbed of their infamous pleasure, for, as the directress was about to speak, the Laird, coughing discreetly, drew her attention. With his deliberate, twangy tone, he said, "Would it not be fitting, Matron Harnesty, to let this young woman, the most guilty of all, suffer intense humiliation together with the chastisement you had reserved for he....
"Indeed, Madeleine is a woman, not a girl. Shame would strike more keenly at her mutinous spirit," responded the matron, her lips curving in a savoring smile, while the beautiful martyr, made agonizingly nervous by all this additional postponement of her ordeal, groaned hoarsely, "End it, in the name of God the merciful, end i....
"Then," proposed the Laird, stroking his goatee with an esthetic gesture, "it is my suggestion that you let each prisoner assembled here before us wield the lash. Yes, each prisoner shall ascend to the stage and strike one blow on that guilty flesh; thus, naked, in penitent's pose, our guilty Madeleine will be punished by those very ones whose proper conduct she endangered by her mutinous ac....
"A splendid suggestion, Your Lordship!" exclaimed the matron, her eyes shini....
Madeleine raised her head, a look of horrified consternation on her beautiful, sweet face: "Ohh, No! No, it is wicked of you--my companions, who detest you all as I do--no, they would not torture one who has sought freedom for the....
"Ah, so, my haughty beauty," laughed the directress, "His Lordship, with his genius for psychological insight into wretched characters such as yours, has seen clairvoyantly what punishment you most dread. It shall be as he has outlined, my beautiful Madeleine, and you shall see how wrong you are when your loyal companions, as you think them, prove that they prefer humility and obedience to the orders of rightful authority! Gudge, Logan--ah, do not look so disappointed, my worthies, remember you will have to chastise Madeleine in solitary confinement, where she will be lonely--lay out be-fore the stocks various instruments of correction. Yes Madeleine, not only will your companions whip you and whip you well and tirelessly, my beauty, for they will have more than two hundred arms, whereas Gudge and Logan have only two, however expert--but they will lay the lashes on with gusto to your naked, wicked flesh. You will have no reason to complain of our having kept you waiting! Ah, I see you have prepared the instruments, wardresses, without letting our blonde sinner observe which you have set out. Excellent, that adds spice to her correction; she will not know which instrument is to fall on her rebellious, naked flesh!" How horrible, and yet what a greedy, gloating tone now filled the voice of the infernal matron. And the Laird, taking a gold box from the pocket of his waistcoat, was calmly helping himself to snuff, in the most diligent and patrician manner. This man could calmly sit by and watch with pleas-me or indifference the sight of young girls and women being martyrized! Oh, God, this man was to be--my--my--conquer....
I shuddered fearfully then. Seeing so much horror, I had forgotten my own sufferings in the light of these multiple ones. Tomorrow night--tomorrow night I was to leave the prison to be taken to that great mansion set on the promontory beyond the prison buildings, to be delivered, helpless, terrorized, and dying of shame already at the thought, into the hands --the aristocratic, elegantly groomed hands--of the Laird, the superintendent of this vile living he....
Gudge and Logan, disappointment written plainly on their handsome faces, had set out at the foot of the runway along which beautiful Madeleine Arndt knelt the following weapons: an oval oaken paddle, both slim and bushy birch rods, a five-thonged martinet, a bull pizzle, a broad, thick leather strap, a long, devilishly flexible whalebone switch, and a broad, very pliant leather sole--such as no doubt many stern mothers are wont to use on the posteriors of their errant children. This elaborate and terrifying arsenal contained, therefore, not only some of the most terrible weapons of fustigation, but also some of the most humiliating so far as the maturity and intelligence and sensitivity of the beautiful blonde martyr were concern....
All was in readiness. There was a runway from the front of the hall up to the stage, and now the directress rose to speak, while quickly the twenty wardresses, with the exception of Gudge and Logan, who remained flanking the stocks in which the agonized Madeleine Arndt knelt in fearful suspense, took their stations at the aisles, thus resuming control over their own direct charg....
"Prisoners," exclaimed the directress, "it is my order, and that of His Lordship, who as superintendent of Colcarmorie Reform Prison requires strict obedience, that each of you take part in the chastisement of Madeleine Arndt, condemned as captain of the foul mutiny planned to overthrow-lawful authority! Your mistresses will direct you to the runway in single rank; you will each come upon the stage in proper, orderly turn, and, from the choice of instruments, take one and apply it where you choose upon this young woman's sinful and rebellious body! One injunction only--and note it well! Each lash is to be applied with vigor! Yes, with vigor--I wish no compassion to be shown. Indeed, to show it will constitute bad will, and she who dares affront His Lordship thus will have--burning cause to regret it! A last word--should any of you--and I know there are still mutinous spirits in your ranks, whom we shall in good time apprehend! should any of you think in foolhardy way of rioting, remember that outside these doors are posted aimed men sworn into the service of the Crown. They will not hesitate to put down such revolt by legitimate force! You are warn....
Wardresses, in sections as seated, bring forward your charges!" Then, reseating herself luxuriously, her face assuming a cruel mien, the directress prepared to watch the incredible and original punishment meted out to the beautiful blonde culpr....
Madeleine had groaned aloud frequently during this tirade; now that the moment had come, she began to struggle furiously to escape the stocks; the shame, which had turned her sweet face hot scarlet, was truly enervating h....
But more shame--the culminating shame--was now at hand. The directress signed to the two wardresses standing on either side of the runway: "Cut the drawers from her wicked bottom, that it may be proffered in the lashin....
"Ahh! You devils, you cruel fiends!" cried the young woman hoarsely. "It is unlawful to punish a prisoner thus; the law does not allow these wretched tortures of helpless girls and women, you......
"I am the law of Colcarmorie," suddenly intervened the Laird, halting a pinch of snuff en route to his sensuous nostrils, "and no man in Scotland--as no female criminal!--dares question it! Let the sentence be carried out to the lette....
The blonde and the titian-haired wardresses had approached the half-nude culprit from each side. Seizing the waistband of the drawers, they dragged them down over the martyr's condemned hips and posterior globes to her thighs. Frantic with the terrible humiliation, Madeleine, crying out angrily, tried to widen her naked thighs so that this final veil might not pass beyond them. But with a laugh, Anna Gudge, holding a pair of heavy scissors, cut through the thick waistband and on into the fabric, lined with horsehair as I so bitterly knew from my own experience, while her beautiful companion ripped furiously at the yielding stuff till the garment was entirely free and could be cast asi....
And the glorious, voluptuous, pink and white Venus in the stocks was Eve-naked--or, one might say, rather than being Venus rising from the waves in a conch shell, she was to be the martyred Venus in the stoc....
My eyes fixed on her lower body, for indeed she was superbly formed. She had wonderfully opulent, resilient hips, compact, full, spaciously rounded nether globes, narrowly set together, and womanly ripe long thighs that gave way to beautifully curved calves, comprising a portrait of sensual, Stirring physical beau....
Her fine supple waist, her stunningly surging bosom, her rounded, adorably dimpled shoulder--truly would her femininity whet the sadistic, camel appetite of the Lai....
Face contorted, purple with shame, Madeleine Arndt cried out again indignantly against this travesty of justi....
"There is a higher law than that of this evil, cruel man who poses as charitable patron of reform! Aye, His law, and He, the just and righteous, will punish you all for what you do toda....
"I fear, my misguided Madeleine," laughed the directress cynically, "you shrink, understandably, from naming the true sinner--yourself! But you will come to contrition soon enough, painful though the process may be. Resign yourself! I shall commence your chastisemen....
"Hypocrite, detestable, wretched woman to mock God Himself," cried Madeleine furiously, shaking the stocks in her energetic attempts at freedom. "May you someday endure in the town square what you delight in inflicting on other....
"Take care, you bold vixen," snarled Matron Harnesty, half rising from her chair, "or I shall have each of your numerous companions give you more than a single lash. For this new insult of yours, I authorize your mistress, when she visits you in the solitary cell to inflict the punishment His Lordship has already prescribed, to give you ten strokes of the whalebone switch on your sinful tongue!" Horrified, Madeleine, realizing that further outbursts would only augment her terrible punishment, compressed her lips grimly, bowed her head, and steeled herself to endure the arduous flagellati....
The directress, smiling in triumph, waved her ha....
Up the runway, watched closely by Wardress Tarnsey who stood close by with her hand on the pizzle at her belt, came Katherine Blessington, a docile, lovely young girl who herself had known the horrors of public expiati....
Eyes wide with horror--for she, like myself, had been coerced to witness all this eternity of terror and brutality-Katherine hesitantly approached the stocks. The two perverse young wardresses gestured inward the array of instruments on the floor beside the runway on which naked Madeleine knelt. The victim, hearing the footsteps of this first involuntary executioner, knew that her time had come. Oh, God, what a hellish conception, this, to make her wait in agony for each blow, to make her endure cumulatively an atrocious beating certain to draw blood--for there were, minus the number of girls appearing today as victims and some others who were unaccountably absent from the assembly, fully 220 girls gathered here to watch the rebels' martyrdom, 220 lashes was therefore the sentence to which gloriously beautiful young Madeleine was condemn....
Katherine hesitated, her eyes fixed on that opulent pair of velvety pink and white rotundities, up-reared by the victim's kneeling pose, clamps at her kneehollows fixing her thighs well apart to distend the buttocks slightly; should the martyr weaken during her infernally long ordeal--and it had been agonizingly long already, for Wilma's punishment had preceded hers, and already her naked thighs were rippling with enervation--her posterior might sink down toward her calves, but the tight constriction of the stocks at neck and wrists would prevent the completion of this maneuv....
"Come, quickly," hissed Gudge, her eyes glittering, narrowed, her mouth cruel and twisted with lu....
Katherine bent to the array of instruments laid out for the victim's flagellation; her fear-filled sweet eyes scanned them, I knew, to select the least agonizing. Prompted by the impatient tapping of Anna Gudge's foot, she swiftly reached out her right hand and picked up the thin, long, flexible whalebone switch. Then, blushing furiously, she approached the naked prisoner directly behind the lasciviously upreared and spasmodically twitching pink and white nether hemispheres, and, raising her arm, descended it hastily, striking a glancing blow against Madeleine's naked, rounded, voluptuous right hip. Shame, not pain, drew a vibrant groan from the condemned young woman's lips, and she twisted her feet erratically in the awful tedium of waiti....
Catherine had already turned to go. There was another runway at the other end of the stage down to the hall, and the second girl was ascending whence Katherine had come, when the pitiless voice of the matron hissed: "Again, Katherine! Lash again and if you again show timidity, I assure you we shall show no timidity in lashing you--somewhat more often, to be sur....
"Cruel, Cruel torturess," groaned Madeleine, "do you not see how they obey you? Not out of--ohhh!" For her outburst had been interrupted by Katherine, who, terrified at the threat implied, had once again taken her place behind the naked blonde beauty and drawing the whalebone switch back, brought it with all her young force full across the lusciously swelling summits of both naked, proffered rotunditi....
"There is your answer, Madeleine," laughed Matron Harnesty. "Well done, my little Katherine! Continue, in proper turn, and with proper vigor, lest you take this wretch's place!" Oh, abominable cruelty! Now the seemingly un-ending processional began. From the right of the stage up the narrow stairway, ascended each prisoner to the collection of fustigatory implements which Gudge and Logan supervised. Either quickly, or, like Katherine, with hesitating and secret companion, she selected, finally, one of these; then, approaching the kneeling naked blonde martyr, she applied a single blow, vigorously, lest the directress' wrath fall on h....
Out of the first ten strokes, Madeleine had, indeed, a varied castigation: the first had used the whalebone switch across the rounded fullness of both buttocks; the second girl chose the paddle and applied a harsh, resonating blow to the base of Madeleine's right buttock, drawing a startled gasp and a vehement twisting of her voluptuous bare hips; the third stroke came from the slim birch, which whistled to curve fiercely round the middle of her left thigh; the fourth blow was delivered by the thick leather strap against both lower summits, drawing an "Ahh, my God!" from the condemned beauty, a spasmodic contraction of her posterior, and a terse gyration of her now crimsoning seat; the fifth lash, applied by a fifteen-year-old girl sentenced to life for the murder of her aunt, was atrocious this cruel little executioner selected the pizzle and, with expert aim, swept it straight down to bite against the sensitive tissues of the median cleft between the shivering naked rotunditi....
Madeleine uttered a piercing cry of surprise and agony: "Ahhhhrr! Ahhh, not there, oh, do not whip me there, for God's sake!" to which the directress gloatingly called, "Bravo, Nancy, that is the way to whip such a sinner! Let the rest of you emulate her method....
Alter the brief pause that it took for the next girl to ascend the stage and choose her instrument, the sixth lash was applied, this time with the leather sole. Pressing her left hand firmly down on Madeleine's left hipbone, the prisoner--another young girl, seventeen, Sentenced to twenty years for aiding a midwife in the murder of an unborn child--applied a smart, short, stinging crack of this juvenile corrective implement full against the upturned right summit of the naked behind, and Madeleine gasped in pain and squirmed uneasily in the stoc....
The seventh blow was administered with the five-thonged martinet, which wrapped round the sufferer's lull, rounded, upper left thigh, drawing a new feverish gasp and a tremor from her lovely body. The eighth stroke came from the whalebone switch against her fine, plumply curved, satiny right calf, attacking it with such energy that the flexible wand wrapped viciously round the pink and white satiny flesh, and Madeleine uttered a stifled groan, her feet kicking nervously under the fiery twinge of pain. The ninth blow was also with the martinet, but this was delivered full across the middle of Madeleine's sculptured bare back, spreading the leather thongs out fantail over the quivering fair-skinned flesh. And the tenth lash, given with the oaken paddle, stained the upper left summit of those opulent, firm, resilient, satiny buttocks with a brilliant scarlet hue and drew a little flurried cry and a convulsive writhing from the whipped beau....
I perceived quickly how atrocious such a capricious ordeal was to be. In no way informed as to what instrument would fall on her trembling, apprehensive, naked flesh, nor, indeed, where it would lodge its next assault of stinging, burning, bruising anguish. Madeleine was to be progressively and slowly subjected to myriad suffering. For although these prisoners were not competent flagellants like the wardresses, they however were compelled to strike with vigor, so that their blows would fall cruelly on innumerable targets of condemned flesh, each such stroke adding a new nuance of pain to attack the feminine nervous system of this beautiful martyr. The first ten lashes already had demonstrated that, for Madeleine was trembling now, beads of perspiration on her temples, her rosy mouth clenched but tremulous all the same; very erratic quality of this whipping was what would make it most damnably cruel and overwhelmi....
The steady oncoming line of prisoners from the hall continued without interruption for ten more lashes; these rained down vigorously on the buttocks of the unfortunate blonde--horizontally, diagonally, vertically--the slim birch twice, the thick birch once, the paddle twice, the martinet once, the whalebone switch twice, each drawing feverish "Ahhhh's" and "Ohhh Lorddd's" from the martyr. In addition, both the pizzle and the leather sole once attacked the superb posterior of Madeleine Arndt. Not knowing which weapon would next castigate her body, she could in no way prepare her now quaking flesh for the typical anguish of this or that instrument, as she might have done had this been a flogging of a given number of strokes inflicted by a given implement wielded by a wardress. And the pattern of this unique flogging on the rosy globes of her lusciously mature posterior was as grotesque as it was agonizing: the thin, long, dark red band left by the whalebone switch, rapidly growing darker; the abominably roughened red weal, brilliant at first, then darkening somberly, of the pizzle; the multiple and paralleling stripes left by the martinet; the oval outline of the paddle; the coruscating streaks, scratches, and tiny bluish splotches left by the birches; the flaming crimson arc of the leather sole; and the broad rectangle of the thick, crashing, leather strap all these were perceived in haphazard outline On the once pink and white satin of her glorious young buttoc....
She was groaning softly, now, in the feverish exacerbation of her flesh and the intense pitch to which her feminine organism had been roused by the waiting between lashes that followed pitilessly the long waiting during Wilma's martyrdom. The lashing continued. Now the prisoners, as if seeming to take pity on that cruelly marred callipygian loveliness, selected other and untouched regions; her calves felt the switch, the pizzle; her thighs tasted the martinet and the leather sole--this last was used by three successive young executioners on the young blonde's right thigh above the kneehollow, till, with an angry gesture, Gudge commanded the fourth girl to select another instrument and place for the application of her obligatory bl....
Madeleine's sculptured satiny back endured the pizzle and the heavy leather strap and her shoulders were wealed by the birch, but, for perhaps some thirteen lashes in succession, her posterior was spared. The directress made no sign to her assistants at the stocks to regulate this state of affairs, for, expert in the wielding of the lash herself--as I had seen my first day in prison--she understood that when Madeleine's reprieve was over, her previous torments would be savagely rekindl....
Indeed, that happened precisely as she had divined; the fourteenth executioner, choosing the bushy birch, swept it round her head--she was a sturdy, handsome, sulky-faced Scottish girl of twenty, imprisoned for life for attempted murder of her stepsister--and descended it with crisp, thudding force from right to left against the base of both shuddering nether globes. Madeleine uttered a shriek of pain as she tried to lower her contracting, flaming buttocks, but she was prevented by the constrictions on her neck and wrists, and, agonized by their racking pressures, had to return her weaving posterior to its original lev....
Still the processional came. By now, the unhappy martyr had received forty lashes, fully half on her naked buttocks, whose fiery, swollen tinting and striations veritably suggested that all forty lashes had been applied to that harmoniously contoured region of her voluptuous bo....
Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes dilated in inexpressible suffering; she began now to try to move her involuntary executioners to revolt against the injusti....
"No!" she cried, hearing the forty-first girl approach behind her. Her body trembled from the heightened tension caused by this prolongation between strokes--an effect the Laird and his infernal associate must have well calculated would augment Madeleine's martyrdom. "No, do not strike me! It is she, she and her cursed henchwomen whom you should strike! Demand your freedom against these oppressors! You are many--ahhhhiiiiiiiiiiii....
With an ingenuous smile on her pretty face, the girl behind her--she was about eighteen, a red-haired Irish girl, under sentence of twenty years for theft and prostitution--listened to the pain-wracked but still noble appeal of this naked blonde beauty pinioned before her; with pizzle in hand, she waited till Gudge approached, gesturing angrily. Then, with a brief sweep of her arm, the redhead slashed the pizzle down Madeleine's naked right hip, imprinting a scarlet, chafing weal from the plaited tho....
"So there is your answer, Madeleine, from your so-called loyal friends. Well done, Dorothy--resume as always!" called the directress, whose eyes were flaming with sadistic satisfaction. The Laird, too, leaning forward, fingers tensed--like talons!--on the arms of his chair, followed intently this abominable, endless whippi....
The lashing continued inexorably. Madeleine's starts, weavings, and contortions became more and more pronounced, testimonials to her acute sufferings. She continued for a little longer to abuse her judges, calling on God to rebuke them sternly. Meanwhile, her companions, under the wary eyes of their own mistresses and watched intently by the cruel young wardresses flanking the arsenal, continued to lash the palpitating, panting, groaning naked blonde beauty. Many of these blows landed on new terrain; three prisoners, capriciously attracted by the spasmodic, restless twisting of Madeleine's dainty naked feet, selected the long slim whalebone switch to lash furiously the heels and soles of those lovely appendages. These blows seemed to cause acute suffering, each wresting a strident cry from the martyr. Others selected the broadly planed satiny back for the infliction of their single blow, using pizzle, martinet, strap, and, once, even the leather sole. Still others directed the martinet or the birch to curve over the edge of the now twisting, crimsoned, wealed back round the tender, soft, satiny side, occasionally, in their inexpertness, attaining a breast--with the victim's atrocious suffering announced by a raucous shriek of pain and a plea not to whip her there--or the tender belly and waist. But then with growing frequency by the time the count had reached sixty, these coerced young executioners directed their blows to the woefully discolored, wealed, swollen, striped, and writhing nether globes; paddle, sole, strap, and martinet resonated fiercely on the furiously contracting, yawning, weaving, soaring, lowering, and lunging hemispheres. Madeleine's cries now became strident and prolonged; desperately she tried to shift on her knees, to lower her buttocks to her heels, ever prevented by the unfortunate prohibition of the rigid, unyielding, clamping stocks, which allowed her to lower perhaps midway, tautening her wounded buttocks and thus offering an even more tempting target to the vigorous la....
Thrice, indeed, unguarded during such pitiful maneuvers of instinctive self-defense and solace, Madeleine's posterior was compelled to plunge up and back, shake wildly and twist in agonized spasms: once when the bushy birch swept from downward up--in the hand of a sullen beauty of twenty-three who hated the martyr because of her inordinate beauty; once again when the paddle, wielded astutely by a girl of seventeen imprisoned ten years for theft, crashed with driving, upsurging impact against the full center of the posterior; and yet again when it was the pizzle, wielded by a dowdy, overplump girl of nineteen, imprisoned for life for robbery and wounding a storekeeper with a knife, who swept the instrument in a vertical line upwards to disappear into the exquisitely tender cleft between her thig....
At the last-mentioned diabolical blow, Madeleine's defiance broke--she had thus far endured eighty-five blows--and her voice shrill and clamorous, she called: "Ahhrhrhaiaiaiaiaiai, not between my legs! Oh, merciful God, not there! Oh, do not whip me there, you'll kill me! Oh, my unhappy companions, take pity on your friend--do not torture her so. Oh, how atrociously I suffer! Oh, oh, let me die instead of this--it is too cruel to bea....
"It is because they are your friends, who wish to see your wicked character reformed, Madeleine, that they whip so well," laughed the abominable matr....
And the maddening processional went on. The next ten lashes attained the young woman's thighs and back, sparing her martyrized posterior, which seemed already "used up," incapable of bearing more of this varied whipping without being wounded to the blood. For of course these girls could not, did not, know how to gauge their blows, as did the wardresses, so as to preserve the durability of the skin to the very last, while at the same time creating the very maximum of suffering. Madeleine's flanks and sides were shaken by incessant tremors; her head jerked repeatedly, face flushed, stained with sweat and tears, her lips scored by her sharp white teeth, to the blood on the lower lip in two places where agonizing lashes had caused that fragile, eloquently testifying reflex. Her hands opened, closed, opened closed, clawed, twisted, clenched and opened; again and again her blazing, striped, swollen, and wealed posterior lowered spasmodically, prevented always by the stocks from reaching the haven of refuge of her heels. Exhausted by the atrocious, long, cruel pose, by the brutal flogging, her cries were strident, her eyes haggard--and still the processional came ....
The 110th lash, representing exactly half her ordeal, was administered by a fifteen-year-old petite brunette, imprisoned for five years for theft of a handkerchief from her mistress whom she had served as maid. It was given with the paddle, to the center of the right posterior globe. Madeleine writhed torturously and uttered a dull, vibrant groan; her head drooped and panting, raucous exhalations emanated from her. The directress held up her ha....
"Brandy and smelling salts, Gudge," she commanded. "Logan, what is the condition of the guilty culprit's behin....
The beautiful perverse redhead approached, ran her palms lightly over the intolerably quaking, violently discolored hemispheres; a low moan escaped Madeleine, who was still conscious, at the infamy of the tou....
"The skin's near breakin' at the summits and base, M'um," reported Nora Logan, licking her lips with her pink tong....
"In that case, since we must save that wretched bottom for this criminal's just punishments in solitary--which I know you long to apply, Nora--have the next fifty girls whip her only on her thighs and calves; after that, the next twenty on her back, the next twenty on her thighs only, and the final twenty may whip at will--including her guilty posterior if they so choose!" Meanwhile Gudge had proffered a glass of brandy to the half-fainting blonde martyr, who took it eagerly, coughing and groaning; then the wardress passed a flask of strong smelling salts under her enervated, flaring nostrils. This seemed to revive h....
And after a moment or two more, the directress waved her hand. The 111th executioner ascended the runway, chose the martinet, and applied a welting blow that resonated sharply as the thongs curled violently round Madeleine's lower right thi....
Thus under the guidance of the sadistic directress, poor Madeleine's suffering was at last somewhat regularized; for fifty blows striped and wealed and bruised the beauty of her lovely thighs and calves, but these regions, which had been relatively spared, were very sensitive to the lashes, and her cries were renewed, shrill, clamorous, while her pleas became tearful and incoherent: "Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Ohh, enough! I want to die--it is too much! No, I can't--oh, the pain! My bottom--oh--the flesh is torn, surely. I know I am bleeding! Oh, Mother, Mother, save me--oh, your Madeleine is--ahahahahahh! Oh, my legs, my legs! Oh, the most horrible is the birch--I feel its frightful burning! Oh, oh, mercy! Surely you have hurt me enough by now, I am so weak--so weak now--I cannot--oh, I--cannot--bear--such--pain. It is--eeeeeeeea....
Madame, be generous now, I am at the end of my--strength--oh--please forgive me. Oh, the pain is--again, again, will it never end, this torture? Oh, Mother, Mother, pray for my soul. I am going--to die. I know I--ooh--ahh--oh--God, let me die! My poor thighs, my thighs, they burn so!" Again she received smelling salts before the twenty lashes on her wealed, beautiful back were inflicted; these blows drew raucous cries, involuntary, weakening lunges, and spasmodic stiffenings and lollings--the latter always brought up short by the stocks. The twenty lashes on her naked calves were then applied with pizzle, strap, whalebone switch, and slim birch entirely--such was the apparently unanimous decision of the twenty young prisoners who administered these vigorous lashes. The victim renewed her shrill pleas and writhed more vigorously. Another pause ensued during which the young woman was given brandy and smelling salts again; she was in a piteous, exhausted state, panting, sobbing, and babbling incoherent phrases, her body twisting slowly from side to side, lolling, convulsing, trembling. And then the last twenty blows were appli....
But these last administrators of the torture showed clemency--ah, who would not, seeing that fearfully wealed, swollen, excoriated, angry-hued, palpitating, naked body? They chose only the paddle or the leather sole out of all the panoply and fustigated with hard--they dared not show too obvious mercy--yet relatively compassionate blows the slopes of Madeleine's buttocks, her lower thighs, and her beautiful calv....
It was over, but blood had been drawn from the upper thighs, the back, and the tender sides nonetheless in this unforgettably barbaric flagellation, and when they raised the young woman from the stocks, she collapsed, fainting, in the arms of the two handsome but perverse wardress....
The directress delivered a last brief sermon warning all against mutiny, on pain of similar chastisements; then, under the charge of the wardresses, the assembled prisoners were led back to the refectory, while I was taken back to my solitary cell, there to be led by Mary Jennison. I could not speak, so terrified and overwhelmed by the long ordeal was I; and she, understanding did not press me. I slept, my sleep troubled with nightmares in which ever I or my helpless companions were of the whip. But of this I was sure; having made my miserable bargain, there was now no hope at all; I must submit, or I might expect myself to be treated perhaps even as was beautiful Madeleine Arndt--yes, and, as I was to know soon enough, for the same abominable reas....
The next day was my last in solitary confinement, or, indeed, in the prison, for this night was I to be removed to the mansion of the Laird, there to be "paroled" and made "responsible" to him, my sentence for rebellion "suspended" in view of my appeal in his "clemency" and my "humility." I was well fed. Before supper, I was led to the bath chamber, where Mary Jennison scrubbed me till my white skin glowed with a rosy, healthy hue. And then Rowena Kent, provocative in black satin gown, rhinestone-buckled French slippers, and fine gossamer silk hose that molded her voluptuous ankles, enter....
A curious smile curving her sensual mouth, she inspected me as I emerged naked from the tub. I blushed furiously, uttering a low cry of intense shame at her sudden appearance; for, as I have said, I disliked her for her fawning airs, for inexplicable revulsion which of late I had experienced whenever she came close to me--or touched ....
"Ravishing Lorna," she murmured with a low, bubbling laugh, "a far cry this luxury of a private bath, with maid, eh, my pretty, from the routine of your days her....
"Yes, Madame," I murmured averting my ey....
"Good, I like that appellation; it has humility, yet appreciation for me as--one woman to another." Her innuendo made my naked flesh crawl; I wished desperately she would leave me, that I might dress-but where were my clothes? Mary Jennison had removed them from the ro....
The answer came at once, for Matron Kent bore a large box which she now set down on the nearby bench, directing Mary Jennison to open it. When this was done, my mistress exclaimed with admiration and took out a blue silk frock of bewitching line and very short sleeves, reaching only to the elbow, a lacy white satin chemise whose low neckline revived my furious blushes, two pairs of white ruffled batiste petticoats, a pair of dainty enamel-blue leather pumps with two-inch rounded heels, a pair of black silk stockings and black crepe elastic rosettes, a pair of short flounced stays, and then--to cap my fearful embarrassment--a pair of fragile white silk drawers, with dainty lace ruffles at the hems and waistba....
"Oh, what a charming young lady you will make in this attire," exclaimed Rowena Kent in a low, voluptuous voi....
"Th--thank you, Madame," I faltered, my blushes deepening as hastily I drew the drawers over my thighs, onto my buttocks, for I was impatient to veil my nudity before this strange and exotic woman could embarrass me further. I discovered, with still more annoyance, that the drawers were extremely snug too snug, for with a veritably indecent adherence to the contours of my buttocks and upper thighs, they pressed intimately into the division of the nether globes--and--in front, against the pubic region. Rowena Kent, one hand on her hip, stared at me boldly as I buttoned the chemise, then fastened, with Mary Jennison's help, the stays round my supple waist which really had no need of them. For they emphasized, to my mind immodestly, the most secret charms of my femininity. Then came the petticoats, but not until I had blushed at their frilled and costly coquettishness as well as at the indecorous way my chemise was cut at front to reveal the hollow between my breasts and even to suggest the very tops of their satiny white curves. I now sat down to draw on my stockings and Rowena Kent's eyes flashed as I bared one thigh, then the other, fastened the rosettes in place, put on the pumps, which fitted as if made for me, and then at last draped myself in the lovely frock. Oh, it was elegant, I admit, for now the assistant matron opening a concealed panel in the wall, revealed a long mirror set in the surface of it and bade me gaze at my reflection. I gasped, thunderstruck; I was radiantly lovely, in spite of the weeks of misery and squalor--even filth, as I blush to recollect. I smiled, though inwardly I was tragically sorrowful; Rowena Kent observed it and said to my mistress, "Leave us now. Your mission is done; I am responsible for he....
Mary Jennison nodded deferentially and left the bath chamb....
Now, from inside that panel, which seemed to house a toilette room, Rowena Kent brought an atomizer of lilac scent and sprayed it artfully about my tresses; she remarked that she would tend to my coiffure herself quickly, as I was to sup at the Laird's this night. She added that, though I was to have been taken there this afternoon, other--pressing--matters had kept him in the prison. Privately I had no doubt he was in league with Matron Harnesty in tracking down other victims for barbarous torture. Matron Kent went on to say that she hoped my appetite was not too robust so I might be content with a late repast. I said I was not in the least hungry. Nor was f; a morbid excitement filled me, as perhaps the innocent bride experiences on her wedding night; but with this difference--the bride is to yield to the man she loves, whereas I, a criminal condemned and whose fate meant naught to the outside world save perhaps to my doting parents, was to be yielded up in fear and shame and submission to a man whom I knew now to be a cruel despot masquerading under the guise of benevolent philanthropist and reformer. Besides, being sequestered so intimately with this woman brought back all my hesitancy and timidity and--incipient distrust; I had distrusted her ever since overhearing the scene between her and Jessica Port....
She now applied some of the fine cloying scent to my bare arms. Indeed, I found this frock exquisite but much too immodest; a young girl of eighteen of good family does not show off her arms naked to almost above the elbow. As to length, it was modest enough, though it did let be seen a glimpse of my ankles sheathed in the black hose--and these latter articles of apparel embarrassed me also, for even a man as gentle of speech as my father had once told my mother that black silk hose and fancy garters or rosettes were fitting to be donned only by harlots or actresses, not by decent Christian women. What he would have thought could he have seen me attired n....
And that thought did not add to my well-being eith....
She scanned my face closely, silent a long moment, then said, "No, you have a natural beauty, Lorna, which requires no rouge or eyebrow or lash tinting; your creamy skin is as velvety as a fresh peach--and your spirit, vivid as it is, speaks for itself in your beauty. No, we need not resort to artifice. The Laird oft admires spontaneity and resourcefulnes....
I bit my lips, bowed my head. She guessed my emotion, put one hand lingeringly on my bare wrist, and murmured, "Come, I know what you think--you feel yourself a pariah, a traitor a and a sinful, fallen girl, simply because you submitted to escape the punishments! But they would have been cruel, and not only cruel but constant; your life here would have been intolerable. Think--you saw how Madeleine Arndt was whipped yesterda....
"My God, my God, I shall never forget it," I moaned, shuddering with horror at the remembrance of that naked, kneeling, writhing, mature body, fearfully violated and torn by the interminable lash....
She tightened her hold of my wrist, and a tremor ran through me: "Listen, Lorna--though Madeleine deserved her sentence, for she was the real leader of the complot, she might have escaped it, just as you." I started; my widened eyes regarded her questioning....
She nodded, a slow sensual smile on her lips: "True, I speak true, Lorna. Brought before the Laird, she was as defiant as you saw her at first yesterday--just as then. He offered her mercy, even eventual pardon, would she surrender to him, for she is beautiful, very beautiful. She refused. The result? Atrocious punishment, and a fearful term added to her sentence her....
"But at least," I murmured, very low, "at least she conserved her honor." Her fingers pinched my wrist severely. "Little fool, what is honor but a term people bandy about to serve their purpose, like love or truth? Madeleine's whip-torn flesh today rends from her mind all thought of honor, I assure you. And in chains, naked, she awaits the coming of the mistress to flog her sternly when her wounds are healed. Is that the cost of honor? No, be thankful you can escape her fate. But one thing above all others you must remember: submit to his wishes, and your life is rhapsodic, for he is an esthete, wealthy beyond measure, grateful in his way to those who merit his gratitude; resist, and you are worse than a slave!" I uttered a cry, drew back, and covered my face with my hands. If my fate began with this menace, what would become of me? Fear gripped me cruelly, a greater fear, since it was of the unknown, than of the whip before all! Yes, that latter I knew well because I had seen and endured it. But what awaited me in that gloomy mansion overlooking the terrible and lonely darkened moors--with that man, handsome in a cynical and saturnine way, who took such pleasure in seeing innocent young girls stripped and flogg....
"Do not cry," she exclaimed sharply, shaking me by the shoulder. "You will redden your eyes and he will not be pleased! No, but you would not be so witless as to resist? Of course not. So forget these fears; you will smile, you will be lovely and gracious at his table, and he will be pleased with y....
He will see, as he must have detected from first in you, the qualities of honest beauty and spirit which he admires. Now come, we are late already. Wait, your hair--the chignon is prim--but to turn up the stray curls at the top of the forehead--just so...." With a silver-backed comb she worked as she spoke. "Ah, the....
Perfec....
She had created tiny bangs along the top of my forehead, but only to the right side; she then rearranged the chignon, broadening it in width, shortening it in length, and tied it up with coquettish sky-blue satin ribbons. I stared at myself in the glass, and I turned scarlet again. She took me by the arm and led me forth. Not from the front entrance of the gloomy building did we pass, but through a side door leading from the refectory, which was locked but opened now with Rowena Kent's own key. The night air not too cool, but the assistant matron had donned a cape and draped one about my shoulders, and, taking my wrist, led me down a narrow brick runway which, although circuitous, aimed generally toward that great and isolated mansion. Finally we came to the expansive courtyard, circled by a border of thick heather and small poplars, which effectively hid the side of the mansion from the ro....
The matron took me up a small flight of stairs toward a door fronted with iron bars. She seized the bellrope and pulled it thri....
After a moment, the door opened--and a surprise awaited me; for I recognized one of the girls I had seen in the sewing room, a tall, brown-haired, slim person of about sixteen, Anne Kendall, who had been imprisoned for twelve years for theft and resistance of the authorities who had apprehended her. Her greeting singular, she sank to her knees, bowed her head, and took the hand Rowena Kent extended to her, put it to her lips, kissed it, and then, rising, said in a soft throaty voice that quivered with deference and humility, "Mistress, I have orders from the master to bring the new girl to the dining room at onc....
"He is alon....
"Oh, yes, mistres....
"The others--they have been quartere....
"To be sure, mistress. This very afternoo....
"That is well. Has he asked for my service....
"Oh, no, mistress. He bade me tell you that expressly. And he wished me to convey to you his appreciation for your splendid assistance--the other tim....
A satiric smile lighted the exotic face of Rowena Kent. I, standing behind her slightly and to one side, perceived that the lovely brown-haired girl was blushing, eyes downcast, her fingers nervously moving at her sid....
"Indeed, Anne and your appreciation, als....
"Oh, yes, yes, mistress; pardon I--I had forgotten. Please do not......
"I fear I must, Anne. You yourself shall tell him, directly you have escorted this girl to the table where he waits. I need not accompany you, need I, for that errand?" Strangely, the girl's lips were trembling piteously, her long curving lashes moist with tears. "N--no mistress, I--I shall tell hi....
"Then, good night. Lorna, here I leave you. Be charming, smile. And, a last word:--again I repeat it--do not be a heroic rebel who fights for a lost cause! You are intelligent and shortly enough you will understand my meaning. Observe your young escort! Good nigh....
"G--good night, Madame," I stammered, singularly thunderstruck by this novel presentati....
The beautiful matron turned on her heel and retraced her steps along the path we had come, leaving me facing this girl across the threshold of the opened do....
She was trembling, but raising her head, she stammered, "Hurry, Miss, he waits for you!" I crossed the threshold; she at once closed the door and bolted it securely. Then, sniffling, she whirled and whispered to me, "Follow, please, Mis....
"Y--you are Anne Kendall aren't you? From my sewing clas....
"I cannot answer any questions, Miss! Please--oh, hurry, he--he will be angry." And she bit her full red lips. She was a most attractive girl, with a high-arching forehead, and brown hair coiffured with bangs all along the front and plaited thickly at the back; her nose was straight and sensuously winged, her cheeks ovals, her chin dimpled and rounded. About five-feet-six-inches tall, she was slim and graceful, fluid of moveme....
But as I entered the room and found myself in a luxuriously carpeted foyer. I started wide-eyed at her in the flickering light of a candle set into a metal bracket high on the wall: her attire was unique, startling--and highly indecorous for a girl so you....
She wore a black satin tunic, without sleeves, which left her fine, slim, tanned arms bare; a red corduroy belt clung round her lissome waist and fastened a yellow satin skirt that came only to her knees! Her slim calves and chiseled ankles were sheathed in black silk, very diaphanous, her feet shod in red lacquered sandals without heels and with open toes, tying with a thong about the arch and winding to the ank....
On her left wrist was a bracelet of hammered silver with, in flowing script engraving, the letters C G; then, at the right of those, the bracelet bore a heraldic crest emblazoned with a letter....
"Please hurry!" her voice was imperative, and, I thought, strain....
"Of course, Miss," I sa....
I had, without thinking, doffed my cape and draped it over one arm about to follow her, when, with a little flurried cry, she seized it from me and tremulously gasped, "Oh, you'll not tell on me? Oh, I beg you humb....
Mis....
"N--not tell? What is there to tell?" I was already trembling with tearful presentiments. Was this my introduction l'A" a gloomy house where dwelt the cynical lord of the pris....
"Oh, you're good, kind! Then quickly, com....
And, with almost a sob of relief, she hastened me along a corridor. I had little time nor was I calm enough to contemplate my surroundings. We passed the great swinging door of what must have been the scullery and kitchen and turned to another velvet-carpeted hallway, which broadened, disclosing doors on either side, elaborately inlaid, with grotesque silver knockers and little engraved symbols similar to the crest I had seen on Anne Kendall's bracel....
Now another turn, and, in a short corridor, I saw a pair of glass-paneled doors which had been swung wi....
Beyond them lay a great, festive table, luxuriously set, and, seated at the very end, facing the doors, was the Laird himself, his sardonic countenance illumined by the faint glow of a lighted red taper set near his pla....
We came closer. We crossed the threshold, and instantly the young girl at my side fell to her knees, bowing her head low, while I stood, nonplussed, not knowing what countenance to make, "Approach, Anne!" his voice had the disagreeable and deliberate twang of our intervi....
The young brown-haired girl rose. Her hair was indeed beautifully coiffured, suggesting an artifice such as the exotic matron had used with me, and I had detected the scent of a fine, foreign perfume as she had walked beside ....
She made her way hesitantly, with bowed head, holding my cape, and when she reached his right, she knelt before his chair. The table was large, as I had noted, but set for only two--myself at the distant end, he at the head, as befitted his station-ironically--as my ho....
"You saw Mistress Kent, Ann....
"Yes, maste....
I started; such address was servile in the extreme. Only a lowly slavey used it to her employers, or--or a sla....
"You communicated my messag....
"Indeed, master!" Her voice was low, very quick in response. She had not raised her face to h....
"Ah, so. And, of course, you expressed your own humble gratitude--that goes without sayin....
Her shoulders quivered; she uttered a faint gasp but did not spe....
His face was impassive; only a faint arching of his eyebrows, dominant and imperious, suggested the least interest in the responses of the attractive young girl kneeling so humbly before him--and--in such terror! For that attitude now, coupled with the girl's nervous concern with my cape and my haste to meet him, could only be so constru....
"Answer!" His voice was a whiplash, sibilant and cutti....
"I--I forgot, master. I beg forgivenes....
"Raise your face, Anne. To me!" She obeyed slowly. He leaned down deliberately and, with a sudden and atrociously unexpected flourish of his right hand, he smote her cheek so vigorously that the blow rang in my ea....
She stifled her groan and remained thus, looking at him; her young slim shoulders trembled pitifully now. "You have not yet learned, I fear. Ah, yes, and my guess--you greeted her with humility, aided her in removing her cape, to be sure......
"Oh, yes, Your Lordship!" I interrupted, my voice striving to seem gay, like a young girl flattered by such elegant deference from so great a lord. But inwardly I was trembling. I had come to the fore--impolitely, it is true, because even under these circumstances, I believed a young girl ought never to be forward when she is the guest, however temporary and whatever manner of man her host might be--to save poor Anne from another such blow, which horrified me and still left me quivering with shame that a gentleman could thus brutalize a gi....
But, to my surprise, he did not even bother to glance up at me; instead, he continued to fix his intent gaze on the kneeling, trembling Anne, whose attire more and more took on a ludicrous and juvenile aspect which, contrasting sharply with her maturity of figure, became suggestive to a highly improper degree. He asked in a voice I could hear, a patient, bland voice, as if speaking to a child: "You removed her cape, of course? You know I dislike waiting for answers, Anne--dislike it intense....
Spea....
"N--no, master--but, oh, master, I......
"I know." Now his voice, curiously enough, was gentle, tolerant, even kind. "I know--so flustered by your error in expressing not the full part of the proper message to Matron Kent, you committed still a second error, and one far worse. I am displeased, Ann....
The young girl burst into tears and buried her face in her hands; her shoulders shook with so....
"Silence! You will have no supper tonight. You will go to the little room on the second floor left. You know its location, I trust? Yes, and on your knees you will await me. This is all; you may leave us." The girl reached for the hand he had used to strike her, and kissed it tremulously; then, with a choking sob, she rose and hurried from the large dining room, her face anguished, tears glinting on her sun-browned cheeks. She had, I knew, been committed only a month before I came. Prison gossip had it that she had been a lady's maid on the Italian Riviera, an orphan, but that she had fled the woman's cruelty and managed to come to London. From thence she came to Glasgow through the aid of a young girl she had met in London. But this girl proved to be in reality the decoy for a nefarious and villainous group of panderers who lured orphans or runaway young girls into their clutches by having a girl of the same age befriend their intended victims and offer them honest employment. Although Anne had been able to flee them, she had found herself penniless and hungry and stolen a pudding from a butcher shop. When a constable seized her brutally, she had in her terror struck him. For that "crime," twelve years in pris....
And now she was here, in the mansion of the Laird, the prison superintendent, dressed in outlandish raiment, as fastidious and capricious rich parents dress their child. She was here, kneeling to him, being slapped by him without a murmur--and sent off in disgrace like an errant urchin to a room--a particular room, however. What was the significan....
But I had no more time for reflections. He rose, pushing back his mahogany chair. All the furniture in this dining room was of a baroque costliness and beauty that dazzled me; tapestries hung from the walls, depicting historical scenes of the Empire's might; goblets and costly wine glasses were set at his place and at mine; jeweled candleholders graced the table. It was a dream, this ro....
But it was reality also, and I trembled. This first meeting in his mansion--what foreboding it caused ....
He came to me with a courtly smile; a cavalier could not have surpassed him in worldly manner. He bent, took my hand, and kissed it gently. Then he led me to my chair, seated me gallantly, and returned to his pla....
Elegant in a blue frockcoat made of an expensive tweed and marvelously cut, wearing a flowery and debonair cravat, he was the very figure of sardonic elegance, of chivalry of the romantic peri....
He had said not a word. He reached beside him, where a silver bell was set upon a silver tray, and struck it imperiously, thri....
Hardly had the last note died away when, from a side door, came another girl bearing two tureens of steaming soup and a silver service; behind her, another girl approached with a bottle of claret and a silver corkscrew. The first girl I recognized: she was Maureen Harlan, a chestnut-haired girl of perhaps seventeen, her hair styled in two long braids to the ends of which were tied yellow satin ribbon bows. She was of medium height and of voluptuous proportions as to bosom and hips. Her costume, truly singular, accentuated these qualities. She wore a green satin blouse with sleeves that hid only the upper curves of snowy arms, richly molded; a flaring, wide black satin skirt trimmed with silver cloth; dainty, narrow-heeled French leather pumps, black; black hose also, and as gossamer as Anne's. In addition, she wore a bracelet exactly like Anne....
The girl with the wine I knew also. Like Maureen, she had been imprisoned for ten years for theft; but unlike Anne, she was dainty and petite like Sally Brendon--not more than five feet in height, but of exquisitely curved modeling, a pert, firm, little bosom, rounded calves, and a compactly surging posteri....
Her face was winsome, shy, and delicate, with wide blue eyes, a tiny Grecian nose, a Cupid's bow mouth, and rounded, dimpled cheeks and chin. Her hair was the color of honey, styled in bangs at the front and ringlets, fluffy and coquettish, at the back. Her skin was like that of a peach. Clad even less decorously than her companion, she wore a frilled shirtwaist, but the neck was narrowly cut to the top of her breasts, exposing the commencement of the shadowy cleft of these darling turrets which surged tautly against the shirtwaist; it was decked with very short sleeves, ending above the elbow. She wore a tight, revealing skirt of black satin whose hem exposed her daintily rounded, dimpled knees sheathed in sheer black silk stockings; her feet were shod in red leather French pumps, with narrow heels two inches high and she too wore the telltale bracel....
I marveled at their precision, the grace of their movements. Maureen served her master the soup, kneeling first before him as if to await approval, then rising and setting the tureen before him. Then she served me, though without the genuflection, for which I was indeed grateful. Aroused as were my emotions on this fatal night, this gesture would have choked me. For there were many terrible questions left unanswered in my mind about what I had already seen and yet how little had I se....
The other girl Daphne Joseph, she was called--uncorked the wine without spilling a drop; she then poured a few drops into a glass set on the tabouret, inspected it, and came to fill her master's glass, then mi....
The girls then retired, kneeling at the side door briefly before rising. He took no further note of them, but, regarding me from his distant place at the other end of the table, he said, dryly, with a little smile, "A toast, Lorna Blackwell, to this our first meeting beyond the prison walls!" I took my glass mechanically and forced a smile to my lips but my heart was poundi....
"Come, come," he twitted me, and his voice was gentle, "your lips are made for smiling. Prove it! I am not such an ogre as you thin....
"F--for my sake, I hope not, Your Lordship," I replied, with a return of my old independen....
He laughed heartily and nodded, then drank slowly, savoringly--a connoisseur, an esthete in every gesture--and set down his glass. "Spoken from the heart, my girl! I do not disfavor truth in the least, nor intellectual honesty; indeed, after the fawning servility of criminals such as frequent our prisons today, such as I must of necessity for the fulfillment of the duties of my post come into contact with, your manner is the more refreshin....
I bowed my head, my lips quivering. "But I, Your Lordship, am a criminal also," I reminded h....
"Not so--eat your soup, girl, it's excellent--not so, except by the quirk of your laws and of fate. You have breeding, education, you recognize right and wrong, you are noble and righteous, a veritable paragon of decorum. That is why I, who enjoy the challenge of intellect against intellect--found all too rarely in the opposite sex, I fear--find you stimulating, provocative. Yes, Lorna, that is why I wished to take you from the wretchedness of a prison cell and from the communal fate that ultimately befalls all prisoners: monotony of outlook, slackening of wit and intelligence--and of beaut....
I devoted myself to my soup; indeed, it was excellent, a thick mushroom broth, highly seasoned, very ri....
I was unnerved by this man, who had shown such a dualism of personality: here, now, a cultivated, charming, and gallant gentleman, an excellent conversationalist, a connoisseur of beauty, of good food, and of wine; earlier, a tyrannical martinet, a master--was it a master of slav....
"You are silent, Lorna, pensive. Doubtless your mind has many questions you dare not ask, is that it?" I almost dropped my spoon; clairvoyantly he had read my anguished, conflicting though....
"Come, for the nonce let us forget our roles--let us dine, for it is some time since you last had repast. I have some superb mountain trout, and then a grouse that is deliciously flavored with sage and marjoram...." He struck the bell. The same two girls returned, Maureen to bear away the soup tureens, Daphne to refill the wine glass....
Served by these two deliciously attractive though startlingly attired young girls, I found myself enjoying a lavish repast; the Laird pressed several glasses of very excellent claret on me, with champagne at dessert a flavorful pudding, not too sweet. Then, after we had dined, he struck the bell and Daphne, this time alone, entered with a mahogany humidor, which, kneeling before him, she presented. Indolently he selected a cheroot. Promptly she took it, and, from the pocket of her shirtwaist, drew a little cutting instrument which she applied to the end of the weed. She returned it to him; then, taking a tinderbox from the other pocket, she lighted the cheroot, cupping her hand about the tiny flame to preserve it. He inhaled deeply, puffed a whorl of blue smoke, and nodded. Bowing her head before him, she at last rose and left the ro....
"Come," he said, rising and coming to my chair, which he gallantly drew out for me, "I wish you to inspect my mansion--or rather a part of it, that part which, if you conduct yourself as I know you will, is meant for your eyes in pleasure and in luxury far beyond the rigor of a prison cell." He gave me his arm like a true cavalier and escorted me out of the dining ro....
I was trembling. The rich food and wine I had drunk had given me an extraordinary sense of well-being; still more so did his admirable behavior, in which--save for the incident already mentioned--I could find nothing objectionab....
But always one harassing thought interrupted my sensations: I was here because I had surrendered to him to escape the whip, the punishments, the martyrdoms; I was his victim. When would he claim the infamous stake of the bargain to which my cowardice and shame had led ....
Through a magnificent serving hall he led me, where gilded tables, tapestries, and buffets waited, this room was for the domestics' preparation of the banquet viands when many guests filled the great dining room. From thence we went to a spacious sitting room, with couches, tables, a large and beautifully ornamented spinet and bench for the player, a large music rack, and stands for stringed instrumen....
He noted my surprise at the beauty of this chamber and said, "Ah, you enjoy music? It is one of my passions, Lorna. Indeed, I have my own orchestra. There is advantage to that, as you shall see one day. Come, there is much mor....
Again he took my arm, and I walked beside him, conscious of my elegant frippery, which, for an illusory moment, made me feel some noble young lady, a mondaine of the upper society, conducted through an elegant mansion by a cavalier gentleman who was my polite, unassuming ho....
We came then to a great library, the walls of which were filled with shelves, on all of which stood many, many books of superb and divergent bindings. He showed them to me, discussing with almost pedantic pride the many fine editions and authors he collected: Shakespeare, Dante, Pope and Dryden, Swift. We stopped before one wall at the side of the room. "I know that you are educated and hence admire great literature, Lorna," he said, looking at me smilingly. "So, as you desire, you may borrow my books, for I know your spirited, imaginative mind will thrive on them. All, however, save the books from this wall of shelves; these I expressly forbid you to touch, under pain of my stern displeasure. But come, let me not cast gloom on this delightful meeting; I wish you to see my living room, truly well named, for it is designed for luxurious comfort....
It was situated beyond the library. He had spoken aright; I was dazzled by its massiveness, its luxury. Great bay windows, gave out upon the peak of the promontory to which the front of the great mansion crept, then, below and outward, the lonely moors, the dark sky, lighted only by a few faint sta....
Among the finery were marble columns, great tapestries, and murals on the ceiling, ornate bric-a-brac, statuettes--to my blushing modesty, I must admit that nearly all of these represented nude women in singular poses: one kneeling before a eunuch with a sword; another cupping her bosom, smiling, her head flung back, still another, a man and woman, nude, standing entwined amorously in each other's arms! There were great low couches, upholstered in velvet, with enormous cushions; throw rugs of lavish weave; low armchairs; costly carved tables--it was enough to leave one breathless. Smiling, he saw my admiration and said softly, "But what is wealth for if not to enjoy the niceties of living? Ah, so close to the prison where unhappy and unfortunate members of the group society has chosen to cast from its boundaries, I must needs have contrast--beauty about me--luxury--and the charm of femininity such as yours." I trembled; was this the prelude to odious wooing, to which I dared not embattle my will, even at the cost of my virtue? But no, he was continuing: "Come, it is late, I have engagements to which I must be punctual; besides, you have not yet seen your room, and there is a friend you will be enchanted to meet." He led me out of the immense living room by a narrow door other than that which we had entered, and I found myself in a small corridor, on each side of which were two doors. To the last one on the left he escorted me; then, going ahead he opened the door. The room was lit by candles from a chandelier; I gasped with pleasure. It was an exquisite room, done in soft blue pastels with drapes, a velvet rug, and a luxurious canopied bed with four posters. The satin coverlet was the same soft blue; there was a dresser of wonderful cherry-wood for garments....
But of what was I thinking? This, my room undoubtedly, was to be the fearful site of my virginal lo....
"Enter, it is your room, Lorna," he said with a charming smile. "And I shall summon your friend." With this, he went across the hall and knocked lightly. The door opened--and to my incredulity, I recognized Kit....
My own Kitty, but what change in her attire--as, indeed, in my own. She wore a green silk frock, very dainty and puffed at the short sleeves and shoulders; green French leather pumps with rounded heels; and dark brown silk stockings, of fine gauge, which sheathed her ankles and lower calves. The hem of her frock left these rather provocatively visib....
"And now, I leave you to chat and resume your friendship under happier circumstances, I think, than before," he said, and bowing as might a lord to a great lady, he strode down the short corridor back into the living ro....
"Oh, my darling Kitty," I cried, embracing her, and she kissed me and held me close. "Y--you are here to....
She nodded soberly. "Yes, Lorny. Yet--so far, at any rate--'tis not so bad. And of a sureness 'tis better than the awful punishments the others go....
I trembled, then bowed my head as tears came to my eyes. "But, oh, Kitty, my dear friend, you know why--why--I......
"Hist, we must not speak of that; he forbids it. All I kin tell ye, dear, is that, knowin' ye were to come, I asked if, were I humble and repentant, I might come wi' ye--and so at least, Lorny darlin', ye'll have one true frien....
"Oh, I shall need one truly, Kitty," I sobbed. She consoled me. "Come, no tears, girl; ye've escaped the whip from those devils. Now see my room. Oh, 'tis foine indeed; nor better'n I thought I'd ever live to own." Thus cheerfully did she draw me from my sorrows and agonized foreboding; her room, opposite mine, was as lavish, as beautiful, as ornate; it was done in soft green pastels, luxurious and comfortab....
"But these girls I saw tonight, Kitty?" I asked her. Swiftly she looked about, then whispered, "Sure, and they're here like ourselves. Since this large fine house needs servants, they're put to serve. Kate Strallis is here, and Helena Corcoran, ye know, paroled in his custody......
"Yes, like myself and--and--you......
"I've not seen them yet, though I know they're here. But come, 'tis too early fer bed, and he told me I might take ye to the library, if ye've a mind to choose some book to while away the hours. Be sides, ye kin look at the lovely things he's got oh, Lorny, they're breathtakin'!" And, taking my arm, she walked with me to the library, chatting gaily about how happy she was to see me, how nice it would be to be together. But I was shocked; such a proof of friendship, while it might console me in my blackest hour, did but agonize me the more to think of the price lovely, spirited Kitty must pay for that privilege of reunion. And then I thought of her whipping on the stage, which, despite the "pardon," had been cruel; I murmured sympathetically, "My poor Kitty, does it still hurt you?" for I noted she walked somewhat stiff....
Ruefully she smiled and stroked her posterior, saying with a grimace, "Ah, well, I'd not wish to feel thus every day, that I kin tell ye and speak truth; But, 'twill pass, and the matron had salves sent for me; they soothe it a good bit. But let's not think o' such things; aye, there's been enough you and I've seen alread....
"Yes, and even tonight, that poor girl Anne Kendall," I said, then related quickly the singular episode in the dining room, concluding, "What did he mean by that room where she was to wait, Kitt....
"'Tis best ye not ask me such things. Moreover, I've not learned all the mysteries o' this great fine house yet neither, I haven't. But I'll say this: doubtless, since her service was amiss, she's to be corrected by His Lordship. Ah, but at least, 'tis not the awful shame of the stage with everyone seein' yer bare flesh stripped and thrashed. Come, isn't the moor fascinatin' in the night through those great windows in th' livin' room? Ah, what a parcel of books he has, to be sure--my, one could read all one's life and never finish all these books!" She swept her lovely arm about, eyes wide and shining. For Kitty had known only poverty and wretchedness, and I could understand how this contrast of lavish comfort might appeal to her--though at heart I wondered it truly any such material bounty could compensate a girl for the greatest loss she could suffer: her hon....
I strolled about the room, inspecting the many shelves, till at last, by some perverse magnetism, I was drawn before the wall of forbidden volum....
I glanced cautiously at them. The rich bindings drew my admiration; some of the titles were indeed exotic: The Golden Ass of Lucius Apuleius, and. Inside it. The Curious Pleasures of the Rod, by a Mistress Flossie Belass....
This last intrigued me; pleasures of the rod, oh, God, what could these be for the victim? Perhaps for the executioner, yes; from seeing the gloating faces, the narrowed, glinting eyes of those cruel wardresses when they applied the lash to a panting victim I had discerned that they indeed must derive carnal pleasure from ....
But the victim herself, shuddering in the throes of pain and awful shame---how could she have pleasure? I glanced about; Kitty was admiring the carving on a great straight-backed chair near a large mahogany secretary. Swiftly I drew forth the forbidden book and opened it at random--and turned scarl....
Before me was an illustration of a beautiful young blonde, clad only in tight-fitting drawers, stockings, and dainty French pumps, her chemise upfurled about her shoulders; she sat astride a chair, facing the back, her ankles corded to the front legs, her arms tied round the back, and her tear-stained face turned back to regard a virile, handsome, mature, and bearded gentleman who was pausing to contemplate the jutting posterior he had been flogging with a thin birch rod. Below this engraving was a caption: "When the whip is given by the lover or the triumphant master, the female secretly tastes ecstasy, knowing the voluptuous domination he takes upon her--first through the application of the rod, then in sage caresses and discreet wooing." I closed the book, tremblingly. Was this, then, the real passion of the Laird? Did he intend first, before conquering my virtue, to put me to the voluptuous test of the whip, to dominate me as a master dominates a slave? Were we to relive the Roman era when at the least caprice the master or mistress might call forth the whipping master to some errant serf, whether the latter be male or fema....
"Oh, Lorny, ye shouldn't have! 'Twas expressly forbidden me to take down any book from those shelves there!" Kitty had turned about and saw me as I was replacing it on the shelf. I noted that my fingertips were discolored by a faint bluish powder, doubtless from the binding. In the pocket of my frock was a linen handkerchief; quickly I rubbed the offending traces aw....
"Oh, no one saw, Kitty, and besides the title was so intriguing--The Curious Pleasures of the Rod; indeed, what pleasure could there be for such as us? Oh, since you're worried, I'll haste to choose sonic other volume. There, this Christopher Marlowe play will suit to a nicety. Now let's go back to our rooms and talk a bit--until he come....
"He'll not come this night, Lorny. That I know, fer he told me this afternoon," responded Kitty nervously, eyeing me. I sighed with what was, I must confess, unbounded relief. For my emotions had been too tumultuous these past days to admit of resigning myself this first night to the terrible fate I must passively accept--and I was glad to have Kitty with me as companion, someone of sympathetic nature to whom I could pour out my anguished though....
We returned to her room, and I inspected all its comforts. There was a private watercloset led to by a small door at the back of the room, and, in the great chest of drawers like my own, there was, to my amazement, a profusion of dainty feminine garments: hosiery of many elegant styles and hues, pumps, and undergarments whose coquettishness struck me as being highly indecorous. In a spacious closet, there were galaxies of lovely frocks, and Kitty assured me they were as if made for her. When we were enrolled in the prison regimen, we had had our measurements taken for uniforms, and these intimate facts about our persons had been communicated to the Laird, doubtless by the directress; hence now that we were his private prisoners--we could be little else, alas!--he had but to order garments according to these measuremen....
We had much to chat about, but Kitty was very silent on all matters pertaining to her submitting to the Laird in place of enduring penitence, and also on the subject of the domestic arrangements of the Laird's great mansion's househo....
Pleasingly, Daphne brought us a tray of warm milk and biscuits at about eleven and told us deferentially that it was best we retire for the night, that breakfast would be served to us in our rooms at about eight-thirty. I parted from Kitty and entered my room, closing the do....
I found across the luxurious bed a nightgown, which doubtless Daphne or one of her assistants had laid out for me to wear. It was a long, white, lace-trimmed, cotton shift, soft and elegantly fashioned, and demure enough so as not to annoy my innermost moral scruples. I quickly undressed, donned it, drew back the sheets, and, having blown out the candles, was in darkness. Oh, how luxurious this great wide bed, how soft the mattress beneath me as of veriest eiderdown. Yet--in this darkness, might he--not come by stealth, like Tarquin to the noble Lucrece? The analogy made me shudder and blush, but, as I was fatigued by all these new emotions and surroundings, sleep claimed me swift....
I was wakened by Daphne, who had entered with a tray of breakfast, setting it on a nearby table. I thanked her, and she flushed demurely as she left the room, letting me know that the Laird would not return till afternoon but had prayed us divert ourselves as we chose. Then, as she was about to go, she turned and said, "Miss, may I take your frock and kerchief which you wore last nigh....
"'Why--why of course. Daphne. I laid it on the chair, there, on the other side of the bed," I said, wonderingly. She went to the chair, procured the garment, delved into the pocket, and produced the handkerchief; then, pursing her lips silently, she left the room. This struck me as curious, but the fine breakfast--rashers of bacon, toast, good tea with rich cream some preserved fruit--drew my attention soon enou....
Then I dressed, choosing a white muslin frock, as demure in style and cut as any I could find in the array the closet offered, and went across the ball to find Kitty, who herself was dressing, having finished her breakfa....
As she was clad only in drawers, I asked her to let me see how her poor posterior was healing; blushing a little, she let down her drawers--very pretty ones, pink cotton, with lace ribbons and bows on the hems and waistband--and I beheld her beautiful nether globes. The salves had, indeed, soothed the angry welts and stripes and taken down much of the swelling, but the naked flesh was still splotched and mottled with the pale tracery left by the fustigation. I touched it out of curiosity, and she quivered; I blushed, but affirmed that the agonizing warmth had reced....
Then we spent the morning reading in the library, but this time I did not think of regarding the forbidden boo....
We were taken by Daphne to a smaller dining room on the first floor and here served by her and a third girl, a prisoner named Norma Alley, seventeen. Her dark brown hair was upswept at the top and fell in artificially exaggerated curies at the neck. She was of medium height, though somewhat slender with a soft olive skin, and a gentle, wistful face. Her eyes were a soft brown, her nose slightly bulbous though small, and her mouth full and petulant. She was dressed in a black silk petticoat-skirl with silver cloth belt, a yellow satin tunic without sleeves that displayed her beautiful bare arms, black silk hose, and flat open-toed brown leather sandals. She had been committed for ten years for theft and insolence to her mistress, a harridan of an innkeeper. She served us a fine luncheon. We spent the afternoon walking about the living room, and I tried my still-remembered skill at the beautiful spinet, playing Scottish folktunes. Kitty joined in with singing in a throaty, sweet voice--ah, we forgot, then, our sorro....
We had just finished playing one of my special favorites, "By Yon Bonnie Banks," when suddenly the exclamation, "Bravo, well sung and played!" came to our ears. Startled, we turned, and there, standing in the doorway behind us, was the Lai....
"Nay, nay, do not rise, Lorna, I wish ye to play more for me. Sure'tis I am lucky in having ye grace my household, for I had said I had musicians, but of these, not one who plays the spinet quite so well!" I flushed with pleasure; his manner was kind, companionable. Oh, truly, could this be the same man who had posed as the prison doctor, who had palpated the quivering, whipped bodies of young helpless girls--who had made such an infernal pact with a timorous eighteen-year-old gi....
Kitty was visibly nervous; she eyed him furtively as he approached, resplendent in brown frock coat and magnificently tailored trousers and waistcoat, a jeweled stickpin neatly placed in his cravat. Mature though he was--I adjudged him to be in his early forties--his black hair was still thick and curly, with virtually no trace of gray; only the goatee gave him that sardonic mien which made me know he was certainly old enough to be my father. But judging from his wiry, well-muscled build, his agility, and his behavior, I should have thought him a quite eligible bachelor in the late thirties, still quite the apple of the eye of doting matrons with unwed lasses to foist off. But the supercilious, thin-lipped mouth betrayed all too clearly his true feelings, his arrogance and predisposition to domination, to the achievement of his own purpose without concern for others; I knew, for all he smiled and was exquisitely flattering now, this man could be a terrible and ruthless enemy to the weak and the oppress....
With charming manner, as if we favored him by according him courtesy, he prayed us to play other airs, and we continued, since anything was better than the thought of the inevitable fate I must suffer at his hands--when, I could not know, and even this began to titillate my nerves with anxiety and spiritual torment--ah, God, I wished, since I must be victim, to have it done with, so the sooner tar forget my shame, my martyrdom, my irrevocable lo....
Smoking a cheroot, lolling in a chair, his legs crossed, leisurely leaning back, eyes half closed, a smile on his lips, the Laird seemed to enjoy our spontaneous concert. At last he thanked us; then, rather curtly I thought, he dismissed Kitty, bidding her see if she might not be of service in the kitchen, where supper was being prepar....
When she had left, he eyed my frock casually, remarking, "Your choice is charming; white becomes you, with your dazzling black hair and naturally red sweet lip....
"Th--thank you, Your L--Lordship," I stammered, still seated at the pia....
He took another cursory puff at the cheroot and watched the whorls of smoke ascending overhead. My heart pounded erratically all of a sudden; I was alone with him, when would the moment come....
"I trust," he remarked dryly and to my complete astonishment and guilty anxiety, "you profited from the perusal of Miss Belassis' accoun....
My heart nearly stopped beating, and I must have colored to the roots of my hair; but, with all the poise I could muster, I replied, after an instant, "I--I--do not follow Your Lordship." His fine black brows arched questioningly; a faint, half-amused smile curved his arrogant mouth. "Why, to be sure, the book you examined with such intense interest last night--was it not--if memory serves me right--ah, yes, The Curious Pleasures of the Rod? How did you find i....
"I--but--I did not read it, Your Lordship," I stammered, ill at ease. But this was not an untruth; I had not read ....
"Ah? But at least you studied one of the gravures, I believe!" This man must be the very devil himself! No one had been in sight when, out of morbid curiosity, I had slipped that accursed book down from the she....
"Oh, I assure you," I began, racking my befuddled wits for some logical defen....
He waved his hand and pursed his lips. "You need not; I am already assured. I am displeased with you, Lorna Blackwell. Your first day as a guest of honor in my house, you expressly break a rule I set out so carefully for your attention; you take down a forbidden book, you look at it, then you have the effrontery to deny all this, when there is positive proof of your misdemeanor, so that you add lying to your other faults--which are, in order, namely, the breaking of an order, the examination of forbidden books, the attempt to deceive me. Now I am kindness personified to a charming feminine guest when she observes punctiliously my few stated preferences. But--and this becomes the more important because you are here for the first time-when a young lady displays a naughtiness unexpected on the basis of her education and breeding, and crowns it with a host of other faults, I cannot but seek to correct these ill-advised tendencies." I heard all this with dilated eyes and trembling lips; oh, what was he going to ....
"Accordingly, I shall, regretfully but firmly all the same, be required to punish you, Lorna. But each punishment will be appropriate to the particular fault. First, we shall absolve you of the fault of removing the forbidden book from the shelf You will go to your room, dress, and your supper will be served to you. Then, after you have finished, I wish you to disrobe to chemise and drawers, stockings and slippers; I shall come to see you after I have dined, to inflict the punishment for this first fault." I was purple with shame, with embarrassment, and with not a little atrocious fear. Oh, my God, had I escaped the infamy of public flogging in the prison only to find the lash awaiting me here, where he would have free rein, without even the wardresses or directress to set the terms of this announced correcti....
And--and--he had mentioned several faults I had committed with the one act. Was it his intention to apply a special punishment--for ea....
He had not moved from his chair; he merely repeated, examining a tapestry with great interest, "You may retire, Lorn....
Very nearly in tears, but struggling to control myself, I rose; for a feverish instant, I thought of confessing to him, asking his pardon, begging as a boon for this first trivial offense that punishment be remitted, since, alas, my coming here was fraught with anguish enough for me already without having to face a punishment so so....
But from his bored, indifferent manner, his return to his cheroot, something told me that it would be useless, even demeaning, to plead; so, without a word, I turned and left the ro....
I attained my room and closed the door. I noted it was equipped with an inside as well as an outside lock; perhaps, then, a girl might bar her door to him if she--did not wish to receive him? I threw myself on the bed and wept, enervated as I was by the sudden, unexpected emotional crisis that had unhappily presented itse....
The crisis passed, I dried my tears, rose, and walked about nervously, my mind full of anguished suppositions. Then I was roused from these by a knock at the door; when I came to open it, I saw Daphne, bearing a tray of supper for ....
She was deferential, silent, and unobtrusive; setting the tray down on a little table, she bade me good evening and left my room, closing the door. The food, as always, was excellent and nourishing; I seated myself, and my appetite, which has always been healthy and normal for my years, soon asserted itself. Not long after I had finished the last bite, Daphne returned to claim the tray and again left me in my room alone--in disgrace, so to spe....
I sat down in a chair near the bed and woefully pondered the enigmatic attitude he had taken, the singular information he had about me. Then I turned purple with a sudden, atrocious realization of affronted virginal modesty: he had said I was to disrobe to chemise, drawers, stockings, and pumps. He was to come to see me to administer the punishment--and--and--I was to be thus at his entry? Oh, Mother, Mother, what anguish for your chaste daughter, to have to await this first atrocious visit from the man to whom I had avowed readiness to yield myself out of my fear of the infamous wh....
I would not! Oh, no, it was too shameful, to be told like a child what to do--and that, immodest and an affront to my chastity in every way....
I must, oh, God, I must. Not only must I keep my frightful bargain, but also I must submit to his laws, lest to my shame at losing my virginity be added the barbarousness of physical pain, pain dealt not by a woman, but by a man, virile, ruthless, and cruel, indifferent to the sufferings of the weaker sex, as he had already proved so often. For I remembered the intimate warning of Rowena Kent--and now I remembered with a shudder the fate of beautiful Madeleine Arndt, who had refused him his evil desire, and so paid a horrible price, far worse, God knows, than that of her virtue. Yes, I say that, knowing how she suffered, was yet to suff....
On the one hand, I respected all my dear parents had taught me of righteousness and decency; on the other, I had on every side frightening examples of the cruelty that could persecute a helpless woman or young gi....
I knelt beside my great canopied four-poster bed and prayed for mercy, for courage, and forgiveness --that last, ah, God, most of all, for when I felt his infamous caresses on my young innocent body, when I knew I must, against revulsion even, submit to my--fate--then would I need divine pard....
What time was it? Oh, perhaps even now he was coming. W--would he wh--whip me? And--and--naked? Oh, God, have pity! Not naked before a man and whipped! Oh, it was too horrible! I would die of shame--and the pain....
I must undress, yes. He would be angered more to find I had disobeyed, after that first unhappy disobedience, still another order--an order such as a callous master might give a female slave who was permitted no emotions such as chastity or fear or modes....
I removed my frock, the petticoats, then the stays. In my dainty pumps, the sheer, voluptuously provocative hose, my tight and very indecorous drawers and chemise, in that scanty, shameful attire alone, I awaited his coming with burning cheeks and trepidation in my pounding hea....
I sat in the chair near the bed, my head bowed, hands clasped in prayer. I waited. The minutes were so pitifully slow, so torturingly dragging. Oh, why did he not come, to begin it, to end it? I was resolved; I would yield since I must. I would hide from him to the end of my poor weak resources my signs of terror, shame, and sufferi....
Oh, why, why, in God's dear name did he not come? Oh, it was cruel suspense to force me thus to wait, a prisoner condemned, helpless in his isolated mansion--alone in my room like a naughty child waiting for her parent to come with birch or leather sole to castiga....
Let him put it off, even till only tomorrow God....
A knock resounded at the door, authoritative. I stifled a groan, and, summoning what brief courage came to me after my flurried prayer, I stammered, "En--ente....
The door opened slowly, and I saw his face, bland, composed. He was, however, clad differently; he wore a dressing gown belted and carefully buttoned over a nightshirt and slippers. My eyes fell on his hands--and a flood of relief surged through me. There was no wh....
No whip, but what was this? A silver implement in his right hand....
I was scarlet with embarrassment. Never in my life before had a man seen me other than totally clad--and now, even with the veil of the chemise, I felt almost naked before h....
He seated himself in the armchair near the door, put the silver implement in his lap, and said gravely, "Lorna Blackwell, come before me, kneel before my feet." I trembled violently and my blush deepened. But his eyes were, for all their blandness, inexorable, fixing on me intently. I had to obey. I rose, and, with trembling steps, obeyed, sinking to my knees before his slippered fe....
I was blushing furiously; my arms were bare to the shoulders; never had a man seen me thus in dishabille....
"I have told you I am just, Lorna Blackwell, and I mean to prove it," he said gravely, without taking his eyes from mine. "You doubtless wonder how I knew that you had taken a book from the shelf forbidden to you, and, most particularly, what book it wa....
I gulped, I could not speak; his eyes held me magnetical....
"I shall tell you, for you will see that sin has its own way of being found out, and justice demands, in our society, punishment for crimes committed. You admit that logic, do you not, Lorna Black-wel....
"Y--yes, V--Your Lordship," I murmured nervous....
"Good. Your intelligence, once more I state this, leads me to more direct measures than I might choose with others of less than your mental statute. Now, as to the book. Did you not notice Daphne's seeking your kerchief this mornin....
"Oh, yes. Yes, I did. Y--Your Lordshi....
"And doubtless, too, last night you noted a bluish powder on your fingers which caused you some little trouble to remov....
I groaned. I bowed my head. Yes, I had been found out, through an insidious tr....
"You recognize your guilt--that speaks well for your intelligence and honesty. Well, to summarize, this powder was revealed on your kerchief. That at once told me you had taken hold of some book from the forbidden shelves, all treated thus, by the way. Now, in moving the book to and fro on the shelf, you caused a certain pattern to be engraved in the dusty residue of this powder. It is, by the way, a specially treated preservative for old folios and parchment, for I own many such rare tomes in my collection. Hence I was able, later last night to determine which book you had thus misused against my warning, and, opening it, I observed markings on a certain page, illustrated by a certain gravure." His case was finite; no Counsel for the Crown could have made a more relentless finding. "You admit this, Lorna Blackwel....
"Y--yes, Y--Your Lordship," I said very faint....
"And you admit that you lied to m....
"Oh, oh--n--no, Y--Your Lordship, I said I had not read the book--it was true, I only glanced at that one page......
"Specious evasion of the truth is, in my opinion, worse than the lie, for the intelligence is perverted more than with the bald falsehood. For that, too, you shall be punished--for the attempt to deceive me by what to me is worse than a tissue of fabrications. And for, also, the disobedience to my order. However, tonight I mean to punish you only for the taking of the book. Give me your left hand, Lorna!" Timidly, I held it out, trembling, to h....
"Kneel a little close to me, sideways, your face turned to my right--ah, just so." I obeyed, quivering, my face scarl....
Against my chemise, my naked bosom swelled erratically. Thus presenting myself to him so closely and in profile, I was wretchedly conscious that he could observe the firm rounded contours of my bosom, outlined against its only ve....
With his left hand, he took hold of my proffered wrist, and then, taking from his lap the silver implement, he showed it to me. It was a flexible leaf-cutter, with broad wand and tapering end; he held it by this end, around which a piece of cloth was tightly fitt....
"Punishment," he observed, with that dry twang, "must be appropriate. Your first fault involved the use of your hands in moving the forbidden book; therefore I am going to give you, with this leaf-cutter you see, a dozen sharp flicks on each guilty little white palm. Hold it very still, Lorna, and accept your punishment humbly, as you have admitted you deserve i....
Raising the implement, he brought it down with a smart crack lull on the center of my opened, proffered left palm. It stung cruelly, and I bit my lips, looked down at the door, clenched my other hand, and resolved to be resolute and brave in his terrifying presen....
Crack--the second flick v as even more stinging, and I winced, shifted uneasily on my knees, and opened my eyes. Instantly the third blow was given, with even more energy, and in the same place; oh, it stung atrociously, and a painful throbbing rose in my soft tender flesh. I gasped tensely, raised, then bowed my he....
He paused a while now; I had closed my eyes tightly so as not to see the ascent and descent of the Hashing silver instrument which, being embossed heavily at the normal handle end which now, reversed in his grasp, was being used as the striking portion, hurt much more than I had believed it cou....
Then the fourth stinging flick attained my trembling palm, and involuntarily I jerked it toward myself, from the instinct of protecti....
"You must not draw away your guilty hand, Lorna," he said in a sharp voice. "Come now. Miss, put yourself between my knees and pose your wicked palm on my right leg!" With this, he parted his legs to permit this much too indecorous and intimate pose; I hesitated, but his eyes fiercely compelled me to ob....
And with a little stilled gasp, I moved on my stockinged knees closer y....
Oh, how readily now his eyes could affirm that over my firm, round, young bosom only one thickness of cloth veiled its palpitating, quivering nudity. And my arms all white and bare--did not the chemise, too, set off a little of the flesh of my back and much of my shoulders, as well as the hint of my bosom valley? I was quivering with embarrassment such as I had never before experienced--but also my palm had begun to tingle most unpleasant....
Hesitantly I lifted my stinging palm and placed the back of my left hand upon his right knee; his left fingers, gathered firmly about my condemned wrist, urged me to the proper place. I was so ashamed that tears welled to my eyes. I blinked them back, struggled to compose myse....
Oooh, it hurt, the fifth blow now mercilessly biting down across the middle of my palm. My fingers twisted; I wanted to cry out but courage would not permit it. "Keep your fingers straight out, Miss," he rebuked me, for they had curled in reflexive action under the savage sting of the last stro....
Then, strangely enough, he paused, and, after placing the cruel leafcutter in his lap, extended his right hand to touch my hair at the top of my head. "How soft and glisteningly black, like a raven's wing, your lovely hair is, Lorna," he murmured. My knees ached a little now, and I removed restlessly, wishing the punishment over, ft was so childish, even so benign, that I felt vaguely a gross impropriety to it--especially my having to kneel between his legs clad only in chemise and drawers, and he in nightshirt and dressing go....
But my next emotion was stronger yet--shame, stupefaction. His right hand had, after stroking my hair a moment, lowered to my right shoulder; with a deft motion his right thumb and forefinger had unbuttoned one of the two mother of pearl buttons of the epaulette of my chemi....
"Oh-oh, Y-Your L--Lordship!" I gasped, turning my scarlet face to him. His hand lingered on the bare flesh of my shoulder, and I quivered violently. But--curious fact--confused and shamed and terrified as I was, I had to admit the touch of his flesh against mine was not revolting. Indeed, the shivering sensation it produced in me was indefinable. His touch was curiously gentle, appreciative even--not paternal, nor yet again proprietary, but esthetic, as if seeking to savor the quality of my naked skin. And to recognize this was a cause of fearful girlish embarrassment to me, as may well be imagin....
"Now hold your fingers straight, Lorna, as I mean to proceed with the seven remaining flicks to this hand," he said at last, withdrawing his right hand and retrieving the leafcutter. I shivered nervously and again closed my eyes as the metal implement dashed against my yielded palm. It hurt terribly; I gasped, "Ooooh!" and made another involuntary movement to close my hand. He rapped my knuckles sternly and said, "Move a little closer, I see you are growing restive instead of humbly resigned!" Tremblingly, I again shifted my stocking-clad knees on the velvet carpet, and his left hand guided my quivering wrist a bit farther along his leg, to the lower thigh. Maintaining, it thus, he applied two more fierce cuts, and I groaned softly under each, for they hurt cruelly. My palm was burning now, and when I looked to see, it was very, very red, mainly in the middle region to which he had limited the flic....
Now again he paused, saying, "A pity to mar such beautiful ivory skin, but you have merited it, Lorna." And then, to my utter consternation and shame, he applied again his right thumb and forefinger to the second button of the right epaulette of my chemise, and, before I could prevent him, he had unfastened it entirely. I felt the straps part, and drop, and I uttered a feverish little cry: "Oh, Y--Your Lordship, wh--what are you doing to m....
Turned as I was with my right side nearer to his body between his thighs, on my knees, my left arm raised and my left palm still proffered vulnerably out against his right leg, I had to huddle my right arm quickly against my body to prevent the disclosure of my breasts, which the downfalling strap threatened to lay bare before his ey....
My face was almost purp....
"So," he said, "you prefer the flicks to being petted? Very well, you shall have them, and I advise you to keep very still and not to dare to move your hand away or to close it, or I shall have to administer a sterner chastisemen....
With this, he raised the leaf cutter, and, huddling my arm in desperate shame, dying of embarrassment before him, I closed my eyes and steeled myself. They came--the four remaining flicks--slowly, well spaced out, each furiously envigored, causing my soft flesh to burn and throb cruelly; I gasped, groaned softly, shifted on my knees, but compressing my lips, managed to endure them without retreating my poor bruised and burning ha....
"Now for the other hand," he said. "Are you beginning now to repent your disobedience, Lorna?" I did not quite know which was worse, the pain! or being treated like a little child--yet not entirely like that. For certainly the surreptitious unfastening of the strap of my chemise was the most improper of acts a gentleman could perpetrate against a young lady. And only the fact that I was, miserably, in his power, having agreed to the unholy compact to escape tortures, hold me back from denouncing him for his indecen....
He released my left band and bade me put my right out on the middle of his right l....
"B--but Y--Your L--Lordship, m--my chemise," I shimmered in a low voice, and was surprised to find it toned with the huskiness that heralds tea....
"Ah, so, your chemise? What of your chemise? Do you wish to resist your admittedly justified chastisement, Lorn....
"Oh, oh, n--no sir," I gasped, and wave on wave of furious blushes suffused my throat and face as, closing my eyes, I relaxed the pressure of my arm--and put my hand up to be flick....
I heard him gasp. I felt--all too unhappy and with a sinking soul at this assault on my pride and modesty--that his eyes were riveted on my breast, which the descent of the over buttoning strap of my right shoulder epaulette had bared at the top of the globe and the outer side. My bosom could not help swelling in enervation; I sobbed as I waited on my knees, so indecently posed and array....
However, a sudden spasm of pain in my right palm returned me to extreme physical awareness that my punishment was resuming. His fingers pressing harshly into my slender right wrist, maintaining it rigidly, he applied the dozen flicks slowly and very sternly, making me groan and bite my lips continually under the cumulative burning of the soft fle....
At last the twelfth flick was applied, and he released my hand; instantly I rushed it to the straps, to try to cover my indiscreet nudity, but he harshly interposed. "Have I yet given you leave, Lorna Blackwell, to move from the pose of humility you have taken to receive your just punishment?" And with a spasmodic sob, I had to return to it, head bowed, while he delivered himself of a dry lecture on the necessity, here as in the prison, of strict obedien....
Then only did he allow me to rise, and you may be sure I at once drew the offending straps over my shoulder, though not, I fear, without baring to him even more immodestly the upper and side curves of my creamy right brea....
He then bade me kneel before him again, bowing my head. After a bit he said, "You have now expiated the first offense, that of removing the forbidden book. I shall, some evening this week, punish you for breaking my command. It will be, I must warn you, a far graver punishment than this tonight, but of its nature I shall tell you nothing. Now kiss the hand that corrected you, promise to be repentant, and then go to bed. You shall breakfast with me tomorrow mornin....
With this, he extended his right hand, and I hesitantly brought it to my lips. But, not satisfied with the brief touch of my lips, he ordered me to kiss it with more humility and affection, the latter because he was now in effect my guardian, having taken over custody of me from the prison personn....
Then rising, he bade me a crisp good night and left the room, closing the do....
I stood, baffled, my senses in tumult; I was assailed with incredible emotions. Why had he not compelled me to submit to him--as I had, in my terror, agreed? And then there was this punishment, from which my palms burned fiercely. Yet in comparison with the public ordeals of the prison, this was childish indeed, innocuous--save, of course, for the immodest way he had lowered my chemise strap! Finally, I was terrified at the pronouncement of still further chastisements to be inflicted--the more so as he had set no time for these and held from me knowledge of what they were to be compris....
I removed my chemise, drawers, pumps, and hose, and, donning a white cotton nightgown, clambered into bed, my palms still stinging. Huddling them against myself, I lay a few moments reviewing the events of the night. To my utter surprise, I had to admit that I had not found him odious or terrible, or even--or even--too cruel. He had been considerate in not forcing me to his will, as he could well have done. Sleep swiftly overtook me....
In the morning, Daphne woke me and gently bade me dress for breakfast. I hastened to perform my matutinal ablutions and chose a charming pink silk frock of modest cut. Soon I was in the smaller dining room, ushered there by the docile and punctilious Daphne, and found the Laird waiting my arrival. Kitty was beside my place, I saw, and Kate Sirallis and the voluptuous, passive Helena Corcor....
We were served by Daphne and Anne Kendall. This latter, I noticed, served her master very deferentially, even more so than on that first occasion, and averted her eyes from him, which, moreover, seemed red and swollen from weepi....
He was charming and witty, and drew us out on many topics. Even the somewhat mournful Helena was smiling frequently. No word even hinted at such a thing as chastisements, and I found myself, against my will, admiring his versatile culture, his flair for humor--dry though it often was--and his attitude of gallantry toward ....
We were free, he told us on rising, to spend the day as we chose. The weather being bright and clear and warm, he would have his carriage take us for a drive toward the moors in the afterno....
Then he left us to return to prison duties, as he told ....
Drawing Kitty aside somewhat later, I told her what had happened to me the night before. She smiled wistfully and said it was best I did not discuss such things with her, but that I had been wise in obeying humbly, that he would be pleased with me always if I were humble and obedie....
I saw clearly that he had interviewed her, though she would not admit this or, of course, the nature of that interview. I haplessly mentioned that poor, lovely Anne seemed to have been crying, but Kitty hissed me to silence and said I must not seem ever to take note of such things; that would displease the Lai....
So I dismissed the agonizing questions I had longed to beset her with and took my pleasure as I could--for as long as I could, alas. That afternoon, indeed, he had Matron Kent come round with his carriage and four fine black horses, for it seemed she was a gifted equestrienne, and we took the side road from the mansion down along the edge of the lonely moors, which stretched, miles on end, under the serene blue sky. No sign of life showed itself beyond the prison and the mansion, but, rather, endless clumps of heather, and bogs, and the weaving swell of moors. Bleak and pitiless, this locale--yet it was the handiwork of Nature, and so benevolent compared with the cruelties of m....
That night he dined with us all again. Anxiety welled in my bosom at the notion of an oncoming punishment, but he mentioned nothing of it that night nor, indeed, the day after that. But four days from the time I had had my palms flicked by the leafcutter, rising from the table after lunch, he said dryly to Daphne, "You will have Miss Lorna, this afternoon, wear the special drawers I had chosen." I turned crimson with shame; in the presence of all these girls, a gentleman never dreams of mentioning so intimate a word--but the Laird, I knew, was governed here in his own mansion by none of the laws of a conventional society as we know ....
A moment later he left us, and I hastened to Kitty, who bade me not distract myself by anguished notions, but to accompany her with Matron Kent, who wished again to take us driving in the carriage. However, Daphne, overhearing this, came to me and said that I must be certain to be in my room by five o'clock, before supper, so I might wear these curiously significant drawers he had ordered for ....
I agreed, again blushing and gripped with anguished foreboding, but then Rowena Kent appeared and greeted us so charmingly we could not but cast off our gloom. The ride this time was along the road away from the prison--oh, toward freedom, the road whence I had come from my home and all I held dear. This saddened me instead of cheering me, al....
We returned in ample time. Daphne came to my room at five, holding a pair of white batiste drawers trimmed with blue ribbons, and bade me undress at once and don them. I did so, furious with embarrassment that she should thus be the Laird's intermediary, and was still more embarrassed when I found they sheathed me uncomfortably tightly, especially at the median cleft of my posterior and at the front--over--my sex. I asked her rather ironically, I fear, poor child--she was only carrying out orders--whether I needs must wear any other specified articles of attire, but she shook her head and left me without explanation. So I chose the blue frock I had worn on my arrival here, a fine white cotton chemise, the black stockings and rosettes, stays, petticoats, and pumps, and left my room to visit Kit....
However, I found her absent, so went to the spinet to play; thus f amused myself for about fifteen minutes till the Laird himself entered, in cape, hat, and cane, having returned from the pris....
"Ah, Lorna," he said, "I had meant to have Daphne tell you--you will dine with me alone shortly, and then accompany me to the library after you have had sufficient repose after your mea....
"As--as Y--Your L--Lordship wishes," I stammered, rising and curtsying. He smiled ironically. "I wish you, since you are so eager to observe these wishes of mine"--his sarcasm reminded me, alas, of my misfortune--"to call me henceforth Uncle Charles. It is, after all, a title not inappropriate, considering my parental surveillance of you as a minor. Till you are twenty-one, even in free society, you could have no true freedom anyway--and after all, for daily use, 'Your Lordship' is a bit too forma....
"V--very well, Un--Uncle Ch--Charles," I stammered, very ill at ea....
Soon we faced each other across the table in the smaller dining room. Again he was witty; no other "guest" was with us, and he outdid himself in gallantry and cha....
And, under the magnetic influence of this singularly handsome, virile man, I felt some of my uneasiness rece....
After dinner, he accompanied me to the living room where we had further light conversation; he pursued his interest in my parents, my background, my likes and dislikes, and he seemed even more the kindly, gentle sophisticate who knew just what to say and how to act to make a young girl feel at ea....
While we were conversing, Daphne entered, knelt, and prostrated herself before him, ever in her charming but indecorous costume I have already described, and asked if he had orders for the nig....
"No," he retorted, drawing on his eternal cheroot, "send all to bed and let me be not disturbe....
"Very good, master. Good nigh....
He waved his hand in dismissal as the young girl rose and withdr....
Then the conversation resumed, but its note was somewhat strained. The sight of this girl's incredible humility before a man, the manner of her dress, the use of her servile term--all these things recalled to me with unpleasant vividness how my situation had alter....
At length he finished his cheroot, quaffed a last cordial, and then, rising, bade me follow him to the libra....
I flushed; that summons reminded me of the unhappy incident which had put me into disgrace on the very first day of my transfer from the prison. However, I could not very well say no, so I went with h....
The moment we were inside, he locked the massive door that led to the luxurious shelf-laden room, and, going to the beautiful secretary I had so much admired, opened a drawer and took out a little ladies' riding whip of brown leath....
My eyes widened and I recoiled, my hands to my bosom, uttering a startled little ga....
"Tonight," he remarked as he turned back to face me, "I shall administer the second punishment you merit, for breaking my commandment, which you were well warned against breakin....
"Oh, Y--Your Lordship," I gasped, blushing furiously, "I beg pardon. I did not mean to offend, truly I did no....
To my consternation, however, instead of replying to me, he approached and, with a sudden motion of his arm, swept the lash across my naked upper right arm. The whip stung with a terrible bite; I uttered a cry of pain and pressed my left hand to the red mark inflicted, regarding him as if he had suddenly gone m....
Without yet a word, he applied a second cruel cut to my other bare upper arm; the pain was dreadful. I cried out, "Oh, don't beat me like this, why are you so cruel? Forgive me for my mistake, but--ohhhh! Ohh, Lord, do stop, it burns, it hurts!" For he had whistled the whip down again across my right shoulder, biting naked flesh and through the frock as well, the fragile fabric of which seemed to be not the slightest protection. His eyes were cold, narrow, stern, his lips compressed, and I, terrified, broke and ran toward a corner of the libra....
"So," he chuckled dryly, "you revolt against punishment! Beware of the whip, then!" And, advancing on me, whip upraised, he easily foresaw my desperate feint toward another region of the room; he applied two furious lashes across my shoulder-blades which seemed to cut me to pieces; oh, the pain was atrocio....
"Aiii! Ohh, Lord, oh, pray don't whip me so. What must I do? Tell me what you want, but don't beat me with that horrid whip!" I cried out hysterically, terrified by his absolutely ruthless attitu....
"Then begin to undress! Your frock, at once! Quickly, if you don't want another lash that will hurt still wors....
And he raised the whip aga....
"Oh, no, no, don't hit me, for God's sake. I'll obey you, Your Lordship!" I cried frantically, and, seizing the hem of my frock, I rushed it up over my shoulders and he....
"Put it on that chair," he indicated with the whip, and I, trembling, my heart racing wildly, tears stinging my eyes, my poor arms and shoulders burning from the vicious little flexible whip, obeyed him, watching his every mo....
"Now the petticoats! At once!" and the whip whistled near me. I cried out in fright and my feverish fingers fumbled desperately with the drawstrings; at last they fell, and I had to put them on the chair with my fro....
"Now the stays; on an occasion as serious as this, they cannot be tolerated," he ordered again. I fairly whisked them off as his whip punctuated the command with a horrid crack near my trembling bo....
Shuddering, my teeth fairly chattering with fear, I huddled before him, clad only in my chemise, my drawers, the sheer black silk hose and rosettes, and my pretty pumps. But I was so frightened by his relentless fury, the unexpectedness of his outburst, and the sight of the lash, that I did not even think of the immodesty I had shown in disrobing so thoroughly before him, alone in a locked room--nor, now that I look back, can I state truthfully that I thought of fearing for my virtue. No, the pain and fright of that awful little pliable whip so obsessed me that my emotions had room for little el....
"Now then, Lorna, get astride that chest in the corner," he order....
"B--but wh--why, Y--Your Lordship?" I gasp....
"Because I order you to do so, that is reason enough--and this is still further!" With this, a furious whistling cut of the whip surged against my upper back, horizontally; I shrieked and ran to the chest to escape another such terrible bl....
He followed me, never letting go of the whip, saying sternly, "I'll teach you proper obedience and humility by and by, you obstinate girl! Now drape yourself out along the chest--that's right--and don't dare move, or you'll add seriously to your punishmen....
I was blushing now as well as shuddering with bar, for, in getting astride the low, flat, long chest and stretching my upper body out along its surface, my chemise had ridden up along my body till its hem now floated just above the legs of my ridiculously tight drawers, disclosing at least an inch of naked skin between the tops of my black silk hose and the final veil to my chasti....
Laying the whip down on the chest, he bent and, taking a long leather strap to which a buckle was attached at one end, fastened my left ankle tightly, buckled the strap, then drew it under the bottom of the chest; next he made fast my right ankle similarly and connected the two straps together under the chest, whose lower level was a bit upraised from the surface of the velvet-covered floor. Now I lay draped along this apparatus, feverish with shame in the awareness that my posterior was most indecently upreared and molded out in all its healthy young contours by the tightest of drawers. He came to me and strapped my wrists down toward the floor and affixed the other ends of the straps tight to the front legs of the che....
"Oh, good heavens, Your Lordship, what are you going to do to me? Oh, have mercy, I beg of you, have mercy! Pardon my offense; surely I did not do it out of spite, it was......
"Silence, Lorna! I had told you to expect a punishment far more grave than the flicking of your palms! You may have wondered why you were bidden to wear the tight drawers you have on. They are, I assure you, exquisitely charming and revealing of your physical form!" Here I turned scarlet with embarrassment and shame and groaned softly; I could hardly mo....
"Well," he continued, regarding me with sardonic amusement, "these drawers were made expressly for a girl to be whipped in. That is why they are so excellently tight; they protect not a particle of the condemned posterior--for, though I do not yet intend to whip you naked, still you merit an exemplary chastisemen....
"Oh, heavens, oh, Lord," I groaned, turning my flushed face to him, eyes full of tears and widened with terrified apprehension, "do let me off! I have tried to behave like a young lady of gentle education, and--and--I have never in my life before been tied up so shamefully or--or beaten with such a horrid whi....
"No, I do not intend to let you off in the least; you are going to receive a most salutary flogging, Lorna, for there is nothing more wholesome to the restoration of a naughty girl's character than a sound flogging on her lovely behind. So you may not expect me to show pity to you, for so serious is your fault that it requires a lengthy chastisemen....
With this, to my anguish, he trussed up the chemise to my shoulders, forcing me to arch myself up as much as I could to allow the garment to pass under my body, baring my naked back, which was rippling in torment already. My poor buttocks, clad so snugly in those fearfully tight drawers, were entirely defenseless; besides this, they were posed at the most atrociously shameful upswelling angle, and I was dying with shame to be thus before a m....
"I think," he said, as he walked to the end of the chest where he had laid that awful little whip, "I told you before to call me Uncle Charles instead of Your Lordship, did I not? Yet you continue to use this latter term--a new black mark against your score, my dear. Yes, verily, you are in real need of the whipping I propose to inflict on you tonigh....
He picked up the whip and came to stand beside me at the left, regarding me, his eyes flashing, his lips curved in an ironic, faint smile, and I burst into tears, absolutely overwhelmed now by the knowledge of my helplessness, my shameful pose and attire, and of the oncoming punishment which I was certain would be fearful. And yet this ordeal was so very different from that which I had experienced tied on the cruel whipping bench be-fore the eyes of all my comrades. I could not explain it, it had overtones that agonized me more, and yet perhaps the knowledge that no one save he could see or know my shame was a faint consolation in this awful mome....
"Oh, oh, Un--Uncle Charles, pardon me," I groaned, my eyes supplicating, imploring. "Please do let me off this one time, let me prepare myself to receive my punishment, for--for that whip has hurt me so awfully already, I know I shall never be able to bear i....
For answer, to my consternation and terror, he doubled the little whip and patted my right buttock with it, just below the summit. All my muscles contracted in an instinctive, fearful defen....
"No," he said slowly, raising the lash up bit by bit, "I shall not let you off, Lorna, you have no idea how enchanting you look thus, with your fine, amply rounded, firm young bottom seeming to invite the whip--and it will get it, never fea....
With this, he suddenly brought down his arm and the slim, flexible, brown leather thong fell with a terribly loud crack, vertically with the end alone, against the very place he had just patt....
Oh, Lord, it was awful! ft stung mercilessly. All my flesh convulsed, and I uttered a shriek, tugging at my straps, my hips writhing up from the chest, as, turning my face back to him, I cried, "Oh, Uncle Charles, Uncle Charles, oh spare me, spare me! Not with that awful whip. It cuts and burns so horribly--oh, please, dear Uncle Charles, have pity on me, forgive my first offense! I will show you by good conduct in the future that I am to be truste....
"No, you shall not be spared; your supplications fall on deaf ears till you have had what I adjudge to be a sufficient whipping on your naughty bottom!" was his answer, as he patted the other quivering, contracting globe of my poor defenseless buttocks with the doubled whip. Then, as I burst into tears, he applied the lash with a deft stroke, biting the tip with a sonorous impact over the drawers and stinging once more the place he had selected. I jumped in my bonds, it burned so furiously, and I shrieked for mercy. No longer was I conscious of the shame of my pose and attire; my only thought then was--as it is still--to escape that awful burning, biting, cutting wh....
