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“And you!” she cried hysterically. “You!”

“Yes, and me,” he said. “But you will have me in one form or another whatever your choice. You won’t get away from me. You may refuse to marry me, but—-“

“I do!” she burst out wildly. “I do!”

“But–” he said again, very deliberately.

And then, compelled by she knew not what, she lifted her eyes to his. And all her life she shrank and shuddered at the dread memory of what she saw.

For seconds he did not utter a single word. For seconds his eyes held hers, arresting, piercing, devouring. She could not escape them. She was forced to meet them, albeit with fear and loathing unutterable.

“You see!” he said at last, as though concluding an argument. “You are mine! I can do with you exactly as I will–exactly as I will!” He repeated the words almost in a whisper.

But at that she cried out, and began to struggle, like a bird beating its wings against the bars of a cage.

His hold became cruel in an instant. He forced her hands behind her, holding her imprisoned in his arms. He tilted her head back. His eyes shone down into hers like the eyes of a tiger that clutches its prey. He quelled her resistance by sheer brutality.

“I have warned you!” he said; and she knew instinctively that he would have no mercy.

“How can I marry you?” she gasped in desperation. “I am engaged to–another man!”

She saw his face change. Instantly she knew that she had made a mistake. The ferocity in his eyes turned to devilish malice.

“You will marry me yet!” he said.

“But you will come to hate me some day!” she cried, clutching at straws. “As–as I hate you to-day!”

His look appalled her, his lips were close to hers.

“If I do,” he said, with a fiendish smile, “I shall find a remedy. But so long as you hate me, I shall not grow tired of you!”

And with that he suddenly and savagely pressed his lips to hers.

XI

THE TIGER’S PUNISHMENT

That single kiss was to Ernestine the climax and zenith of horror. It seemed to sear and blister her very soul with an anguish of repulsion that would scar her memory for all time. She retained her consciousness, but she never knew by what lightning stroke she was set free. She was too dazed, too blinded, by her horror to realise. But suddenly the cruel grip that had her helpless was gone. A vague confusion swam before her eyes. Her knees doubled under her. She sank down in a huddled heap, and lay quivering.

There came to her the sound of struggling, the sound of cursing, the sound of blows. But, sick and spent, she heeded none of these things, till a certain monotony of sound began to drum itself into her senses. She came to full understanding to see Dinghra, in the grip of an Englishman, being hideously thrashed with his own horsewhip. He was quite powerless in that grip, but he would fight to the end, and it seemed that the end was not far off. The punishment must have been going on for many seconds. For his face was quite livid and streaked with blood, his hands groped blindly, beating the air, he staggered at each blow.

The whip fell flail-like, with absolute precision and regularity. It spared no part of him. His coat was nearly torn off. In one place, on the shoulder, the white shirt was exposed, and this also was streaked with blood.

Ernestine crouched under the tree and watched. But very soon a new fear sprang up within her, a fear that made her collect all her strength for action. It was something in that awful, livid face that prompted her.

She struggled stiffly to her feet, later she wondered how, and drew near to the two men. The whirling whip continued to descend, but she had no fear of that. She came quite close till she was almost under the upraised arm. She laid trembling hands upon a grey tweed coat.