The Rape of Venice

by Dennis Wheatley

  The sentry had caught it too. Next moment a shot rang out. Then another and another, from other sentries posted farther off along the wall. Roger could see the squadron now as a black compact mass swiftly approaching.

  ‘Laker!’ he shouted. ‘Laker! Here I am!’

  In a swirl of dust, the Captain pulled up beside him, while the squadron streamed past them under the tall arch. A dozen men of the garrison were shooting now, but the attackers got by almost unharmed. In the last troop, one man was hit in the arm, another had an ear chipped and, with a screaming neigh, a wounded horse pitched its rider. The rest rode on, pulling up in the adjacent streets, the houses in which gave them temporary cover from the sentries on the walls.

  To make himself heard above the din of cries, shots and curses, Roger had to shout at Laker but, by an exchange of a dozen quick sentences, they modified the plan they had agreed on; for now, with the help Rai-ul-daula would give them, they could hope to capture the city. It was agreed that No. 1 troop should go with Roger to secure Clarissa; Nos. 2 and 3, under Laker with Mahmud Ali as guide, were first to free the ex-Wazier, then attack the main gate of the palace; while No. 4 troop should remain there to hold the gate in case they were forced to retreat through it.

  While Laker shouted his orders, and passed the recognition battle-cry ‘Clarissa’ to his officers, Damaji, Roger, McCloud and their squad of twelve picked men each took a grip on the stirrup leather of one of the No. 1 troop. Led by the red-jacketed mute they set off up the street, running beside the mounted troopers. Within five minutes they entered the narrow lane, one side of which was formed by the wall of the palace garden. Those running let go their hold and swiftly formed a group outside the door which had been opened by the eunuch on the night of Roger’s escape. Meanwhile, the mounted men divided into two sections, each trotting to one end of the street and halting there ready to resist any attempt to interfere with Roger and his party.

  Two of the special squad produced canisters of gunpowder that Roger had had them bring in with them, and a third a length of fuse. McCloud placed the canisters against the gate and fixed the fuse. The corporal lit it with his tinder-box, and they all ran back. The fuse spluttered and a small blue flame ran along it; there came a bright flash and a shattering explosion. Without waiting for the smoke to clear, Roger rushed at the door and, followed by his men, flung himself against it. The explosion had shattered the lower part and sprung its hinges. Two minutes’ ramming by muscular shoulders and they had forced the wrecked door far enough back to get through.

  McCloud blew his whistle to call up the mounted men while Roger, half-blinded by smoke, staggered into the garden. Dawn was not far off and there was now sufficient light for him to get his bearings. When crossing the garden before, he had heard a woman’s laughter coming from a long low building that lay to his right. Damaji had come up with him and pointed at it, confirming his belief that it was a part of the harem. Followed by the troopers, now wielding their drawn sabres, they pelted across the garden towards it.

  The firing down by the city gate had increased, and lights coming on in the building showed that the sound must have aroused some of its inmates. As Roger raced towards it a door at the top of a shallow flight of steps swung open and the portly form of a eunuch showed framed in it against the light. At the sight of the dark figures running towards him, he gave a shrill cry of fright and quickly shut the door again. But before he could bolt it, Roger was up the steps. With one violent kick he forced it back a foot, then jabbed with his sword through the opening. The point of the blade caught the eunuch in the arm. He gave a screech of pain and, clasping at his wound, staggered aside. A moment later the whole squad was tumbling inside.

  They had entered a bare tiled hallway with graceful arches in its walls. Another eunuch was standing in one of them. His eyes wide in their puffy sockets, he turned and fled. Instinctively Roger dashed after him. A dozen strides carried him down a short passage and into a long silk-curtained room. In it there were a score of divans and as many scantily clad houris, just aroused from sleep. They began to scream. Those who were nearest cowered back against the walls; others, at the far end of the apartment, fled like a herd of terrified gazelles bunching, together as they stampeded through a further archway.

  At a glance, Roger had seen that Clarissa was not among them. With flying feet, he pursued the huddle of dark heads, streaming veils, and shapely brown limbs through the archway into another chamber. It was very similar to the first, but occupied by a number of older women, evidently the concubines of the young Rajah’s father. Most of them, too, were now screaming, but some showed a bolder face, and one flung a dagger at Roger. It missed him, but struck one of the troopers behind him, gashing his cheek. With a thrust of his left hand, Roger pushed the woman over, and sped on after the younger ones through yet another archway.

  It opened onto a passage at one side of which there were a number of curtained doorways. Ripping aside the first curtain he came to he saw beyond it a comfortably furnished room with a tumbled divan from which its occupant had already fled. The next was similarly furnished and also empty. These, evidently, were the apartments of the favourites. One after the other he snatched at the silk curtains, peered for an instant into the abandoned rooms, and hurried on. In the sixth room, lying on its divan, he found Clarissa.

  For a moment he thought she was asleep; then he realised that she could not possibly have slept through the piercing screams and clamour made by the other women during the past few minutes. Yet if she was not asleep—an ice-cold hand gripped his heart—she must be dead.

  20

  With Death at the Post

  Clarissa was lying on her back, covered to the chin. Her eyes were closed, her long pale gold hair, of which she took such care, was tangled on the pillow; but her cheeks had the warm flush of life. Suddenly she groaned.

  Calling her name, Roger flung himself down beside her. She did not answer but began to turn her head uneasily from side to side. He saw now that there were little beads of perspiration on her forehead, and that the flush in her cheeks was too hectic to be natural. Her small imperious aquiline nose stood out white, sharp and bony from between them. Each faint breath she drew came with a little rasp. Gently he put his lips to hers, and found them burning. That light caress confirmed the fact that had already dawned upon him. She was in the grip of a high fever.

  ‘Oh, Clarissa!’ he cried. ‘My sweet, my darling! What have they done to you?’

  His anguished cry aroused her from her torpor. The long lashes that made fans on her cheeks fluttered and her eyes opened. As he bent over her, she looked straight up at him but showed no sign of recognition. Then, turning her head from side to side again, she began to babble incoherently.

  After a moment, he realised that there was nothing he could immediately do for her. A stool, a bowl of rose-water, and a square of damp linen beside the bed showed that up till a few minutes ago she was being nursed by one of the other women. The nurse must be found as soon as possible, and a doctor. But there was no chance of that until the Rajah’s troops had been overcome and order in the palace restored. Meanwhile Malderini, the fiend who had brought his fair love to this sorry pass, might get away.

  Coming to his feet he cried to McCloud, ‘Stay with her. Bathe her face with that rose-water. I’ll be back as quickly as I can. Two of the men I’ll leave with you. The rest I’ll take. I’ve a man to kill.’

  Urged on by fierce cold hatred, he began his hunt. Even Malderini, he felt certain, would not have been permitted to enter the women’s part of the palace; so he wasted no time looking into the other rooms of the seraglio. Coming on another garden entrance beyond the favourites’ corridor, he ran out through it. No. 1 troop had followed his squad through the blown-in door and were hotly engaged in the middle of the garden with a body of about sixty of the Rajah’s soldiers. The natives had the advantage of numbers and that, owing to the trees, lily pools and beds of shrubs, the mounted men could not form up to charg
e. But as Roger came on the scene some fifty yards behind the phalanx of Indians, it suddenly broke. The white-robed figures scattered and ran towards him. Putting spurs to their horses, the hussars came in swift pursuit, crashing across the flower-beds and cutting down the yelling brown men with their sabres.

  Suddenly Roger realised that he was still wearing a turban and white robe himself, so he might be mistaken for one of the flying enemy. Wrenching them off, he shouted to his men to do the same, and cried out ‘Clarissa! Clarissa!’ He was only just in time. A burly sergeant was charging down upon them, his sabre raised high to cleave a head. With a shout of recognition he swerved off towards another group.

  Damaji led the way to a door in a building at right angles to the harem quarters. With blows and kicks they forced it and entered a wide corridor. The rooms that gave off it were store rooms and workshops. In some of them servants and slaves were in the act of trying to hide themselves; in many instances they fell to their knees, banged their heads on the ground and cried out for mercy. Hurrying through the building, Roger and his band crossed a small courtyard, smashed open another door and found themselves in a pillared hall. There, more servants flung themselves down before them, or scattered and fled. Two minutes later Roger was dashing in and out of another row of rooms, all of which had divans and appeared to be the apartments of some of the courtiers; but none of them had things in them which might have belonged to Malderini.

  A shout from his corporal brought him back into the passage. From its far end a body of about twenty of the Rajah’s guards were running towards them. Although they were outnumbered, they stood their ground, for the passage was only some eight feet wide and, on so narrow a front, not more than three couples could engage one another at a time. The guards were wearing shining brass helmets and corselets of chain-mail, but the hussars were better swordsmen. In the furious cut and thrust that ensued during the next few minutes, they more than held their own for the loss of one man, killing or grievously wounding five of their attackers. Then, as Roger wrenched his sword point back from out of the muscle of an Indian’s neck, he glimpsed another group of guards at the far end of the passage running up to reinforce their comrades.

  Knowing that the odds were now too great for them to force their way through, he gave the order to retreat. Still cutting and thrusting furiously as they went, they backed away step by step towards the pillared hall. Next moment he was seized with anxiety as to how they would manage when they reached it, since the greater number of guards would be able to spread out and surround them.

  Swiftly he saw that they must again stand and fight until help came. The No. 1 troop had had orders to remain in the garden and hold it; so that should Laker fail in his attempt on the main gate, Roger and his squad, having rescued Clarissa, could be certain of getting out that way. Parrying a pike thrust he shouted to the corporal.

  ‘We must stand here, or we’ll be cut up in the hall. Get back to the garden. Bring up half the troop! Tell the rest to keep by the door in the wall. Off now, and quickly. Waste not a minute.’

  As the corporal backed out of the scrimmage, another hussar went down beside him. That left only Roger, Damaji and seven of them against at least thirty of the Rajah’s guard. Only the narrowness of the passage saved them from being overwhelmed in the next few minutes.

  During them, while the sweat poured down Roger’s face on account of his exertions, his mind sought frantically for a way out of the desperate situation in which he now found himself as a result of having agreed to the Begum’s plot. Had he stuck to his original plan, they might by this time, ill as Clarissa was, have wrapped her in a cocoon of blankets and carried her off on some sort of emergency stretcher.

  No sign or sound suggested that Laker had yet forced the main gate, so Roger had good reason to believe that he might have on his hands the majority of the palace troops. Even with the help for which he had sent the corporal, the struggle must now become a fighting retreat. How, if they had to defend themselves all the way back to the garden door, could they possibly manage to construct a rough litter for Clarissa, collect her and get her away?

  Two more of the guards went down and another hussar. Then Roger heard the sound of running feet behind him. Flickering his sword point at a brown moustached face, he suddenly jabbed it into a fierce dark eye then, with a gasp of thankfulness, threw a glance over his shoulder. The gasp turned to one of dismay. It was not the corporal returning with help, but another crowd of yelling natives. He and his men were trapped in the narrow passage.

  There was only one thing for it. ‘Quick!’ he shouted. ‘Into the room on the left. We’ll barricade the door!’

  As the men behind him backed into the room, there suddenly came a cry from the crowd of white-clad figures that had just appeared on the scene. It seemed to him at that moment like angels’ music. Above the swift pattering of sandalled feet as they rushed forward, their voices chanted ‘Cla-rissa! Cla-rissa!’ He knew then that they must be some of Rai-ul-daula’s men.

  Near exhaustion from ten minutes’ unceasing cut and thrust, he backed after his remaining hussars into the room at the side of the passage. The furious onrush of the newcomers swept back the guards. For another ten minutes a frightful struggle raged. The passage was now half blocked by dead and dying, the floor slippery with new-spilt blood. Then the dozen guards who were left standing suddenly panicked, turned and ran, pursued by Rai-ul-daula’s yelling men.

  Still panting, Roger led his little band out again. They followed the victors at a run. After traversing another long echoing corridor and an empty hall, they burst out into the great forecourt of the palace. Dawn had now come. By its light, Roger saw that the main gate was hanging broken from its hinges. Laker’s troopers were inside, sabring little groups of the palace guard that, here and there, were still putting up a resistance. For another ten minutes sporadic fighting continued with its sounds of shots, screams and curses; then they died away.

  Laker caught sight of Roger, waved his long curved sword, rode up to him and cried: ‘I met with no serious opposition in the city, and the palace is now ours. We have only to round up the prisoners. What of Mrs. Brook?’

  ‘I found her,’ Roger replied hoarsely. ‘She is ill, desperately ill; but safe. I’ve been searching for that fiend Malderini.’

  At that moment a big palanquin with red curtains came through the gate. Roger ran towards it expecting that it carried Rai-ul-daula; but, as the bearers halted, one of the curtains was drawn aside and the Begum looked down on him.

  ‘I have come,’ she said, ‘to do what I can for your poor wife.’

  He frowned up at her. ‘You knew, then, how ill she was?’

  The old lady nodded. ‘I knew; but it would have been no kindness to tell you. It would have disturbed your mind while all your thoughts should have been on our plan to seize the palace. But be sure that from now on she could not be in better care than mine.’

  ‘I am most grateful to Your Highness,’ he murmured. Then he added, ‘I pray you excuse me now. I am seeking the man who is responsible for her state.’

  She leaned forward and shook her head. ‘You will not find him. He is gone from here.’

  ‘Gone!’ he repeated, then suppressed a blasphemy that had risen to his lips. ‘I understood he had got himself made Wazier in your son’s place.’

  ‘He did, two mornings since. But perhaps in some way he got wind of your intended attack. I learned only half an hour ago from a eunuch who is in my pay that the Venetian left the city last night.’

  Roger could have wept with fury; but there was nothing he could do about it. Even if the direction that Malderini had taken was known, he must now have six or eight hours’ start, and to set off in pursuit of him with Clarissa in her present state was out of the question.

  He was still endeavouring to fight down his rage when Rai-ul-daula, surrounded by a little crowd of richly dressed nobles, emerged through an archway from an inner court. On seeing Roger, he hastened towards him,
opened his arms, embraced him and cried:

  ‘This day is heaven sent. Last night I believed myself abandoned by gods and men. I was impious, for dawn finds me safe and free. I owe you my life, and vow eternal friendship to you.’

  ‘Excellency,’ Roger replied, ‘you owe me nothing. Had you not saved my life ten nights ago, how could I have lifted even a finger to aid you. But I joyfully reciprocate your friendship; the more so as I have been appointed a political agent of the Company, and am charged with putting matters to rights in Bahna.’

  Rai-ul-daula’s eyes, with their awful squint, appeared to be fixed on opposite angles of the courtyard, but the white teeth under his fine upturned moustache flashed in a smile, as he cried, ‘No news could be more welcome. Within an hour I will have sorted the sheep from the goats. We will then hold a diwan, and you shall make known the Company’s pleasure.’

  The Begum’s palanquin had already moved on. Pointing after it, Roger said hurriedly, ‘I thank you. Pray excuse me now; I wish to accompany Her Highness, your mother, to my sick wife.’ Then, still followed by the remains of his squad, he ran to catch up the palanquin.

  He found Clarissa much as he had left her. Angus McCloud was bathing her face but she was still delirious. The Begum forced a few drops of dark liquid between her teeth from a thin phial, and after a few minutes she ceased her low-voiced babbling. To Roger, the old lady said:

  ‘Her state is much worse than was reported to me. It is her chest. There is inflammation there. It is shown in the manner of her breathing. We must rub her with hot oils. But first we will move her.’

  ‘Move her?’ repeated Roger with a quick frown.

  ‘Yes; she must have more light and air, more room for attendants to be with her, and be in a place where she will not be disturbed by the nearness and chatter of other women. It is not far, and she will take no harm. The divan can be lifted and carried without disturbing her.’