Slowly, he had resumed his advance towards her. His bejewelled hands reached out, quivering, towards the girl's slender form. Revolted by the mere thought of their touch, she moved back into the shadows of the room, seeking desperately for some way of escape. But there was none: only the two doors already mentioned.

All the same, she made an effort to reach the one by which she had entered. It was just possible that it might not be locked, that if she moved fast she might be able to get out, even if she had to throw herself into the black waters of the cut. But her enemy had guessed her thought. He was laughing.

'The doors? They open only at my command! Do not count on them. You would break your pretty nails for nothing… Come, lovely Marianne, use your common sense! Isn't it wiser to accept what you can't avoid, especially when you have everything to gain? Who is to say that by yielding to my desires you will not make of me your most devoted slave… and Dona Lucinda once did? I know love – know it in all its ways, and it was she who taught me. If you cannot have happiness, you shall have pleasure—'

'Stay where you are! Don't touch me!'

She was frightened now, really frightened. The man was beside himself, past listening, or even hearing. He was coming for her mindlessly, inexorably, and there was something appalling in the machine-like tread and gleaming eyes.

Marianne retreated behind the table for shelter and her eye fell on a heavy gold salt-cellar standing near the centre-piece. It was a piece like a single carved gem, representing two nymphs embracing a statue of the god Pan: a genuine work of art and probably from the hand of the matchless Benvenuto Cellini. But to Marianne, at that moment, it had only one quality: it must be extremely heavy. She thrust out her hand and grabbed it and hurled it at her attacker.

He side-stepped in time and the salt-cellar flew past his ear and crashed on the black marble floor. The shot had missed but, giving her enemy no time to recover, Marianne had already got both hands round one of the heavy candlesticks, regardless of the pain as the hot wax spilled over her fingers.

'One step nearer and I'll hit you,' she threatened through clenched teeth.

He stood still as she commanded, but it was not from fear. He was not afraid of her; so much was clear from his salacious smile and quivering nostrils. On the contrary, he appeared to be enjoying the moment of violence as if it were a prelude to some voluptuous satisfaction. But he did not speak.

Instead, he raised his arms, the long sleeves slipping down to reveal broad golden armlets fit to have adorned a Carolingian prince, and clapped three times clearly, while Marianne stood speechless, still holding the candlestick ready to bring it down on him.

What followed happened very quickly. The candlestick was wrested from her hands and something black and stifling came down over her head while a hand forced her irresistibly backwards. Then she felt herself lifted by her feet and shoulders and borne away like a parcel.

It was not far, but to Marianne, carried up and down several times, half-suffocated, it seemed interminable. The cloth in which she was enveloped had a peculiar smell, of incense and jasmine combined with another, more exotic odour. She tried to struggle free of it but whoever was carrying her seemed to be unusually strong and her efforts only made them tighten the grip on her ankles painfully.

She felt them climb one more flight of steps and walk forward a little way. A door creaked. Finally, came the feel of soft cushions underneath her and almost at the same moment the light returned. Not before time: the stuff in which she had been muffled must have been remarkably thick, since no air had penetrated it.

She took a few deep breaths before sitting up and looking round to see who had brought her here. The sight that met her eyes was strange enough to make her wonder for a moment if she were dreaming. Three women stood a little way from the bed, eyeing her curiously, but three such women as Marianne had never seen before.

They were all very tall and dressed identically in dark blue draperies with a silver stripe and a multiplicity of bangles, and they were all three black as ebony and so alike that Marianne thought exhaustion must be making her eyes play tricks.

Then one woman moved away from the group and gliding like a ghost towards the open door vanished through it. Her bare feet made no sound on the black marble floor and, but for the silvery tinkle that accompanied her movements, Marianne might have believed her an apparition.

The other two, taking no further notice of her, began lighting a number of tall candles made of yellow wax which were set in large iron candle-holders ranged about the floor. Slowly, the details of the room began to emerge.

It was a very large room, and at the same time sumptuous and sinister. The tapestries hung from the stone walls were picked out in gold, yet the scenes they portrayed were of an almost unbearable violence and carnage. The furniture comprised an enormous oak chest, massively locked, and a selection of ebony chairs covered in red velvet, all suggesting a positively medieval degree of discomfort. A heavy lantern made of gilded bronze and red crystals hung from the beamed ceiling, but was unlighted.

The couch on which Marianne herself was lying was nothing less than an immense four-poster bed, big enough for a whole family and draped all round with heavy curtains of black velvet lined with red taffetas, to match the gold-fringed counterpane. The hems of the curtains were lost in the black bearskin rugs that covered the two steps on which the bed stood raised up, like an altar dedicated to some savage divinity.

To shake off the dread which was creeping over her, Marianne tried to speak.

'Who are you?' she asked. 'Why have you brought me here?'

But her voice seemed to her to come from a long way off, faint and distant as in the worse nightmares. Nor did either of the negresses make the slightest sign to show that they had heard. By now, all the candles were alight, reflecting bunches of flames in the black tiles that shone like a lake beneath the moon. Another candlestick on the chest was also alight.

In a little while, the third woman returned bearing a heavily laden tray which she set down on the chest. But when she approached the bed, gesturing to the others to follow, Marianne saw that the resemblance between the three came largely from their being all much of a height and size and from their dress, for the third was by far the most beautiful. In her the negroid characteristics so marked in the other two were refined and stylized. Her eyes were cold and steely blue, almond-shaped, and despite the almost animal sensuality of her thick lips, the profile might have belonged to some ancient Egyptian queen. Certainly the girl had all a queen's proud grace and scornful assurance. Seen in the melancholy light of the candles, she and her companions made a strange group, but there was no doubt as to who was mistress: the other two were clearly there only to obey her.

At a sign from her, they seized hold of Marianne again and pulled her upright. The beautiful negress, ignoring her feeble attempts at resistance, which were quickly overcome, began to unfasten the girl's crumpled dress. When it was off, she also removed the undergarments and stockings.

Naked, Marianne was borne away by her captors, who seemed possessed of phenomenal strength, to a sunken bath. She was deposited on a stool in the middle and the negress proceeded to wash her with a sponge and scented soap, still without uttering a word. Marianne's attempts to break the silence had no effect whatever.

Suspecting that the women were as dumb as the handsome Jacopo, Marianne submitted without further protest. The journey had been a tiring one and she felt weary and dirty. The bath was invigorating and when, after energetic towelling, the woman began to massage her body with hands which were suddenly amazingly gentle, rubbing in a strangely pungent oil which soothed all the tiredness out of her muscles, Marianne felt much better. After that her hair was brushed and brushed again until it crackled.

Finally, washed and brushed, she was carried back to the bed, which had been turned down, revealing purple-red silk sheets. The chief of the women brought the tray and set it down on a small table by the bed, then, ranged in a line at the foot of the bed, the three strange waiting-women bowed slowly in unison, turned and filed out of the door.

Marianne had been too much astonished to make the slightest move, and it was not until the last one had disappeared that she became aware that they had taken her clothes with them, leaving her alone in the room with no other covering than her own long hair, except, of course, for the covers of the bed on which they had placed her.

The purpose for which she had been left lying naked on the turned-down bed was self-evident, and all Marianne's sense of physical well-being evaporated swiftly in a single furious gust of anger. She had been made ready, stretched on the sacrificial altar as an offering to the lusts of the man who called himself her master, like the virgins and the white heifers once offered up to the old pagan gods. All she needed now was a crown of flowers on her head!

The three negresses must be slaves, bought by Damiani from some African trader, but it was not hard to guess what relations the creature enjoyed with the most beautiful one. Gentle her hands might be, but her eyes, as she bestowed her skilled attentions on the person of the newcomer, betrayed her feelings unmistakably: that woman hated her, probably seeing her as a new favourite and a dangerous rival.