Elaine lay on her back in the padded box, cruelly gagged and secured so stringently by the many straps buckled about her from neck to ankles that she was quite incapable of making anything other than the slightest movement. Even her head was rendered immovable by a system of straps and padded shapes that fitted about her neck and brows. The metal reinforced breastplate of thick leather that had been locked upon her shapely torso, pressed relentlessly and what had been only discomfort at first was now becoming acute pain, especially where the weight of her body pressed down on the back armour.

The metal chastity belt also, that painful and degrading girdle, locked upon her hips so tightly by Mrs. Martinet, mortified not only her flesh, but her spirit also.

She stared upwards into the hot, stuffy, Stygian darkness of the box, groaning into the gag as yet another wave of cramp assailed her aching and weary body. As the first new onrush of pain attacked her, she tried to put it from her by thinking of other things but her thoughts turned unbidden, but remorselessly, to the perfidious Mrs. Martinet, who had so cruelly abused her and brought her to this pass.

Elaine remembered the day, several weeks ago, when she had been kidnapped and taken to the grim house where she had been disciplined and subjected to various kinds of punishments on the pretext that it was all for her own eventual good. She realised now that the intention all the time had been to subdue her fiery spirit until she was completely pliable and even developed a strange desire to be kept in bondage by the strange woman who had both abused and cherished her by turns. And it had succeeded, reflected Elaine with a sigh, to such an extent that she had been a party to her mother's capture and abduction.

It was true that she had not wanted to assist in the cruel binding and gagging of her own parent, but she was too afraid of Mrs. Martinet to refuse and, in any event, believed that it was no more serious in intent than Mrs. Martinet's usual bondage discipline which, although sometimes severe, brought no real harm to the victim. How wrong she had been and now her mother was also the prisoner of this malignant woman and destined to be spirited abroad.

She had only found out how she had been duped when, after docilely yielding to the fitting of the chastity belt and the body armour, she had been forcibly strapped into this wretched box despite her wildest struggles to resist - and Mrs. Martinet had promised not to put her into the box at all, let alone in such a brutal manner. Then, as she lay helpless, Mrs. Martinet had leaned over her and stripped away all pretence by telling her, in the most contemptuous words, that she was being sent to Cairo to a man called Mahomed Ali. Elaine then realised with a surge of terror that the earlier threat, that she was to be white slaved, was only too valid and now it was being accomplished.

After the lid of the box had closed above her, she had lain stunned, listening to the muffled but remorseless sounds of the hasps of the lid being closed and padlocked. As the last was secured she had screamed and screamed again, as best she could with the great gag in her mouth, until a frenzy of fear gripped her and she lost all sense of time and place but writhed in her bonds and screamed, to the brink of delirium and beyond. But it had done her no good, her screams were either unheard or disregarded, she didn't know which, but most certainly the lid remained tight shut and she, perforce, must make the best of her situation. When at last she had got a grip on herself, she found that her coffin-like prison was joggling about with a fairly steady rhythm, broken at times by sudden jerks, some of which were sufficient to rock her slightly in the confining straps. The motion puzzled her at first until she finally realised that she was sensing the movement of a motor vehicle driven at speed, and in fact she began to feel the drumming of the tyres on the road.

She had no means of knowing how much time had passed since she had realised that she was being transported in a motor vehicle, but it seemed an eternity. They had stopped at least twice and she had strained every nerve to hear some sound, but in this horrible shut-in world, only the faintest of muffed and distorted sounds could be heard - all meaningless. Deaf, dumb, blind and racked with pain Elaine had existed, to the point of despair, with only her fears and her imagination for company and she prayed for early release. Almost anything was better than this tomb-like existence, she thought.

Then for a short time all sense of movement ceased until, suddenly, the box was tilted at one end until her head was lower than her feet and the abrupt movement cut short her unhappy thoughts. As her prison scraped jarringly across a hard rough surface she wondered what was now about to happen to her. It soon became obvious that the box was being unloaded from the vehicle and in the roughest manner. Elaine, for the first time, was thankful that she was strapped in so tightly.

The brief, uncomfortable journey ended in a jarring crash that she felt through the bottom of the box and then once more the interminable silence returned and all sense of movement desisted. But soon, to the unhappy girl's overwhelming relief, she heard the padlocks and hasps being opened and within a few moments the lid of the box was raised. Elaine lay, eyes tight shut against the bright light that assailed her like a blow after the utter darkness of the travelling box and for several minutes her sight was impaired.

Meanwhile someone stood over her and unbuckled the straps that bound her so cruelly. She tried to see who it was but could only make out a dark, blurred shape that conveyed nothing to her.

Elaine's first reaction was to lift her hands to her streaming eyes but, to her horror, found that she was quite unable to do so and her first panic reaction was that she was paralysed. But within a few moments the blood flow, restricted for so long by the straps, returned and she spent several minutes writhing within the confines of the box until at long last the tormenting pains in her limbs subsided. She now found that, although stiff and aching, her limbs functioned normally, although she was slow. She raised her hands to the galling muzzle in an attempt to remove it or at least to loosen the straps that fastened it tightly and painfully to her head. Her hands were struck away by a violent blow and she saw, towering above her, a hatchet faced woman, clad from head to foot in form fitting black leather, who lifted a gloved hand and without a word, struck her violently across the face. Not a word was spoken, but the message was clear enough and tears sprang to Elaine's eyes. The woman now turned to her blonde companion who was dressed in similar style and spoke to her in a harsh grating voice.

"This one's getting lively. Give me a hand with her, will you?"

As she spoke she took up a position behind the prisoner and grasped her under the shoulders and lifted her into a sitting position in the box.

Meanwhile, without any reply or comment, the second woman, almost as ill favoured in appearance as the first, seized the girl by the heels. The two women then handled Elaine as if she had been a sack of flour and half carried, half dragged her through a narrow doorway into the next room, where they heedlessly dropped her to the straw covered floor. The blonde dropped to her knees alongside Elaine and with a muscular heave that seemed no effort to her, rolled the girl over on to her face, pulled her arms savagely behind her back and handcuffed her in such a manner that

she was fastened to a strong iron ring set firmly in the wall. Elaine found that she was lying in a small cell-like room, the walls of which were formed of rough stone blocks strongly cemented together, There was no window and in fact the only opening was at the doorway. A small iron barred grating was set into the upper part of the heavy door and this, together with the straw covered floor and the various heavy rings and chains set into the walls at various places, con- firmed her first impression of a stronghold intended to keep prisoners secure. She wrestled with the shackles at her wrists, to no avail. She thought that there was little need for these in such a strong and impregnable place. Indeed, they brought home to the unhappy girl, better than words, the fact that she could expect no respite from her present gaolers.

A few minutes later, as Elaine lay panting after her fruitless efforts escape the handcuffs, her mother was carried into the cell in the same ignominious manner as she had suffered and she also was handcuffed to a ring set in the opposite wall. The women left the cell, slammed the door shut with unnecessary force and turned a key gratingly in the heavy lock.

Mary stared at her daughter, who saw the signs of anger and outrage in her eyes and noted the distress and suffering that had been brought about by her folly. She wanted to go to her mother and speak words of comfort to her and take her in her arms but, gagged and shackled, the two women could only stare at each other, one in anger and the other in shame.

Elaine put her head down into the straw and wept.