Dazed, helpless, yet continuing to struggle futilely, Stella realised little except giving a glance at the hated faces of her captors.

She heard Cateras's voice ordering the men forward, vibrant with Spanish oaths, and trembling yet with the fury which possessed him--but all else was a dim haze, out of which few remembrances ever came.

They were in a large room, opening into another behind, a heavy door between.

She was dragged forward, and thrust through this with no knowledge of what it was like.

She could not think; she was only conscious of a deadly, paralysing horror.