"You are frightened, senorita?" queried Don Carlos, and it seemed to Myra there was something mocking and sardonic in his tone. "In England, I remember, you were renowned for your courage and your love of adventure. Surely this is a great adventure?" The remark stung Myra's pride, and her fair face flushed hotly. "It disgusts and revolts me that you should try to terrorise a defenceless man to gratify your own vanity and humiliate me," she answered angrily. "As for being afraid, the remote prospect of having to marry you certainly frightens me." Don Carlos made no answer, but strode across and talked rapidly to the men gathered round the whipping post and the furnace, evidently explaining to them at length what he wished them to do. Myra, of course, could not understand what was said, but she saw that some of the men laughed while others looked disappointed, and she concluded that Don Carlos was telling them that the preparations for the torture of the Englishman were all bluff. "God grant that Tony's courage does not fail him, and that he stands the test," she whispered under her breath. "It will be necessary for you to remain and witness the performance, senorita," said Don Carlos coldly, returning to her. "If I spared you the ordeal, you might again refuse to believe me when I reported the result." "I wish to stay," Myra answered, and her red-gold head went up proudly. "My presence will give the man I love courage." "It is a great gamble, and you, fair lady, are the stake," said Don Carlos. "The stage is set and our fate will be decided within a few minutes." He nodded his cowled head, shouted some orders in Spanish to his men, and took up a position beside the whipping-post, which somewhat resembled an ancient pillory. Four men hurried to the cell in which Standish was confined, to reappear after the lapse of a few minutes with the prisoner between them. They had stripped Standish to the waist, and he walked forward with firm step and head erect, but at the sight of the whipping-post and the furnace, and the sinister figure beside them with a cat-o'-nine-tails in his hand, he halted suddenly with an involuntary gasp, and his face went ashen. "Cojuelo, you--you can't mean that you are going to be such a fiend as to torture me!" he burst out breathlessly. "I haven't done you any harm. Look here, I'll--I'll double the ransom if you'll let me off. I'll make it twenty thousand pounds." "Not for fifty thousand pounds would I forego my vengeance," rasped the hooded figure. "Yet you have but to confess that you did agree to go away and leave the Senorita Rostrevor here, well knowing what would happen to her, you have only to tell her now that you renounce her to me, and I will let you go unharmed." "Don't, Tony, don't!" cried Myra. "Be brave, dear!" Standish, who had not previously noticed her, jerked round his head at the sound of her voice.