Fanny's foot just touched the ground. Her pretty legs with such beautiful and slender ankles, the calves round, graceful and well developed, were wide apart, as were her full and really splendid thighs, white as snow and polished as marble.

I could not but see the darling little cunt, for it was looking straight at me, and the light of the little lamp shone full on it showing me that the bush, which topped the rounded, sloping motte above it, was thickest in the centre, and not very rich or abundant. I shivered when I saw that sweet, sweet, cunt, that holy land all smeared with blood, and a thick drop oozing from its lowest point of entrance. My God! My God! She had then been raped, outraged, ravaged! And by a blasted, cursed and never-too-much-damned, stinking, filthy, lousy Afghan. The incredible insolence which could have animated a native, in time of peace and within our own borders, to commit such a crime, astounded me, but I had no time to indulge in thoughts or rather to dwell upon them, for these thoughts rushed through my brain like lightning. I bent over the poor lifeless girl and raised her head. Her eyes were closed, her face looked so pure, so peaceful and though the colour had fled from her cheeks I thought I had never seen Fanny Selwyn look so beautiful. Her lips, slightly parted, showed the rows of pearls which formed her teeth, small, beautiful and perfectly regular. She felt warm. Of course she would be warm, for if life had indeed departed, she could not have been dead five minutes, so rapidly had events passed – though it has, as usual, taken me many words to describe them. Her lovely sylph-like form felt warm to my touch. Oh! how elegant were its lines! How pure, fine and spotless was that satiny skin! How beautiful were those swelling, rising breasts – not yet full grown, but giving promise of one day being more exquisitely beautiful, even, than they were now – the snowy breasts of a nymph of sixteen summers. The little coral beads which surmounted them seemed to me to have more colour in them than they would have shown had death really taken possession of this elegant form. I put my hand on her heart! Oh! thanks be to God, she was not dead! Her heart was beating and firmly too. In an ecstasy of delight, I kissed those mute lips, and could not resist closing my hand, as I was accustomed to do when kissing lovely girls, over the sweet little bubbie near her heart. It was lovely! so firm! so hard! so sweetly filling to the hand. It was an unwarranted liberty, but I could not resist the temptation! But suddenly I thought about the base effects of the deeds of the monster who had ravished her virginity. My eyes glanced again down over the lovely, smooth, dimpled belly, over the delightfully but only slightly forested slopes on the rising hill of Venus, till they travelled along the deep line of her soft little cunt. What if within those so lately virgin portals were lodged the accursed spawn of a loathsome Afghan! What if, as might be the case if she lived, that lovely little belly were to swell to become the source, the mould of a child to be looked upon with horror and dismay! Oh! what should I do! Suddenly the idea struck me to endeavour to prevent such a terrible catastrophe by opening the beauteous gates of the temple and trying to encourage the beastly slime to flow out. No sooner thought of than done. I did not hesitate! I passed my trembling middle finger into that soft little cunt, until my knuckles prevented further ingress. To my inexpressible joy I discovered that Fanny had not been ravished. The close little maidenhead was distinctly there, unbroken, unscathed! I felt it well to make quite sure, and then, withdrawing my finger from the hot depths, delighted to find by its moisture that the aperture was still alive, I once more looked to see if I could discover the source of the blood, if blood it was which covered that lovely cunt. I could not imagine what it could be from, and fearing that perhaps the frightful and agonised shrieks I had heard might have arisen from the torture of some dreadful internal wound, caused by the violence of the ruffian who had assailed her, I parted the hair of her dear little bush to see whether there could be a wound hidden by it, and feeble though the light was by which I worked, it was too easy, alas! (for I love a fine, thick, curly forest to adorn the sacred mount of Venus!) to see every particle of skin under it, and there was not so much as a scratch. On moving about my foot suddenly trod on something soft and flabby: I picked up the object it had encountered and found it to be a cloth covered with blood, and I had hardly to glance at it to recognise the source of all my alarm. Poor Fanny, in fact, had her menses, and the blood I saw was the harmless result. I almost laughed with joy and amusement. But whatever might be the cause of the blood, there could be no doubt that the girl, in such a serious faint, must be in a bad way, and I began to get alarmed on that account. I had laid her in a more commodious position, hoping she would come to quickly, as I had generally seen women do who had fainted, but she lay so dreadfully motionless. Her moving breasts alone told my eye that she was alive. They rose and fell but through a very small space. Poor, dear little breasts! I caressed them. I pressed them. I gently pinched the little rosebuds. But Fanny's eyes remained hard closed. I passed my hand all over her, over her smooth sides, over her dimpled belly, over the precious motte, down her lovely and beautiful thighs. I even slipped my finger again into her luscious cunt, hoping to awaken her from her torpor, and though I pressed the velvet lips together, and could feel the active little clitoris swelling under my titillations, Fanny felt it not. At last I spied a tumbler on the table, and I sprinkled her face and undulating bosom with the cold water. She moved! Cold had done what warm caresses had failed to do – she opened her glorious eyes, gazed wildly at me for a moment and then shrieked with fear and dreadful alarm. I clasped her in my arms and tenderly pressed her to me, she struggling violently all the while.

'Fanny! Fanny! Miss Selwyn! Fanny dearest,' I cried in imploring and soothing accents, 'it is I! Captain Devereaux! Don't be frightened, there is no one to hurt you now! I hunted that fellow and he has run for his life!'

My voice calmed her somewhat. The poor girl turned her face to my bosom and clutched me wildly, whilst she burst into an agony of weeping and cried aloud like a child. Her convulsive sobs and almost hysterical movements forced her hard little breasts against me, and I could feel them distinctly, although I had my coat and waistcoat on and she was naked. I caressed her, tried to soothe her and she clung all the closer to me. I felt I was a brute, but her nudity, the warmth of her body, her clasped arms, and above all the sympathetic sensations her bubbies caused all over my bosom, made my prick stand with tremendous force. I had no idea of profiting from my situation, but I could not help feeling the delicious excitement of the moment. All the time I kept trying to prevail on Fanny to subdue her emotion of terror. I spoke, I know, in the fondest manner. I was much moved myself, and I found myself calling her My darling! My tender beloved little pet! and similar endearing epithets. Fanny at last seemed to cock her ears and listen. Her sobs grew less violent. She left off crying aloud and turned her face up to mine and I kissed the cherry lips and tried to dry the flowing tears on her cheeks with my mouth. Oh! she liked that!

'Oh! dear Captain Devereaux, you have saved me! How can I ever thank you?'

'By being good now, dear Fanny! By trying to recover your courage and tell me how that brutal Afghan got into your room?'

'Was he an Afghan? I could not see well! I was asleep and suddenly I felt a hand between my thigh… – on me – somewhere – and when I opened my eyes I saw two natives -'