June grabbed her brother's pistol-holding wrist...

“Put that gun away, Stanley! There's no need for this. These men are probably just playing around...” she said, looking deep in his eyes, with intense fear and excitement in her brown eyes, and also feeling a jolt of arousal upon seeing her brother holding the. 45 caliber pistol. June was certain these horsemen were just showing off, but oh, they were fearsome and exciting to look at!

Indeed, the gunshots from the back of the train had abated, and not a single cavalryman was to be seen through the compartment's window. But there were saddled horses that trotted loose here and there, grazing on the open meadows. June observed these horses and noticed they were smaller than horses she had seen in Texas; these horses were more the size of ponies.

June felt amused at the small size of these horses. Real men wouldn’t want to be seen on such ponies. She chuckled, comparing these Mongolian men to American cowboys and Yankee cavalrymen. These Mongolians were quite amusing! Little primitive men on little horses.

Katrina was not amused. She stood frozen in front of her elder sister and brother. She was ghastly pale. Terrified! June kindly hugged her. She loved having her little sister in her arms; she kissed the top of her hair very tenderly, with perhaps more passion as befitted a sibling.

"Calm down, sweet Kate! These men are just showing off. They'll be gone soon and we'll be on our w..."

Gunshots were fired, this time much closer to their compartment. They heard the shrill scream of a woman that came from somewhere within their own car! What was going on?!

Kate began to cry and buried her face into her big sister's embrace. She was shaking like a leaf! June was no longer amused. Maybe these men from the untamed steppe were not to be underestimated...

Stanley opened the window and peeked out. Close to his left stood two men in beat-up khaki uniforms who pointed rifles at him and yelled something in a language he understood nothing of; only the strange sounds of some consonant-rich song. The men were surprisingly close and right under the next window, with other armed men in similar uniforms that were just below the windows and covering each other. This was why he didn't see any one of them!

Three windows farther to his left, a man wearing a homburg hat and a black queue-de-pie suit peeked out with a revolver in his hand and was similarly held at rifle point. Whoever led these bandits knew that the strongest resistance would come from the first-class passengers.

The Mongolian bandits were pointing their rifles right at Stanley’s chest while others kept their keen watch on all the other windows. They were also now stepping back to get more distance and a better angle at that window. The other bandits, each man covering each other, their rifles always pointed at those dangerous passenger windows, were also maneuvering similarly, stepping back and getting a better range for their rifles vs. revolvers, now that they knew which passengers had a gun or were likely to pack one. If the passengers made a stand in their car, the siege would be short-lived and wouldn't go well for the handful of defenders. There were no less than thirty bandits pointing their rifles at this side of the first-class car.

Stanley understood that raising his pistol would mean certain death. He hoped they didn't see his weapon, but at least one of these yellow-faced devils spotted it as Stanley had raised his hand a bit too high. He cursed, “Dammit!” but it was already too late.

Both men pointed their rifles straight at him and barked an order, ready to shoot. The same order was repeated. "Buugaa-khaya!"

Even though the word wasn't understood, its meaning was clear to Stanley, who discarded his pistol, cursing at his stupidity and lack of experience. He didn’t cower back into the compartment, lest these men took a shot inside and then, June or Kate could be hit. But if he had his big brother’s experience, he’d know what to do. Johnny had fought over there in France.

A soldier came right back under his window and picked up Stanley’s shiny pistol. He looked at it with great interest, but another soldier nudged him on the shoulder, gesturing at the passenger car and reminding him to keep a keen eye for any man who would try to resist.

Stanley, looking off to his right, noticed the dropped figure of a fellow passenger with his head sticking out of the open window, looking down and not moving, with one arm hanging limp and lifeless against the wall of the car, only two windows down toward the dining car and the locomotive. The man’s dark suit added to the gloomy sight, but the unmoved clouds kept scudding across the sky over the hilly steppe.

The many bandits formed a regularly spaced line, all aiming their rifles at the first-class car’s windows. They had dismounted and encircled the train. The drivers at the locomotive were no doubt being held at gunpoint. No wonder they were not going anywhere, stopped as they were near the top of a hill with meadows and more hills all around them without the slightest sign of human dwellings. This was a planned and well-organized attack!

One of the bronze-faced devils gestured at Stanley, using signs to tell him to get his head back inside and close that window. His rifle was a compelling argument. Stanley noticed it was nearly all covered with wood, certainly not a Winchester; most probably some Russian make.

Sudden screams were heard from inside the car! More screams! Female screams! Male swearing! Then a gunshot and the loudest, shrillest scream one had ever heard... "Albert! Albert!"

All those clamors! Inside their own car! Stanley locked the compartment door while June and Kate were now wailing in each other's arms, in complete panic. It dawned on June that these men were actually bandits. Dangerous bandits. The adventure was becoming a bit more than what she had bargained for. Why did she bring her sweet Kate into this?

From the chaos they heard within the car, locking doors didn't help much. The screams, the swearing and the barked orders went on, progressing from door to door and getting closer to the Americans' compartment. Gunshots and distinct sounds of broken wood told the terrified Yankee siblings that they were shooting the locks and storming all compartments! Kate couldn't stop screaming!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH THEY'RE COMING! NNAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH THEY'RE HERE! HERE! NNAAAOOOOAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaahh..."

Amid all the brouhaha, Stanley distinctly heard some high-pitched screams and pleading words in Russian. He fancied to think these screams belonged to Alexandra, and his heart sank as he realized what a coward he had been to surrender his gun without a fight, but what difference would it have made? The end result would have been the same, except one or two bandits would have been shot and he himself would now be down and probably dead or dying. He selfishly preferred the current situation, which didn’t exactly cheer to him.

The loud yelling and shrill screams of panic got ever closer. Stanley and his sisters knew all too well that Mongol bandits would soon beat down their door and overrun their compartment to rob them. Stanley felt a weird and shameful sense of arousal as he looked at Kate's virgin features and the priceless grace of her raven hair, reflected by her black-dressed figure, so slim and delicate...

He fought hard not to think that these men would perhaps take something far more valuable than money and jewels. He mustn’t think of that!

His sense of failure and powerlessness was unbearable as June and Kate kept bawling together and holding each other, with the booklet of June's diary open and waiting for her to write her next entry, lying on the forest-green bench as if nothing had happened.

June and Kate filled the compartment with a deafening shriek as the door was suddenly banged. Stanley opened -- why would he not? They would just beat down the door and then, they'd be pissed -- and a tall man in uniform materialized with his dark-bronze brigand’s face, complete with a black moustache that didn’t belong to the civilized world. Their stench immediately hit Stanley's New York nostrils and he recoiled.

The leading brigand was bigger than life, filling the entire door frame with his herculean figure and scanning the compartment with a pair of predatory eyes, grinning as he spotted the screaming, bawling girls. The fierce light in his cruel eyes wasn’t lost on the young Yankee.

He shoved Stanley aside. Two men followed him inside the compartment, and one immediately gestured at Stanley to face the wall as he pointed a knife at him. He proceeded to frisk him for hidden weapons, taking his wallet and emptying it from all the banknotes it contained. Rubles were worth something in these parts. Stanley felt terrified and ashamed to turn out such a coward.

June and Kate shrieked even shriller and louder as the men's savage musk filled their delicate nostrils, and they directly pushed the girls around, pinning them face-first against the wall and frisk-searching them for valuables...

The Mongol bandits were towering above Kate and June, who realized they were no little men to make fun of. Each man was about Stanley’s height. One was even taller. They had looked small at a distance, but their horses looked small partly because the riders were tall and big.

“Please. Please. Let us go! Let go of my sister and I’ll be nice to you!” June offered with her panicky voice, feeling a tinge of excitement under her terror as she thought of herself bargaining her virtue to save Kate’s. The bandits' hands lingered quite a bit on her loins as they frisk-searched her.

What would it feel like to copulate with such a savage man? She pondered that question for the first time in her life. It was so preposterous! Unacceptable! But Kate came first.

These men didn’t understand her New Yorker English. In all her excitement, she had forgotten to use her basic Russian. They kept frisk-searching June and Kate, and they started to laugh and make all sorts of comments as they began to grope their hips, their thighs and their butts. They turned them back around to have a look at their pretty faces and started to grope their bosom as well.

“Nooo! Please! Don’t! Don’t! No, stop this... Stop this I beg you...” little Kate blurted out in absolute shock and panic, feeling a man’s hand upon her and in such a direct, gross manner for the very first time in her young life. She tried to protest further, but no intelligible sound would come out of her panic-shocked windpipe. She just panted, her racing mind unable to process the flow of new sensations as her small breasts were being pressed under these savage hands, thankfully only through her clothes.

“Please! Take our money and leave!” June bellowed to deaf ears. The men kept laughing and groping the Yankee girls, moving them around again, groping their butts. They uttered more comments in what must have been a series of words belonging to a lewd register as they kept laughing and grinning while Kate couldn’t stop shrieking as she felt a pair of hands defiling her slim derriere through her chic dress from Manhattan.

Stanley was held at knife point and frozen in fear, and watching that odious pair of Mongolian hands on Kate’s pristine curves. He was hard as a horse under his pants! He had always had an immoral crush on Kate, which had been tampered a few hours before when he saw Alexandra, but he felt the shameful hard-on pushing the front of his trousers and he just couldn't help it.

The men eventually spotted the girls’ purses and emptied them through and through. Amid all the whatnots spread on the green cushioned bench seat, they found and took the wallets and a fancy comb belonging to Kate. Stanley felt these men looked like grotesque intruders with their dusty, worn-out uniforms forming a striking contrast against the compartment's rich woodwork.

The herculean man, obviously the leader, was all over June, cupping her boobs from behind, as he kept exploring her shapes through the fancy white blouse she wore over her long black skirt. The man was growing more interested in her body and less in her money and valuables, although he did notice a diamond ring on her left hand. It was a beautiful ring that used to belong to her grandmother; she was wearing it to look like a married woman and discourage unwanted male attention.

June began to frantically sob as she realized the robber's intention. He easily overpowered her and had her screaming in pain as he brutally caught her wavering wrist, stretched her hand open and pulled the precious ring from its tight nesting place, uncaring of the pain he was causing her.

In the meantime, Stanley had finally tried to defend Kate, but he found himself with a knife pressed at his throat, and he could only look as a rat-faced bandit, grinning, was freely running his hands all over Kate's charms. He was no longer looking for money; he was after the treasures that lay hidden under Kate's all-black outfit. His heathen hand was buried under her dress and was desecrating the white chastity of the maiden's legs.

The compartment was filled with Kate’s pitiful shrieks of fright, again and again as the grinning man kept groping her, presently pinning her back against the wooden wall and cupping her breasts and forcing a kiss out of her. He looked even uglier against her spotless beauty; a Devil of the Pit!

As the rat-faced bandit forced-kissed her while boldly cupping her breasts as if he were appraising her like a piece of meat, Kate froze into shocked silence, unable to wrap her blossoming mind around what was happening. She was used to be in control with boys, having many suitors who all competed for the slightest sign of attention from her.

Kate had only dated some of the school’s popular lads and never allowed a date to take such liberties with her. She had always been firm on not doing anything really intimate until her wedding night. And now, that animal! Kissing her and almost crushing her poor little breasts inside his fists. The worst part of it was the heat she felt between her legs as that man imprisoned her mouth inside his clammy lips while overpowering her senses with his unstoppable musk.

Was he going to rape her right here against that wall? The heat between her legs grew more intense than she had ever felt before, barring her most heated sessions of solo pleasure. She tried to shriek in terror and self-hatred. How could she feel this way with such a stinking savage?

Stanley saw the unthinkable kiss between a Mongolian man from nowhere and his sweet little sister, a fancy New York girl still attending high school; he gazed at the man's hands pressed hard and flattening the knolls of her boobs, looking like hands of baked earth on her black dress top... It was strangely, terrifyingly erotic. He was deeply embarrassed by that wild hard-on that pushed stiff against the front of his suit trousers. His body had no morals, and his eyes were unable to look elsewhere. He felt an insane urge to fuck his own sister!

Then, the herculean man stopped fondling with June and barked an order. Stanley was hit hard on the head and had but a vague recollection of what happened next.

It suddenly dawned upon him that his arms were now painfully stretched behind his back, and his wrists were even more painfully fastened together while he was being escorted along the car's hallway and to the exit, where the high sun blinded him.

Once outside, Stanley saw he was one of some twenty-odd prisoners, nearly all of them Europeans and all of them dressed in a dapper style indicating or suggesting wealth. In a strange show of courtesy, the bandits all made sure each prisoner, man or woman, was wearing a hat.

June and Kate were similarly escorted outside the train, but they had their hands tied up in front of them in a more comfortable posture. Kate’s pricey little dark gloves looked grotesquely fancy and out of place as she took her first steps on the Mongolian steppe, wearing shoes that were clearly not fit for a hike in the wilderness. June was walking right alongside her, wearing contrasting white gloves and equally inept shoes.

Stanley took note of that strange courtesy. Mongolians had some sense of honor. They were going easier on the women, but they were taking some pretty ones along with them. This was concerning and horrific to Stanley as he began to understand why these bandits were capturing women, and that vile “why” carried a lot of unspoken weight.

His cock was just as hard and stiff as before in the compartment, forming a clear bulge that he couldn't hide since his hands were tied behind him as he walked among the shepherded prisoners.

June and Kate both gazed at him, and he looked down in shame and tried to turn away, but the escorting bandit wouldn't allow this. He slapped the back of his head and told him something in his guttural tongue of the steppe. The man nonetheless picked up Stanley’s round straw hat, which had fallen off when the slap connected, and he put it back on its owner’s head.

The victorious bandits were gathering their prisoners like sheep, with the stopped locomotive looming on the horizon like a black dragon of steel, now asleep with no more smoke coming out of its snout. Near the large locomotive, one of the drivers lay motionless on the grass while the other one stood with his hands up, kept at bay by a lone bandit, who was also watching a couple of African porters, wearing dark uniforms that were now meaningless in that vast wilderness.

The tracks had been loosened some ten or twenty yards away, but for some unknown reason, the train stopped just before meeting an unavoidable derailment.

Stanley noticed that. He also noticed that the bandits had only gone into the trouble to keep first-class passengers. There were some prisoners from the second and third classes, but most of these prisoners were short and of a delicate figure, and they wore long, colorful dresses. Then, the obvious realization hit Stanley—Women! Girls! The bandits were bringing along some Chinese girls, no doubt after selecting them for their youth and beauty. This sight led him to hope his sisters would avoid the worst.

Stanley knew what these men were going to do with these Chinese girls at the first opportunity. Their fate was sealed. He didn't have the courage to pronounce the word in his mind, and kept his head cast down, staring at the East-Mongolian grass and unable to look at his sisters in the face.

He madly hoped he was mistaken about their probable fate, hoping the bandits would behave like gentlemen and only take their pleasure with Chinese girls. In all adventure novels he had read as a boy, the worst only happened to colored women. The white women always remained unscathed, no matter what the risks or the odds were.

Stanley took a closer look at these Chinese girls, all of them wearing long dresses of a sober, dark colors, except for a couple of girls who had very long hair and wore a bright blue or jade-green dress. Their dresses covered their entire legs right down to their feet. Each girl looked elegant, in a way that felt wonderfully exotic to the Yankee boy. What struck him the most was their age; none looked any older than Kate. The bandits had given themselves some lovely concubines, and his wild lust shamed himself as he suddenly came to the realization that an evil part of him was looking forward to witnessing what was going to happen to these poor girls, who all cried as they stood under the sun. They knew too.

These short girls with exquisite features, pale almond skin and long sleek hair of raven splendor were in a small number, and there were a great many bandits. Too many! Stanley didn’t want to think about what that small supply of Oriental girls meant for his sisters, and kept hoping only the Chinese girls would pay the dearest price. His erection remained raging as he couldn’t keep his mind from thinking of the unthinkable. He felt so incredibly guilty!

Alexandra also strolled with her face down as she was escorted with her dainty hands tied up in front of her. She was walking nobly on the grass, refusing to let her predicament mar the majesty of her person.

She was cousins with the late Romanov grand-duchesses; a secret his father had paid dearly to keep. She had herself paid with her own person, sleeping one night with a swine-face Soviet General, and going back home next morning as if nothing had happened. Luckily, the General had kept his word and looked the other way as they fled to Moscow, and she did not get pregnant. God seemed to like her, up to that point.

Nadejda clung to her father, who kept barking at Anna as she kept frantically wailing and sobbing. Yuri couldn't bear to see any of his daughters breaking down. Nadejda was on the verge of tears, but the brave girl kept her composure.

“Anna! You are the daughter of a Prince of Russia. Behave yourself!" he hollered at his austere-clad daughter while Shvibzik, the Merry Little One, clung to him with silent tears rolling down her peachy face, putting in her best effort in staying strong.

As always, Nadejda was doing her utmost to please Him, her Father, the Man she loved. She was secretly hoping He had enjoyed to watch her when she got frisk-searched by a Mongolian bandit who clearly took liberties with her little body and went as far as kissing her neck while pressing her crotch through her simple white dress. This had got her really wet. Father was watching.

Yuri was proud of the way Alexandra and Shvibzik remained relatively calm and seemingly unmoved when these animals frisk-searched them in such a revolting way, but Anna... She had bawled and wailed like the daughter of a commoner!

Anna deserved to be sold to these men for the night so her two stronger sisters would keep their honor! Yuri wasn't stupid, but things were perhaps not as bad as they looked. Yuri had a lot of money stashed away, and if he gave enough money, they would hopefully free him and his daughters.

Once the prisoners were all gathered, each man or woman was tied to a horseman’s steed and ordered to walk as fast as the horse's gentle steps. Each prisoner was also assigned to a second horseman who would ride right behind him/her with a lance pointed at his/her back to keep the said prisoner from getting any ideas of slowing down or stopping or trying to escape. Whereto? Everywhere one looked, it was grass, grass and hills and more grass with hills and thickets of trees here and there. Nothing else, except the unaltered sky. And the wind, to whom Mongolians were the next of kin.

Stanley had a hard time figuring out the exact numbers of these bandits whose hard features looked like masks of baked earth with hair as black as Hell’s boiling pitch. They all looked at them with a poker face with rare exceptions. If anyone of them grinned, he was looking at a female prisoner! Stanley's thoughts returned to Kate, yet again. He caught himself wishing he'd see her topless and screaming amid a pack of horny men leering at her with those baked-earth faces. What he failure he was as a brother!

Their numbers were no less than a hundred strong.

The sun was high and Stanley began to sweat as he walked behind the horseman he was tied to. At least, they had allowed him to keep his hat. The man riding behind him urged him on with his unintelligible words. He heard Kate complaining as she walked under the sun, also wearing a hat as she already said her feet were hurting. Poor little Kate! She was a stranger to any hardship.

June walked on quietly, roped at that same tall officer who had groped her earlier. He kept turning back now and then, grinning from his sun-baked face with slits of shadow for eyes as he looked at her, a fashionable girl from the roaring twenties wearing a wide-brimmed hat of white felt under the bright sun as she stoically walked on as fast as her half-heel shoes would allow her to.

TO BE CONTINUED.