Belinda - A Cruel Passage West

Belinda struggled fearfully against the bonds as the crone approached her. The beat of the drums intensified and the gathered savages shrieked excitedly. A man moved into the light of the fire, and Belinda numbly saw he was carrying a short thick whip, like a flexible black billiard cue. He showed it to Belinda, and then moved behind her. She knew what to expect. It was pointless to protest... Nineteen year old Belinda Hopeworth lands in Virginia to meet her young husband-to-be, but within minutes he lays dead in the dirt and the brutal ruffians who stabbed him are stalking with the obvious evil intent of doing the same to her.

It would appear that Belinda's flight from her previous degrading and cruel life in Liverpool, and her awful voyage on a tobacco boat to Norfolk, Virginia, was all in vain. She is now alone and helpless, a damsel in distress in a lawless, unforgiving foreign land, about to die a horrible and violent death.