for an iron
post. Two men stood by the post, naked but for leather aprons and
leather hoods over their faces. Those who had brought us departed,
leaving us to the two Judges who stood in a corner of the room. The
Judges were small, thin men, grey and bent. They gave the signal to the
two strong hooded ones.

They tore our clothes from our body, they threw us down upon our knees
and they tied our hands to the iron post.

The first blow of the lash felt as if our spine had been cut in two. The
second blow stopped the first, and for a second we felt nothing, then
pain struck us in our throat and fire ran in our lungs without air. But
we did not cry out.

The lash whistled like a singing wind. We tried to count the blows, but
we lost count. We knew that the blows were falling upon our back. Only
we felt nothing upon our back any longer. A flaming grill kept dancing
before our eyes, and we thought of nothing save that grill, a grill,
a grill of red squares, and then we knew that we were looking at the
squares of the iron grill in the door, and there were also the squares
of stone on the walls, and the squares which the lash was cutting upon
our back, crossing and re-crossing itself in our flesh.

Then we saw a fist before us. It knocked our chin up, and we saw the red
froth of our mouth on the withered fingers, and the Judge asked:

"Where have you been?"

But we jerked our head away, hid our face upon our tied hands, and bit
our lips.

The lash whistled again. We wondered who was sprinkling burning coal
dust upon the floor, for we saw drops of red twinkling on the stones
around us.

Then we knew nothing, save two voices snarling steadily, one after the
other, even though we knew they were speaking many minutes apart:

"Where have you been where have you been where have you been where have
you been?..."

And our lips moved, but the sound trickled back into our throat, and the
sound was only:

"The light... The light... The light...."

Then we knew nothing.

We opened our eyes, lying on our stomach on the brick floor of a cell.
We looked upon two hands lying far before us on the bricks, and we moved
them, and we knew that they were our hands. But we could not move our
body. Then we smiled, for we thought of the light and that we had not
betrayed it.

We lay in our cell for many days. The door opened twice each day, once
for the men who brought us bread and water, and once for the Judges.
Many Judges came