t they were quite white, as if they had
been most awfully frightened. And suddenly Andramark imagined that he
was hanging to a tree, but not by his hands or his feet, and the limb to
which he was hanging broke, and, after falling for two or three days, he
landed on his feet among burs and nettles that were spread over the
floor of a lodge.

The child had slept standing up, and had evolved from his
subconsciousness, as children will, beasts and conditions that had
existed when the whole human race was a frightened cry-baby in its
cradle. He had never heard of a monkey or a sabre-tooth tiger; but he
had managed to see a sort of vision of them both, and had dreamed that
he was a monkey hanging by his tail.

He was very faint and sick when the medicine-men came for him. But it
did not show in his face, and he walked firmly among them to the great
Torture Lodge, his head very high and the ghost of a smile hovering
about his mouth.

It was a grim business that waited him in the Torture Lodge. He was
strung up by his thumbs to a peg high up the great lodge pole, and drawn
taut by thongs from his big toes to another peg in the base of the pole,
and then, without any unnecessary delays, for every step in the
proceeding was according to a ceremonial that was almost as old as
suffering, they gave him, what with blunt flint-knives and lighted
slivers of pitch-pine, a very good working idea of hell. They told him,
without words, which are the very tenderest and most nervous places in
all the human anatomy, and showed him how simple it is to give a little
boy all the sensations of major operations without actually removing his
arms and legs. And they talked to him. They told him that because he
came of a somewhat timorous family they were letting him off very
easily; that they weren't really hurting him, because it was evident
from the look of him that at the first hint of real pain he would scream
and cry. And then suddenly, just when the child was passing through the
ultimate border-land of endurance, they cut him down, and praised him,
and said that he had behaved splendidly, and had taken to torture as a
young duck takes to water. And poor little Andramark found that under
the circumstances kindness was the very hardest thing of all to bear.
One after another great lumps rushed up his throat, and he began to
tremble and totter and struggle with the corners of his mouth.

Old Owl Eyes, who had tortured plenty of brave boys in