And with a gesture of authority, and with a stamp of her foot,
Salina placed herself between the kneeling old servant and the grinning
brothers.

Alas! this woman's dream of love and happiness had been brief, as all
such dreams, false in their very nature, must ever be. She loved him
well enough to concede much. She was not going to quarrel with him any
more. To avoid a threatened quarrel, she betrayed Toby. But she was not
heartless: she had a sense of justice, pride, temper, an impetuous will,
not yet given over in perpetuity to the keeping of her husband.

The captain laughed devilishly, and threw his arms about his wife (this
time in no loving embrace), and seizing her wrists, held them, and
nodded to the soldiers to begin their work.

They laid hold of Toby, still kneeling and pleading, bound his arms
behind him with the cord, and then looked calmly at Lysander for
instructions.

"Take him to the shed," said the captain. "One of you carry this light.
You can string him up to a crossbeam. If you don't understand how that's
done, I'll go and show you. He's to have twenty lashes to begin with,
for lying to me. Then he's to be whipped till he tells where our escaped
prisoners are hid in the mountains. You understand?"

"Ve unterstan," said the brothers, coldly.

Toby groaned. They took hold of him, and dragged him away.

"Now will you behave, my girl? A pretty row you're making! Ye see it's
no use. I am master. The nigger'll only get it the worse for your
interference."

Lysander looked insolently in his wife's face. It was livid.

"Hey?" he said. "One of your tantrums?"

He placed her on a chair. She was rigid; she did not speak; he would
have thought she was in a fit but for the eyes which she never took off
of him--eyes fixed with deep, unutterable, deadly, despairing hate.

"I reckon you'll behave--you'd better!" he said, shaking his finger
warningly at her as he retired backwards from the room.

She saw the door close behind him. She did not move: her eyes were still
fixed on that door: heavy and cold as stone, she sat there, and gazed,
with that same look of unutterable hate. Perhaps five minutes. Then she
heard blows and shrieks. Toby's shrieks: he had no Carl now to rush in
and cut his bands.

The twenty lashes for lying had been administered on the negro's bare
back. Then Lysander put the question: Was he prepared to tell all he
knew about the fugitives and the cave?

"O, pardon, sar! pardon,