achse beside him about four feet away. The corporal
took his stand between. He was an enormous Nubian, broad of chest,
with the big sloping shoulder muscles that betray double the strength
that tailors try to suggest with jackets padded to look square.

"Nun--recht feste schlagen!"* ordered Schubert. Then he took the sleeve
of his tunic between his teeth and hid his face. [*Now, hit good and
hard!]

"One!" said the referee. Down came the heavy black whip with a crack
like a gun going off. Schubert neither winced nor murmured, but the
blood welled into the seat of his pants and spread like red ink on
blotting-paper.

"'One!" said the referee again. The corporal faced about, and raised
his weapon, standing on tiptoe to get more swing. Sachse flinched at
the sound of the whip going up, and the other sergeants roared delight.
But he was still when it descended, and the crack of the blow drew
neither murmur nor movement from him either. Like the feldwebel, he
had his sleeve between his teeth.

"Two!" said the referee, and the black whip rose again. It descended
with a crack and a splash on the very spot whence the blood flowed,
this time cutting the pants open, but Schubert took no more notice of
it than if a fly had settled on him. There was a chorus of applause.

"Two!" said the referee. Again the corporal faced about and balanced
himself on tiptoe. Sachse was much the more nervous of the two. He
flinched again while waiting for the blow, but met it when it did come
without a tremor of any kind. He was much the softer. Blood flowed
from him more freely, but his pants seemed to be of sterner stuff, for
they did not split until the eight-and-twentieth lash, or thereabouts.

From first to last, although the raw flesh lay open to the lash, and
the corporal, urged to it by the united threats and praise of all the
other sergeants, wrought his utmost, Schubert lay like a man asleep.
He might have been dead, except for the even rise and fall of his
breathing, that never checked or quickened once. Nine-and-forty
strokes he took without a sign of yielding. At the eight-and-fortieth
Sachse moaned a little, and the referee gave the match against him.
Schubert rose to his feet unaided, grinning, red in the face, but
without any tortured look.

"Now you can say forever that you have flogged two white men!" he told
the askari.

"Who will believe me?" the man answered.

Sachse had to be helped to his feet. He