"What's the diff'ence?" he demanded. "I'd jest as soon be kicked
now as arter while; it's got to come anyhow."
Kenton made no response. The thongs were torturing his arms and
legs. Beverley was silent, but consciousness had returned, and
with it a sense of despair. All three of the prisoners lay face
upward quite unable to move, knowing full well that a terrible
ordeal awaited them. Oncle Jazon's grim humor could not be
quenched, even by the galling agony of the thongs that buried
themselves in the flesh, and the anticipation of torture beside
which death would seem a luxury.
"Yap! Long-Hair, how's yer arm?" he called jeeringly. "Feels pooty
good, hay?"
Long-Hair, who was not joining in the dance and song, turned when
he heard these taunting words, and mistaking whence they came,
went to Beverley's side and kicked him again and again.
Oncle Jazon heard the loud blows, and considered the incident a
remarkably good joke.
"He, he, he!" he snickered, as soon as Long-Hair walked away
again. "I does the talkin' an' somebody else gits the thumpin'!
He, he, he! I always was devilish lucky. Them kicks was good solid
jolts, wasn't they, Lieutenant? Sounded like they was. He, he,
he!"
Beverley gave no heed to Oncle Jazon's exasperating pleasantry;
but Kenton, sorely chafing under the pressure of his bonds, could
not refrain from making retort in kind.
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