“Twenty lashes!” cried the general. “Ten from each of you!”
Jack braced himself to receive the first blow. It came a moment later with a terrible whishing sound. The lash wrapped itself around his bare shoulders and the pain of it was terrible.
But Jack made no outcry.
The second man delivered a hard blow, which also caught the lad about the bare shoulders, only from the other side. The lad staggered a trifle, but kept his feet with a visible effort.
A third and fourth blow came in rapid succession; and Jack staggered first to the right and then to the left. It was almost more than flesh and blood could stand.
The rawhides continued to fly with renewed vigor. Jack, who had at first kept track of the strokes, had lost all count now. He was doing his best to remain on his feet; and he kept his lips shut firmly to keep from uttering a cry of pain.
With the fifteenth blow Jack was all but unconscious, but he was still on his feet. At the seventeenth he reeled and all but fell. At the nineteenth he stumbled, and with eyes closed, fell face forward on the ground.
He did not feel the twentieth blow, for consciousness had left him.
The men who had plied the lashes, stepped back, tired out with their exertions. But they eyed Jack with a certain degree of respect.
During the terrible ordeal, not a sound had escaped his lips.