"You would have done her harm, if you could?"
"So, Baas."
With a low cry Byng ran forward, the sjambok swung through the air, and the terrible whip descended on the crouching half-caste.
Krool gave one cry and fell back a little, but he made no attempt to resist.
Suddenly Byng went to a window and threw it open.
"You can jump from there or take the sjambok. Which?" he said with a passion not that of a man wholly sane. "Which?"
Krool's wild, sullen, trembling look sought the window, but he had no heart for that enterprise—thirty feet to the pavement below.
"The sjambok, Baas," he said.
Once again Byng moved forward on him, and once again Krool's cry rang out, but not so loud. It was like that of an animal in torture.
In the next room, Wallstein and Stafford and the others heard it, and understood. Whispering together they listened, and Stafford shrank away to the far side of the room; but more than one face showed pleasure in the sound of the whip and the moaning.